IT all started with a Chinese student at the next table asking us to take a picture of him having a stein of lager.
He had a big white-teeth smile and was very happy to be sitting under the leafy trees, listening to the mini German orchestra in lederhosen.
We had found our way to the beergarden at the Chinesischer Turm (built in 1790) in Munich after a morning of sightseeing around Marienplatz and Viktualicmarkt before a walk along the Isar River, around Maximilianeum and into Englischer Garten (English Garden).
English Garden is bigger than New York's Central Park, right in the heart of the city.
The long, hot walk to the garden's popular drinking hub deserved some refreshment and I decided to have my first ever full stein of beer (well OK, technically it was a Radler, which is like a shandy) in celebration of the German grandmother I never knew.
We started making small talk with "Sam" (his English nickname), after taking his picture.
Then the woman at the other end of our table overheard us say we were from Australia and introduced herself and a 19-year-old Spanish boy from Madrid who was staying with her on holidays.
The former diplomat's wife, originally from El Salvador, has lived all around the world but loves Munich and has called the Bavarian capital home for several decades.
We asked "Sam" - a mountain enthusiast from Shanghai - to join us at our table. And that's how our "mini United Nations" discussions began.
Over the next two hours, we laughed, drank and muddled through a vibrant and varied conversation using our differing grasps of English.
Then as a group, we strolled a little further on to yet another English Garden favourite - Seehaus Biergarden, by a lovely lake with swans, geese and ducks among the paddle and row boats - where we whiled away a few more hours.
Once the others went their separate ways, a Munich woman and her partner, originally from East Berlin, sat down at our table.
We talked about anything and everything under the sun - from the Berlin Wall coming down and Munich life to Oktoberfest, Australia and our travels.
Yet another colourful conversation about Hamburg tourism and sport took place outside the toilets as we were about to leave with two Munich men who had been sitting behind us and overheard we were Australian - a rare breed among the hordes of bierhaus enthusiasts that day, it seems.
On the walk back to our hotel, we managed to get as far as the first beergarden again before we started feeling hungry.
While in line for the food, a Borussia Monchengladbach fan asked us for directions.
What ensued was a 10-minute chat during which I could hardly stop laughing ... he knew very little English except for swear words he used liberally to describe how he felt about the Bayern Munich football team that had been victorious the night before.
You can spend hours walking around landmarks, visiting museums, marvelling at the interiors of churches and taking scenic tours but you can learn more about the real Germany by sitting in a biergarten or bierhaus, talking to its people.
Lesson of the day: I have it on reliable authority that there's a steak in every big stein of German beer.
Fat nude men on city beach count: 1
Squirrel count: 11
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