‘Wilkommemen!’ 

A rather good-looking German man cheekily placed a heart of biscuit and chocolate around my neck with gusto as I waited for my luggage to appear at Munich Airport.

Strange, huh.

But he was wearing lederhosen as well. I got to confess, I almost skipped to the guy when I saw him handing those out. I wanted this welcoming present and I wanted it now.

As he walked away with an aif wienerson, I turned round to see three of my friends giving me arched eyebrow looks.

Oh, crumbs.

I’m meant to be on a laddish stag do weekend. I should be burping noisily, farting horrid smells and laughing uproariously with 5000 litre beers in my hands and attempting to do childish dares that border lined on the impossible.

Skipping to a German guy in lederhosen to girlishly accept, with glee, a heart-shaped token is not that sort of behaviour.

 

 

But I had my excuse.

I’ve never been on a stag do abroad.

So at the old age of 29, I went on my first true laddish drinking holiday only to celebrate the impending nuptials of one of my best friends before he is shackled to the ball and chain (I jest).

So, here I was in Munich about to experience this stag do. I couldn’t wait.

So, taking a day off on the Friday, I woke up with the dawn chorus to take an early morning flight from London Heathrow to this Bavarian city with us 13 strong stag group ready to drink the city dry.

 

 

The Lufthansa flight went smoothly and soon we were on their dedicated airport bus shuttle service to be dropped off at Pullman Hotel, a gorgeous hotel with friendly staff, high quality rooms and best of all, a beach bar! Oh yes! There was sand to curl your toes in and everything!

 

 

It also helped that the weather was absolutely awesome, clear blue skies without a cloud in the sky. My skin positively hummed from the Rays of the sun at 30+ degree heat. Best get the suncream out.

 

 

The Rite of Passage

 

Stag dos vary in terms of debauchery. Many stag dos prefer to spend their time holed up in sleazy strip clubs hoping for that lap dance from a heavily made up plastic girl with big boobs that could be termed weapons of mass destruction.

As you can tell from my language, I disapprove all this and would rather avoid these places like the plague. I just have too much respect for women.

But the groom didn’t know all this. In fact, he didn’t know what would be happening at the weekend in Munich. He was unceremoniously kicked out of our discussions after we all agreed to come to Germany.

So, he’d be right to be suspicious when we told him to come with us to a suite in the hotel as soon we’d dropped our bags.

On the way up, we told him a special person would be waiting for him to make him happy.

Warning sirens buzzed his head as we all silently laughed at his reaction, him becoming more and more comfortable as he demanded answers on the lift up. In the end, we pushed him to the door and told him to open it. He resisted at first and kept telling us no. But in the end he did, completely petrified what laid behind this door.

Out jumped a figure from the shadows and the groom screamed only to give way to shocks of joy as the mysterious figure was revealed to be no other than his cousin from Dubai! Both of them cried tears of happiness at seeing each other again and grabbed one another, the groom telling his cousin off for lying to him that he couldn’t make the stag do.

After they both turned to us, a group of mischievous grins, Hiten’s relief was palatable as he started shouting at us for making him worried that a stripper would be there. He stormed off to find a beer.

This was going to be a brilliantly prankful weekend!

 

The Drinking Starts

 

So, the reason why we’ve littered the weekend with pranks is that it was our only chance to wreak havoc and revenge on all the pranks that he did to us!

So as soon as we sat down for our first German Weissbeer, he promptly had to take a generous helping of pepper before he could even take a sip. Also, he had to climb into a pond to take to the ducks.

 

 

Oh, how enjoyable it was!

But Friday would be the ‘quiet night in’ at the hotel as we had a range of activities to do the next day. Also, all of us were pretty tired to party hard seeing we were up at 3.30am that morning!

It was just as well. Here was the perfect opportunity for friends to get to know the family and vice versa. They were a pretty good bunch!

So the night passed away as we joked with each other, pranked each other, had heart to hearts with each other whilst drinking copious amounts of the good stuff. I could see the groom, grinning even more from ear to ear that he was touched to have his nearest and dearest with him in Munich.

 

 

Soon, we dropped off to our fantastic rooms one by one to have a good night’s sleep to be well rested for the weekend ahead.

 

Saturday Activities in Munich

 

Showered and changed into our delightful and matching stag do t-shirts, we ate heartily the breakfast at the hotel. I questioned and tasted the cold Bavarian Sausage, to my outspoken result that I daren’t repeat on here but had my friends roaring with laughter.

