Meeting bloggers and drinking beer

It has been a full week since I spent an evening in the big city to meet other bloggers. Frau Kaltmamsell asked us because a blogger from Berlin came visiting, and wanted to skip a business dinner in order to meet Munich bloggers. I, of course, was the first one to say yes because, well, meeting bloggers, for beer, and my mother-in-law was free to babysit. (In case you’re wondering why I’m mentioning beer that often Frau Kaltmamsell’s post announcing the meeting had been titled “Bloggerbierchen in München am Donnerstag” which means “blogger beer (um, a small one) in Munich on Thursday”.)

As usual with these things I was very nervous beforehand, and also couldn’t stop thinking about what to wear. As usual I wore the same thing I always wear, in this case the new turtleneck I had made (sorry, still no pictures), jeans, and boots. And lipstick. And perfume. Also, as usual I left home way too early because every time I ask my mother-in-law to look after my son for something in the evening I feel weird staying at home after she fetched him from kindergarten at 4 p.m. It is as if everybody is just waiting for me to leave.

I had vague plans to sit in a café and write a bit but ended up wandering the streets until I was only half an hour too early for the meeting. The cafè/bar/bistro where we were supposed to meet is located in a part of town where I only have been once before (for a job interview 18 years ago; I didn’t get the job and was glad about it). I left the subway station and immediately was confused about where to go. Interestingly the house numbers weren’t progressing in any logical way. So I went first in one direction only to end up in a place that didn’t look like there would be a café, and when I turned back to look elsewhere there was Frau Kaltmamsell walking in the direction I had just abandoned. I wasn’t entirely sure if it really was her (what if I had approached a total stranger asking “Are you Frau Kaltmamsell?”) so I chickened out and let her pass me, only to follow her. Because that’s entirely not weird, letting strangers pass, and then follow them, ahem. At the next corner she came to the same conclusion I had reached before her, that this was the wrong direction, and turned around. I think you would be proud of me because at this point I approached her saying; “I’m Susanne.” I’m still happy that it really was her. So both of us looked for the café and found it in the direction I would have looked first if I hadn’t been so concerned with street numbers.

(If you wonder why I knew her but she didn’t know me, I happened to attend two blog readings where she read something. Usually it’s easier for someone in the audience to recognize a speaker on the podium than the other way around.)

The bistro/café thing was medium nice, we only chose it because it was near the hotel were the bloggers from Berlin stayed. There were seven of us: Frau Kaltmamsell, Creezy and Wolf from Berlin, Sabine, Nicole, and Volker (sadly without public blog as far as I can see). We talked and talked and talked until Nicole reminded us that some people have to get up in the morning (well, me too but then I’m used to sleep deprivation by now).

We talked about the difference between German and English-speaking blogs (Germans comment less and think they are very clever, English-speaking bloggers comment more, mostly “Awesome!”), between Munich and Berlin bloggers (there is no blogger community in Munich), language (why you shouldn’t say “Pölter” when speaking to a Bavarian (Pölter is Westphalian and means nightgown), wine (there is Chinese wine, apparently, and it’s good, only I didn’t catch its name because at that moment my beer arrived and there was no more wine talk (I was the only one drinking beer, by the way)). It was a very nice evening, all in all. I might have talked a little too much but then I always do, there seems to be no way around it. (As you might already have noticed.)