It´s been a whirlwind of experiences for the last two weeks, and I realize I´ve gotten pretty far behind on keeping you all up to date with our travels. I´m going to write on the last two stops in our journey in one sitting (two separate posts) to get everyone up to speed! A quick side note: Thanks for all the positive feedback, support, and for pushing me to keep this blog going! It has been an awesome way to keep you all informed and I hope you´re enjoing it as much as I am.
We got into Munich from Santorini at around 3:10PM. Immediately upon exiting the plane, we were hit with a wave of temperate weather that motivated both of us to quickly change from tanktops to sweatshirts (we were both pretty taken aback by the drastic difference in weather, having only travelled about 1500km northwest. It was a fairly cloudy day, and after having travelled from Greece, we were both a little disconcerted. After a mini-heart attack related to the airlines potentially having lost our luggage, we hopped on the Metro towards Hauptbanhof - Munchen, the central train station.
A trend we noticed immedately, one that held true during our entire time in Bavaria, was that the people truly prided themselves on their engineering prowess. The trains, the buildings, the cars - hell, even the vending machines were clean, new, and very high-tech. Hauptbanhof was an awesome structure, with plenty of different stores, vendors, and some of the coolest looking trains we had seen this far. With phone directions in hand, we tried to follow the directions to the hostel. After two kilometers, the realization that we were walking in the complete opposite direction dawned on us, so we backtracked and ultimately found the hostel (I think im beginning to see a strend forming, are you?). Our Hostel, Smart Stay Munich, was easily one of the nicest places we had stayed in yet. It was more like a big hotel, with free wifi (although it was spotty) and five floors that were almost all fully booked. We had an eight bed mixed dorm with a handful of people from around the world including two dutch teens, a dude from cali, and two german girls stopping on their way to Budapest. After a much-needed power nap, Steve and I set out to experience one of Munich´s most popular offerings, their legendary beergardens. Augistiner Keller was our destination for the evening, and our route took us right past the fairgrounds where Octoberfest is held (absolutely massive - ill have to head back some time for the festival). Augistiner Keller was the embodiment of everything youd expect a beergarden to be; massive communal wooden benches filled the multiple halls, with waiters and beermaids running back and forth in traditional garb carrying massive 1 liter (yep, I typed that right) steins of beer to their happy patrons. Huge keg crossections were hung up on the walls next to busts of various animals and the Augistiner Keller crest. We were seated next to a family of the most german looking folks Steve and I had ever seen. Fortunately for us their son spoke fluent english, having traveled to the States multiple times a year for work. They began telling us about Munich, the history of the city, and places we had to visit during our time there. Steve was seated next to the patriarch of the family, who spoke enough english to have a conversation, whereas I was seated next to the mother who, though she was incredibly sweet and patient, spoke absolutely no english and was quite difficult to communicate with. After a handful of beers, conversation flowed easy enough... we probably wouldnt have understood them if they were speaking english. An interesting tidbit of info we derived from that night was the bavarian method of toasting, which was related to the glass thickness. Evidently, if you have a very thin glass, like something a Weissbier might come in, it is considered incredibly inappropriate to toast with the top of the glass. This is because the top can shatter as you clink glasses, and evidently this results in drunk friends slicing each others faces off. Yikes. We left with the family later that evening and their son, a family friend, Steve and myself headed for a local club/bar. Their son bought us a handful of beers and gave us some additional knowledge in the city before we all headed home.
The next day we set out with a list of fantastic information given to us by locals. We took the metro to Marienplatz, a plaza in the city´s center. We got a little lost, but ended up stunbling upon the old town hall: a massive gothic style building with a giant clocktower (pictured below). Following that, we headed to Alter Peter, a large clocktower with a stunning view. Climbing the narrow, winding wooden staircases to the top was a claustrophobic, tiring, and exilirating experience all at once. Needless to say, your average american likely wouldnt have made it up the staircase due to size restrictions alone. When we reached the top, all of Munich spread out before us in every direction. The city itself is gorgeous, blending beautiful architecture, old and new, with patches of green trees everywhere. To the north we could see our next destination, the Englischer Gardens, the largest urban park in the world (even bigger than central park). A quick descent later, we found ourselves grabbing a quick beer at the Weisses Brauhaus before heading to the garden.
