Munich, Germany

Munich, Germany

Day 1. The following post dates for Wednesday July 4th, American Independence Day. Woot.

Last night/morning was awful. We left our window open and these flies got into our room. They kept flying by Bryan and my ears and landing on us like every 10 seconds. We kept twitching and convulsing to try to get them off of us. It was ridiculous, I was getting PISSED. I tried waking up a couple times to kill them, but I was never coherent/fast enough to kill them. I didn’t sleep too well.
Plus I was kinda itchy. Don’t know why.

We woke up and had breakfast downstairs. They actually had eggs and bacon. They also have the same rolls that everyone else has, I think they are called Keiser rolls. Hard on the outside, soft on the in. Cereal, yogurt, all good. But there were more flies. As;ljkfhga;lgjhw;orhg

We checked out, paid, and walked to the bus stop. As we were sitting there, Clair puts her right hand across her left side of her chest and starts reciting the pledge of allegiance. NICE. Independence Day in Germany. We all joined it. It was awesome. Then we had time to kill, so we started playing Uno and the bus stop. Rebecca and I won twice, Bryan once, Clair goose egg. It’s ok, 4th ain’t bad. At some point this lady cam and stood behind us and watched us. It was kinda weird She would laugh and stuff when we did and mumble in German. Random. But then she walked over to her husband and I heard her say the words ‘Uno.’ Apparently it’s an international game.Did nto know that.

The bus eventually came and we went to the station. Our next destination: Munich. We didn’t know what ticket to buy, so this nice guy working there helped us out. He spoke English because apparently he backpacked through the states. I didn’t know there was that much to see in the states. We bought a 5 person pass, cheaper, and walked to our platform. While we were there, we watched these people make out instead of doing their jobs, People like to make out here in public, a lot.

We got onto the wrong train and got kicked out. Then we got on the right one. The train ride was about an hour and 45 minutes to Munich. There were some more noisy Germans, but not to the extent of going to Forli. I bogged some on the train and tok pictures of people sleeping. When we got to Munich we walked to our hostel which was really close by. Good planning by Rebecca and Clair. We got our keys and paid. Up to the 5th floor. Bryan and I walked into our room and it looked like It had just been ransacked. Apparently, someone had just checked out and they hadn’t cleaned it. Clair and Rebecca couldn’t even get into theirs. I think someone dead-bolted it from the inside, if that’s even possible. So we dropped our stuff in my room, and left for them to deal with everything. We walked toward the Marienplatz, or marketplace, which is a very busy area. We found this place called the Augustiner Brau Mundhen or something. A famous brewhouse, which we will find out later.
We were seated and started ordering. For drink, tap wasser. Bryan, called his mom and found out how to say tap water in German. It turned out to be tremendously helpful. Leitungswasser
Nice Bryan. Saved us 4 Euro each. No one in Germany drinks tap water either, which is annoying. I got this pasta dish that was kinda good, Bryan got sausage, Clair got gulash (chili type soup) and Rebecca got a sausage salad. This was literally a plate full of sausage. I could see the pain on her face as she was eating it. It tasted like Vienna sausage which I guess is ok in moderation This was not moderation. She was literally distressed. We couldn’t finish it all. Ok so pretzels. This place has pretzels too, but there is a basket on every table. We thought that they would possibly charge us for them, but we each had one anyways. Then the waiter came back and asked us if we wanted more. Before we answered he just took a basket from the table over and put it on ours and smiled. So we figured on the house. Wrong. .90 Euro each. Swindlers. I actually got partially full. We paid and left.

We walked around the marienplatz some more and checked out a few cathedrals. We saw St. Michaels cathedral. We also checked out the local shops. A lot of them sell cuckoo clocks and beirsteins, beer mugs. It’ what Germany is famous for. Some of the beirsteins are outrageously over priced and some are ok. We saw Das Boot from Beerfest, but we couldn’t find one the right size. I thought about buying one, but didn’t want to deal with bringing it back. We also saw the biggest Beirstein in the world. It was huge. I thought to myself, wherever Travis is right now, his head is probably exploding.

So we kept walking and we got to a courtyard in front of some sort of palace or maybe it was parliament. Every hour, there is a show put on by the enormous clock with people dancing and music. It turned out to be a major let down. There as no music and it was entirely anticlimactic. BORING. We left. Then we walked to Church Frauenkirche, another cathedral with huge twin spires. The inside was similar to the church in Ulm. Much had been destroyed and rebuilt. We decided not to climb the spires, good choice.

