So in early September, my friends Ruby and Jo reached out because they would both be in the Munich area the second weekend of October, and wanted to know if Rainstorm or I could join them. I knew that would be a tough time to travel as I was going to be finishing my first week of school that week, and would have to take the train to Munich after class. Still, both Rainstorm and I decided to go meet up with our friends, and we booked the train and hotel. Rainstorm took care of getting the suitcase up to the train station where we were meeting and leaving for Munich, and I worked my way to the station after school. The trip was long and we didn’t arrive until late, but we made it.

Unfortunately, Munich decided to rain ALL DAY on Saturday, which was our primary day to spend with Ruby and Jo. The plan was to meet by the rathaus (city hall). Rainstorm and I walked there from our hotel, then spent some time looking at various cool buildings. We saw the glockenspiel and visited the Frauenkirche while waiting for the other two to arrive. They got held up by the rain and traffic, as they were coming into town from the outskirts, and arrived later than expected. We all immediately found a place to get coffee and cake.

Remember that I had only been in school at this point for a week. While I’ve been studying German for over a year, I still struggled to pick out individual words in listening comprehension. However, some of the speaking practice that week meant that I was more confident just winging things. For instance, when we got to our hotel on Friday night, I immediately asked approached the counter and said (in German) that I had a reservation. After a few sentences, we switched to English, but still, I could say why I was there without feeling nervous. And in this cafe/restaurant, I had to ask a server for the code to the bathroom door. Yeah, that meant I asked “What are the numbers for the toilet?” but that worked. And when the server gave me the code, I understood her. It was one of the first times I’d understood someone outside of class. It showed me that I was making progress, even if it was just a little thing.

Rainstorm left us after awhile in the cafe, going off to meet with a family member that lives near Munich for lunch. Ruby, Jo, and I took advantage of a slight slowing down in the rain to walk a bit, meandering through the famous Viktualienmarkt and past the LGBTQ+ memorial on our way to Kennedys, an “Irish” bar and restaurant. We got fish-and-chips and Augustiner beer (which is from Munich), and Ruby and I had a bit of a (friendly) argument about whether Augustiner or Kölsch – from Cologne/Köln – is better. Rainstorm rejoined us near the end of our lunch. We all hung out for a long time just enjoying the atmosphere (and lack of rain).

Eventually, we left Kennedys and stopped in another cafe to buy Portuguese natas, which we all love. After that, we headed to the queer part of town. We stopped in at the Glitch Bookstore (the queer bookstore) and spend some time in there, letting another wave of rain pass us by. We tried to go to the nearby cat cafe we found, but unfortunately, there was a long wait time and it would have been well past dinner once we got in. So instead, we headed out to find Kässpatzn, known elsewhere in Germany as Käsespätzle, for dinner. While at dinner, we found a long letter someone had written 30 years ago tucked into a book that was sitting on the restaurant’s windowsill. It was on stationary from a hotel that no longer exists in the Caribbean, written in German, talking about the vacation the writer was on. No clue why the letter was left there, but after reading it and taking pictures, we tucked it back away for someone else to discover.

After dinner, we were all flagging a little, and Ruby and Jo had to make the drive back to where they were staying, so we headed out to get the u-bahn back to the main station where we would split up until the following morning.

This is where the tattoo comes in! On Friday morning, before I left for school, I saw a wannado tattoo posted on Instagram. The description was in German, so I checked where the artist was located. I knew her art from the GO fandom, but had no idea that she was a tattoo artist until that moment. Aaaaaand she was located in Munich. I was sorely tempted but knew there was no way I could do this last minute. At the same time, my brain was really itching for a post-divorce celebratory tattoo. I linked out to the post in a little whatsapp group that the four of us have, and we all screamed about how wonderful the tattoo was, and Ruby (also a GO artist, who knows Metz (this artist) better than any of us) reached out to Metz to ask about it. There was some talk – while I was at school and couldn’t respond – about all four of us getting spontaneous little flash tattoos from Metz. And somehow this ended with Metz agreeing that she could tattoo the wannado for me on Sunday morning, giving me a giant 30% friends-and-family discount. !!!

So the four of us met up at Metz’ tattoo shop. The weather was beautiful – no more rain, would have been a perfect tourism day, heh – but instead we spend that time in the shop. We looked through stickers and art prints to buy (as usual, I bought way too much, heh), I took some portrait photos of my friends (with the real camera), and ofc I got my tattoo. It turned out that I was the only one to get a tattoo, and it took several hours because it’s pretty big, and because the whole thing was so spontaneous, I hadn’t prepared my skin well. With my Sjögren’s syndrome, I have to exfoliate and moisturize my skin quite a lot before tattoos to make them take better. Metz did a phenomenal job despite my lack of preparation, but I was in a LOT of pain – to the point of almost passing out at one point. My friends all helped – Jo bought me coffee and snacks, Rainstorm stood by me and let me squeeze their hand, and Ruby massaged my neck to distract me. And I survived! Survived and now have an absolutely amazing 26th tattoo – a nod to Femme Aziraphale dressed up for Halloween. It’s just about healed now, and I love it! I can’t believe that this is something I actually got to do!! What a great intersection of fandom and friendship and my love of tattoos!

Whew! I think that’s it for my travel posts – at least until my next trip to Hamburg soon! That one is solo, to meet a friend in person for the first time. I’m quite excited to see another new part of Germany. But…more on that later!