Englischer Gardens were absolutely gorgeous. With the beautiful weather it seemed as if the entire city of Munich was out. We wandered past people speaking plenty of different languages, past packs of kids playing american football, past students with their books open on the grass, and past couples sharing a picnic in the sunshine. Though it was all beautiful, we had a specific destination in mind - Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower). Chinese tower is a massive beergarden in the heart of the gardens, with seating for somewhere between 4000 and 8000 happy people. We spent the afternoon drinking and eating to our hearts content, with 1 liter steins of Weissbier and heaping servings of Sauerkraut, Bratwurst, Schnitzel, Potatoes, and just about anything else german you could think of. After nearly two hours of revelry, we wandered into a massive clearing in the park, laid down on the grass, and slept in the sunshine for an hour and a half. We woke up feeling .. sluggish, to say the least, and headed over to Hoffbrauhaus, another biergarten. It was there that we met up three of my good friends from MSU: Sebastian (a local from a town just near Munchen), Jacob Kowalski, and Katie. Reminiscent of the afternoon, we spent the next few hours eating, drinking, laughing, singing, and making new friends. That evening saw us passed out on our respective bunks snoring and likely drooling.
We got up the next day and hoofed it to Hauptbanhoff to catch a suburban train. When we hit the end of the line, Steve and I once again met up with Jacob, Katie and Sebastian. We all piled into Seabass´ car and hopped onto the Autobahn. A 40 minute or so ride put us in the area where Sebastian grew up. It is a collection of four towns: Gmund, Bad Wiessee, Rottach-Egern, and Tegernsee, all of which border a lake on the Northern, Western, Southern and Eastern coasts, respectively. The lake itself was beautiful, with pristine waters populated by nothing but small sailboats and nesteled in a valley between the foothills of the alps. We toured all four towns before stopping at Sebastian´s old high school. It turns out that his school, years ago, was a monestary, a place at which the practice of brewing beer was common. So, after seeing his school, we walked around back and had ourselves an awesome feast at the beergarden. Yes, they brewed and served beer at his high school. Come on Walled Lake, get it together. After eating, we made a pit stop and said hello to Seabass´ grandma, who worked at a local souvenir shop, prior to heading south to one of the foothills. We took a 10 minute gondola ride to the top of the foothill and had ourselves a hacker-pschorr while overlooking the beginning of the alps to the south - truly an incredible thing to see. To the north we were able to snag photos of the entire lake and all four towns laid out, with Munich just barely visible in the distance. My stomach began to hurt. We walked along the ridge of the foothill towards a small chapel and us boys spent nearly 20 minutes going primal and tossing stones of varying size off of a cliff while Katie laughed at us. The gondola ride down had all of us tired from nearly 10 hours of adventuring in the town. My stomach still hurt. From the base of the gondola, we hopped in Sebastian´s car and zipped down the autobahn back towards the train station. We all said our goodbyes to Seabass and hopped on the train back to Hauptbanhoff Munchen. When we arrived, Jacob and Katie split away from us back towards their place, and Steve and I made our way back to the Hostel. Did someone punch me in the stomach on the train? I didnt think so, but maybe I had missed it. When we got back to the room Steve and I decided on a quick nap, with plans to meet up with the other three later on in the evening. I quickly found that sleep wasn´t gonna happen for me, and I munched on four pepto bismol tablets in an attempt to appease my stomach. At about 8:30, the pain turned to nausea, and a whole day´s worth of beer, sausage, sauerkraut, cold cuts, cheese, bread, pretzels and mustard escaped me. Regretfully, I told Steve I was pretty sure I was done for the night, so he headed down to the Hostel lobby bar while I spent the next twelve hours in and out of the 8 person mixed sex dorm´s only bathroom voiding myself and, in between bouts, resting on the cold tile floor. I was a big fan of that cold tile floor.
The next day, Steve and I agreed that, instead of heading to Montpellier, France, like we had planned, we would deviate and take the train to Prague, my top destination for the entire trip but one that I didnt think we could make it to. With that, we set off on a five hour journey of motion sickness and smelly train-cabin-mates towards Prague.
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