Spring Break, Part 1, Germany

So, It's about that time again. Time to tell you all about everything I have done for the last week. I was really nervous about everything working out, but as it turns out, everything went surprisingly well. I did plan it that way, but I was shocked really. We'll start around 9 pm last Thursday, February 26th. Our bags were packed and ready to go. We had wanted to sleep but never got around to it. We walked out the door to get on the Tube. We got to the bus stop really early and finally got on the bus to go. It was just us and one other guy, and we tried to sleep a little. We got to the airport as scheduled, but as scheduled happened to be the night before our flight was scheduled to leave. So we found a comfy bench at Burger King, and I slept a while, while Alan watched the bags. Around Midnight or 1 am, a man came by and told us we had to move cuz they were closing that section of benches. So we moved to a table inside. Inside burger king there was a TV playing World News Tonight, and I was never so excited in my life to hear an American voice! Unfortunately, that voice stopped me from sleeping any more...so I bought a cheeseburger. At 1 in the morning. At an airport. In England. Win.

After that we gave up sleeping in burger king and went to find out terminal. On the way we found a nice billboard-y thing that showed like departures and stuff and I slept under there for a while. When I woke up, Alan slept for a while. Then we went and checked in and went through security with no problems, except Alan's belt which continually gave us problems. Through securty, we waited in the departures area for which gate our plane was leaving from and Alan slept on a more comfortable bench (it had padding!!) until the sun came up. We finally found out which gate was ours and headed out. We got on the plane and were off to Munich.

We arrived in Munich and made it through passport control ok (which by the way, is the scariest thing ever any time we enter a country!). We left the arrivals area and found an information booth. There, I got to speak my first German since high school...to a German Person. :-D I was really excited! Anyway, she told us how to get from where we were to where we were going by S-Bahn (like a metro or tube or subway). We got off the S-Bahn and found our way to the hostel, where we checked in and found our room. The room was large and full of 20 beds, but they were clean and the people were nice. The bathrooms were also clean, and after locking up our stuff we left to go exploring.

The day was a bit chilly and foggy, but the city was great. We stopped and got Bratwrust and Mezzo Mix which is a Coke brand soda that is like Orange soda mixed with Coke. So good! Then we walked around a bit and went exploring. We saw the Rathaus and the Viiktualienmarkt (spell check anyone?). The city is not eye catching in the way that Paris or parts of London are. It is all very modern, considering that it was bombed to the ground during WWII. But it has charm and appeal and I absolutely fell in love with it. If I ever move to Europe, you will find me in that city.

We walked down around some monuments and listened in on a tour for a minute. I liked what the tour guide was talking about which was lucky because we had him as a tour guide the very next day! We made our way to the Englischgarten, trying to find a chines tower thing (which is actually a bier garten) on the map. It turned out that because of the snow and rain, the whole park was slushy and wet, so we didn't end up finding it. But it was beautiful and on the way there we got our first Barvarian Pastries and Pretzels. Delicious.

As it was starting to rain, we headed back to the Hostel. There we asked for a suggestion on a good place to eat, and found our way to the Augustiner Braeu Haus. They brew their own bier there, but we only got water (which I rather regret now). Their food was good though, and the place had charm. We had English menus and an English speaking waitress, which was nice, though some things still got confused. Like tip. Apparently, they don't do that. Oh well.

After that we went to sleep, since sleeping in an airport isn't the most restful place, and we were tired. The following morning we woke up to go on a free walking tour. We picked up the tour in our Hostel and walked down to Marienplatz, the town center where the Rathaus is. There we met our tour guide, Matt, who I had seen the day before. He was really nice, really funny, and really knowledgeable about the city. He was from California and had been living there for 2 years, so he spoke fluent English and German. The tour was a great 3 hour non-stop exploration of the city, from memorials to monuments, churches and markets. It was glorious and I loved the city even more. The weather was beautiful and over all it was really great.