We continued walking and saw the opera house. We also walked into a museum which turned out to be a random experience. I think they were closing and there was no one in there, not even security really. We just walked through for 5 minute and left. It showed Germany’s part in the war, which was kidna funny. Basically it showed that they were involved in the war, but didn’t say what. Then they were bombed by the allies and rebuilt. Kinda missing a lot there.

We went to the hauf garten (gardens) and wandered for a bit. Found a monument to the unnamed soldier. There weren’t many tourists around here either. Then we walked to the Haurbrauhaus, which is probably Munich’s most famous attraction. It’s a huge beer garden. People from all over come here for the food, live music, and most of all beer. So we went here around 6:15 pm and decided we weren’t hungry, so we left with the intention of coming back.

We walked in a big loop to kill time. We got some gelato and then went to the Hard Rock café to use their bathrooms/watch their tv. Wimbledon was on and we watched Serena lose to Henin in the quarterfinals. Hopefully the other Williams sister will do better. So 7:30 rolls around and we’ve killed an hour, time for food and beer.

The place had gotten a lot busier than when we first went, which was understandable. So we made a loop around the place and couldn’t find an empty table. So we stalked people we thought were going to leave and got one finally. It was in the main room with the music and everything. We sat next to these German guys who apparently had been there for 4 hours before we had sat down. They basically just chill there and talk to whoever comes and sits next to them so they can practice their English, and get drunk. They were a lot of fun and I think one of them was hitting on Clair. There was also this old German guy with the hat an everything sitting there. He had been in there since before them, so the German’s claim. The guy had his own bierstein and walked up to refill it himself whenever it was empty. Nice.

Our waitress was an interesting experience. She was this older red headed lady with glasses who looked extremely bitter. It went downhill from the moment we ordered our drinks. Bryan got a traditional beer and Clair and I got a beer called the Radler, which is beer mized with lemonade. Really good actually. I figured when am I going to be in Germany again? Rebecca wanted tap water. When Bryan ordered it, our waitress was shocked. Tap water? She stood there for a while and then said in her broken English, “Germany does not like tap water.” And walked off. Oops. It takes her nearly forever to bring our drinks. It’s also near impossible to get her attention. I mena she’s really busy. She’s running around carrying like 12 beers at once, and other people are yelling at her trying to get her attention too. Eventually she brings them. They are 1 liter each. That’s a lot of beer. Bryan downs his right away, I take my time. We put in our orders and she left. I got a pork steak, which turned out to be really delicious. I regret not getting the pork knuckle, which apparently they are famous for.

So we had a great time eating, talking with the Germans, and drinking. Bryan had a second beer, then a third. That s a lot of beer. SO towards the end of our meal, this couple asks if they could squeeze in next to us. They looked nice enough so we said sure. Turns out this was a great decision, they were awesome people. So Mark and Natalie Weatherman. Natalie is originally from Wisconsin and now lives in Minnesota with her husband Mark. She is a German/Spanish teacher at a middle school and was bringing a group of high school students on a summer trip to Germany. She is fluent in German and it’s fun to watch her speak to the locals including our waitress. Mark works at a company that I forget the name of or what the do, but he came to join his wife in Germany after her program had ended. She comes over to Germany all the time but Mark doesn’t, so they decided to come to a more touristy area with Americans on the fourth of July. They were hilarious and we had so much fun talking. We told them all about our travels and they about theirs. Some highlights of that night. Bryan had 4 beers total, so 4 liters. Ridiculous. Germans left the table after like 5 hours, we don’t think they paid. These Korean kids tried to get the waitress’s attention, so they raised their hands. They apparently had a question.

Pissing off our waitress and the ridiculously slooooooow service. Mark extending his arm outwards while telling a story and clocking this Asian waitress in the face/shoulder. Hilarious. Mark pressuring us to get another liter of beer. Numerous trips to the urinal. Bryan slurred speech. Walking back to the hotel with Mark and Natalie. Not walking in a straight line (Mark). Skipping and feet shuffling (Bryan).

Eventually we made it back to the hotel and we all chilled in Rebecca and Clair’s room for a while. We watched the Office, Beach Day episode on my laptop. Then Bryan and I left. I took a shower while he passed out.

OK so the shower, FLOODS. Sick. It doesn’t drain and all the water comes out so fast. What I had to do was lather up, then rinse off. It was terrible. Bryan will have fun in the morning. I tried to tell him, but I don’t think he heard me.

Ok I am tired now from the day’s festivities. NIGHT

-James