So why were we up so early?

We had clay pigeon shooting, of course. It was a way to show off to each other and be competitive to see who can get the best shots.

Carrying my shot-gun in the crook of my arm was probably overcompensating my manliness but I didn’t care, I looked good. Heck, what about even on my shoulder?

 

 

So how many targets did I manage to catch as the clay pigeons pelted across the field? 8 out of 25. Not bad for a starter like me? Although, the instructor surmised that I must have done this before as I correctly placed the gun shaft against my chest and never even got a bruise from the throwbacks.

To be honest, everyone was pretty thrilled about clay pigeon shooting that we promptly forget the competition and instead laughed when I couldn’t get the empty gun pellets out of the shotgun. I wouldn’t make a good American Republican, would I? 😉

Later on, we were escorted by our stag do leader to the Olympiapark, north of the city, to partake in Hiten’s many favourite sports. But first of all, we simply had to walk through the BMX’s Welt and Museum to check out their sleek new cars.

After, our stomachs rumbling, we were soon scoffing our belly’s worth before we partake in vigorous training activity. Healthy, right? I’m sure the bratwurst covered with mustard and tomato sauce is key for winning the Olympics, like many people did here in 1972?

 

 

But as most of us played in the indoor SoccArena, a place where sweating buckets was a requirement (thanks to the lack of air conditioning inside) and the permanent smell of athlete’s foot, I decided to hike the Olympiaberg, the tallest hill in the park, to sightsee the city and the country around me.

 

 

As it was a scorching day, high in the thirties degree weather, you can understand that these three people in matching blue stag t-shirts, found in very hard going to follow the trail without crying out for water. But we were soon embarrassed thanks to a massive cycling event going on that saw cyclists around Europe competing in this activity in lycra, also in sweltering heat.

 

 

Finally, we arrived on top and was pretty overawed by the scenery. I didn’t realise that the Olympiaberg was this high!

 

Saturday Evening in Munich

 

After a quick shower and change at the Pullman Hotel, we truly felt we deserved some wassbeer (white beer). Taking taxis into the city, we headed to the Augustiner Keller Beer Garden. Popular, this is not the official tourist beer garden as we wanted authenticity.

 

 

Playing drinking games that tested our hand to eye co-ordination whilst drink litre full beers soon became raucous and we were demanding more and more beer to go with our German inspired food including Spezi.

 

 

It’s a far grand old place with trees offering shelter from the sun, or in this case, the many splatters of rain that soon thunder stormed above us after a muggy and hot day.

 

 

But as we ran inside the old-fashioned beer hall, our excitement turned tenfold as we could see the interior within. Parking our bums on the benches, we could join other people in watching the footy on the extra big screen while we clinked various litre glasses of beer with other people. It was a very glorious affair.

 

 

Soon, it was time to leave.

We headed into the city centre further as the sky darkened and I stumbled across the same hotel where I stayed at, those four years ago, when I went to see Take That here.

See More: Take That in Munich!

Stopping off at various themed bars, one of which was a delightful 70s themed one that had us boogieing and the other bar a rock n roll bar. (Munich seems to love musical legends).

 

 

But soon, the day’s activities saw us yawning one by one, and we returned back to the hotel to accidentally help ourselves to donuts and coffee laid on for the special forces as the G8 summit was in town…oops!

 

Sunday in Munich

 

Sunday was a free day for us, really. We could do anything we wanted. As some of my friends were pretty keen to sightsee Munich before we had to catch our flight at 7pm, I was more than happy to be their tour guide, seeing as I came here four years ago.

See More:

Heading to Munchen

Catching up with Robbie Williams at Dinner Time

Sightseeing Munich

Getting to grips with Art and Culture in Munich

Haunting Pictures of Dachau Memorial

 

Check out where I took them starting from Marienplatz to Englisch Beer Garten!

 

 

By then, it was time to go home and catch my flight back from Munchen Airport to London Heathrow.

So, what did I think of my first international stag do?

Well, to be honest, I wish I had more time! I really enjoyed seeing Munich from a ‘drinking’ perspective and it was good training for their ‘Ocktoberfest,’ a festival I am hoping to attend within the next few years.

So, anyone care to join me?

But let me just find this guy in lederhosen first. I want my chocolate heart again. This time I’m going to stride up to him like a macho man and utter the famous phrase that will signify my planned return:

‘I’ll be back.’