Ah where to begin... I think I will start with the hotel being on fire. We stood outside our hotel watching the smoke flow out the windows as the firemen swarmed out of the seven fire engines. We had spent the say shopping. It was shopping out of necessity. Patrick arrived with his mother Rande and partner Danny on Saturday night. Their flight from Spain was late by two hours, they were quite worried they were going to miss their connecting flight to Munich, but as luck would have it, that fight was late as well. So the three of them arrived two hours late unfortunately their luggage did not arrive with them. They were dressed in clothes appropriate for the warm weather of Spain, Munich however was down right cold. Patrick was dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of shorts that had a broken zipper. So poor Patrick looked silly as well as feeling a bit of a draft.

In Germany there are no shops open on Sundays, it’s against the law. So when we woke up on Sunday I we didn’t even bother to try to buy the things they most wanted; socks and underwear. Luckily I had packed four jackets... I hate being cold. When I arrived I meet up with Patrick's friend Alex who happens to be just a bit larger than Patrick. Our first priority on Sunday was to borrow a pair of pants from Alex for Patrick. After that was accomplished, it was off to Oktoberfest for lots of beer with a ton of Australians. When we woke up hung over the next day and the luggage still hadn’t arrived and we were told by AIRBerlin it would arrive early afternoon, but they hadn’t come through on any of their promises so far so we decided to hit the shops. Purchases of socks and underwear along with a T-shirt or two were made. Danny’s face was bright with excitement over the underwear in his bag. “I’ve got pants” he said proudly like little British boy. Of course I had arrive separate with my bags so I bought Lederhosen. We went back to the hotel and as we rounded the corner to the sound of sirens, and fire trucks heading towards our hotel.

“Why, it looks like their are heading quite close to our hotel,” Patrick said. “I think it is our hotel,” replied Danny. The smoke billowed out of a basement window, it smelled like burnt plastic... It had to be electrical. Our room was on the first floor and smoke was also pouring out of a window on the third floor.
“Do you think our bags have arrived?” Danny asked almost laughing.
“Oh, yes, our bags have arrived,” Patrick started but Danny finished his thought “unfortunately they’ve burned.”

I watched the smoke billow out and thought about the pictures that would be lost if my computer burned. My passport, shit. All my clothes would be gone but and I envisioned myself spending the next few days wearing my new Lederhosen.

As it turns out the bags had not arrived. Also our hotel room was not damaged, just full of smoke. The fire had been contained to the basement and had only consumed the laundry machines. As we aired out out room and got ready for the night at Oktoberfest, I put on my Lederhosen and within ten minutes they had a rip in the ass, butt (heh heh) that’s a whole different story.