I’m not a tourist—I live here
A short time ago, while strolling along a quiet side street just off one of Munich’s major tourists routes near Marienplatz, a middle-aged German couple targeted me as their local guide and asked the way to the second largest tourist draw, the Hofbräuhaus. I was able to direct them because I had, during my first weeks in Munich, been dragged to this popular tourist venue after being told, “You have to go. It’s such a touristy thing to do.” I pointed them in the right direction and explained the route in my best German, all the while watching their reaction as they realized they had mistakenly chosen a “non-native.” Then I wished them a friendly viel Spass and continued on my way with a big grin. To be taken, initially at least, for a local, which in the few years since being transplanted here I have truly become, is for me a compliment.
Scores of visitors will be drawn to Bavaria this year. While many of them will be here only for the beer others will have come to discover and appreciate Munich and the Alps, some of them perhaps aware that 2002 has been designated as the International Year of the Mountains and Ecotourism by the United Nations. Whatever visitors’ motivation, however, there are two sides to the tourist coin. One is the welcome flow of euros into public and private pockets—approximately five to six million people will boost the local economy by over 700 million euros in just 16 short days with a whopping 230 million euros spent at the Oktoberfest alone—the other is the environmental pollution created by the annual invasion of the merrymaking hordes, which has taken on truly astounding proportions. According to an article from May 12 this year in the British newspaper The Observer, for every plane passenger crossing the Atlantic one ton of carbon dioxide is generated and that is just fuel pollution!
Environmental awareness is hardly a novel concept and some initiatives have been set up in Munich to diminish the impact of the Oktoberfest, at least at a local level, by saving water and energy. A practical idea conceived in 1998 sends the wastewater from the beer mug cleaning machines in some tents at the festival to make one last round in flushing the toilets before draining to the sewers. This has reduced water consumption by 12.5 million liters (but doesn’t mean that you can drink water from the john when your money runs out). Nonetheless damage to the environment is and will remain one of the dilemmas of being a tourist. And it was as a tourist, after all, that I and many of my expat friends began here in Munich.
This tourist predicament is often on my mind, especially in the month of September. Yet, when I stop at Marienplatz, the city’s hub on my way home from work, and look around at the stunning architecture—which is a prime attraction for me—or walk across the Viktualienmarkt, and listen, entranced, to the chiming bells of the surrounding churches, I frequently catch myself thinking “Wow, I actually live here” and never mind that I began as a tourist.
I welcome everyone to Munich, new residents and short-time visitors alike, and encourage them to take the time to admire this wonderful city and the surrounding countryside. If you are part of the minority not interested in the daily intake of beer at the end of this month, take advantage now of non-beer-related attractions because the rest will be “you know where.” On the other hand, if you can’t escape them—it’s just 16 days—join them. Prost!