During our tour we stopped at the Viktualienmarkt, which was much busier on Saturday than on Friday. There, we bought a pastry called a Splitterbomb. Think softball sized, marshmallow filled cream puff coated in chocolate entirely. A-mazing. Nonetheless, after the tour we were hungry, and proceeded to buy food from a stand we had seen other guides getting food from before the tour. It was called Rischart, and kind of like a pastry, ice cream, German pizza, pretzel take away store. We both got Hawaiian pizza like thing-ys and they were delicious. We had walked up onto this raised platform overlooking viktualienmarkt to eat and on the way down passed a gift shop kind of thing that had the cheapest prices we had yet seen. Alan got a super cool mug, ya know the ones with the metal tops. Its neat.

Then we went to find some Saft (juice). We found some. Fresh pressed, by which I mean we watched them do it, strawberry-orange-pineapple. With our Saft in hand, we had a bit of time and decided we would pay € 1 each to climb to the top of St. Peter's church steeple, called Alter Peter by locals (meaning Old Peter since a church has stood on that spot since something like the 1100s). (BTW- munich is the most catholic city in Germany and is in fact the only city in Europe allowed to fly the Vatican flag on religious holidays other than the Vatican). So yeah, climbing to the top was interesting because they only have one staircase that is only wide enough for one person, and people have to go up and down, and so many people were there (because the weather was so beautiful) that you could barely move once you got to the top. But, looking out, you could see the peaks of the Alps, and it was gorgeous. Really Really beautiful.

Like I said, the city itself isn't much to look at. Its very flat, very modern, and very nice. But there are some eye catching structures you can see from atop, such as the Rathaus, built to look really old. The Olympic stadium, where the Olympics were held in the 1970s I think. The Frauenkirche, one of the only buildings to survive WWII, simply because the allied planes needed its steeples to know where they were! And of course the landscape, which is absolutely amazing.

Anyways, we made it up, around, and down, and headed back to the Hostel to drop off stuff. We got more pretzels and went back to Marienplatz to pick up another tour. This was pretty cool cuz it was a Bier and Brewery tour. We learned about the ancient bier making stuff and toured a micro brewery where the bier never leaves the building. Its made there and served there and no where else. We got free samples and it was ok, but the food was really amazing. The Schneider Weisse bier was better though. It was wheat bier and decent, especially for someone who doesn't like bier. Then we went to the Hoefbraeuhaus, which was originally the royal brewery of the city. We went in, but didn't drink anything and left pretty quickly. It was fun to go inside though!

The next morning we woke up to go on a tour of Dachau, the original concentration camp of the Third Reich. It's now a memorial to all the people that died or were forced to live there. The history was amazing, and our tour guide was Matt again! When we got back, it was too early for dinner, and we wanted to explore the city some more, so we took a trip up to see the Olympic stadium and BMW World. That night we went to eat at the Schneiderweisse. We got Radler, which is half beer, half lemonade and very delicious. This was a fantastic night because I made it 90% of the way through dinner only speaking in German to the waitress. I was so disappointed when I didn't understand what she said once and so she spoke in English the rest of the time, and I so could have done it too. :-(

The next day we took a trip to Neuschwanstein, the castle. There, we saw the Alps and Austria, and the castle where I snuck some illegal pictures. The tour guide was not Matt, and very not as good. The trip was really good though, and when we came home we ate at the Ratskeller. It was underneath the Rathaus and our waiter had the most perfect monopoly man mustache! He was funny! It was great. On our way back to the Hostel, Matt was there (the tour guide) and we overheard him saying he was getting up really early, and we made the comment that so were we! It turned out that he was going to the airport too, and we got cheap tickets with him for the next morning! It was all very serendipitous!

So we made it to the airport, with time to spare, got our last German pastries, and the biggest and most delicious millka bar I have ever eaten. We got on the plane, and the captain came on and told us that our flight had been delayed. We sat on the airplane for like 2 hours playing clapping games and other things to pass the time. When we finally got to London, we had missed our bus back to the tube station and had to wait for another one. We finally got home and we were exhausted and Alan didn't feel well. So I made pizza for dinner while he slept, made sure everything was packed up, and headed out at 3 am for our next bus to the airport.