Germany in 1966

 It was june of 1966 and I had just graduated from high school.  One of my classmates and I decided to travel through Europe together since we were heading  back to the States at the same time to attend college.

We made two stops in Germany.  The first stop of West Berlin and the second stop was Munich.  In West Berlin, we had to visit the US Embassy and request special permission to cross over into East Berlin.  Since we both had diplomatic passports, we could not cross at Checkpoint Charlie, we had to take the underground.  The Berlin Wall was still standing.

East Berlin for all intents and purposes was dead.  Dead of commerce.  Dead of People.  Dead of Vehicles.  There were absolutely NO COLORS at all in that city.  When we got off the underground, German soldiers with machine guns checked our passports and allowed us to enter.

We had informed the US Embassy that we would only be in East Berlin, 3-4 hours and if we had not checked back in with them in that amount of time, they would have sent someone to look for us.

That night we went to a bar in West Berlin trying to enjoy everything that East Berlin had not offered.

In Munich, we visited several places that were on the list for tourists to visit but to tell you the truth we had the most fun at the Hofbräuhaus München.

When we were there it, the house had 3 floors and the most roudy, boisturous floor was the first floor.  Long tables with chairs on either side, you just sat down and ordered beer that was brought in huge clay mugs.  At that time, the record was to drink more than 5 mugs in an hour.

I am pretty sure that the beer that was being served was Löwenbräu  and remember that it was the best tasting beer I had ever drank at that time.  The version that is exported to the US is not is good and has probably been watered down.

By the time you got to the top floor, you were in a relatively quiet family atmosphere, with families and their children were sitting around individual tables having dinner.  The second floor was a cross between the first and third and no doubt was meant for an older group of customers.

We visited all three floor but spent most of our time there on the first floor.   

There were nothing but good memories of Germany.