But yes, Munchen. I had to get up at 4am to get to the airport, and I had to take a taxi to get there since my flight was too early for public transportation. BOO. The taxi was 50 euro due to the night tariff (yes, so early my fare was a night fare. Sigh). But that's ok, as I got on my flight just dandy and wound up in Munich a little early, and I had about an hour and forty five minutes to wait until Kirsten got in, so I just read some free newspapers Lufthansa supplies for its passengers and read all about Obama and his victory in the papers. It was nice to read something in English in the papers for once, I never get that anymore.
But yes, the time eventually did pass, and I waited for Kirsten at her gate. Even though it'd only been a few days, it was still great to see her again. Immediately, we both discussed how immaculate the airport in Munich was: so clean, so orderly, and so . . . awesome? I mean, I really liked how easy it was to figure out inside, and how clean it was too. Definitely a nice place to stop-over. We wandered our way down to the S-Bahn, or the underground system, to try and get to the center of the city and get to our hotel. Unfortunately for us, the S-Bahn is not nearly as easy to figure out as the station. No indications of anything, just totally in German. Luckily, we figured it out and got our tickets and hopped on the train, laughing at the German pronunciations of everything, it was quite comical.
German, if you don't know, isn't horrible to try and figure out when it's written and you have a chance to think about it; in fact, it's much easier than some of the other places we've been. Some things, however, are just way too different to figure out. English is a Germanic language, so it makes sense, but whew, just don't ask me to speak any.
We made our way to Goethestrasse (except the double-s was that funny German letter that makes the s-sound) and got into our hotel, which was slightly misleading about its size and whatnot, but ended up working out just dandy. We couldn't check in until about an hour and change later, so we just put down our bags and made sure we were bundled up and walked around to get some food and a sense of where we were.
First impressions of Munich: clean, cold, and odd. It was very orderly, no trash anywhere, and lots of nicer cars. Good to see some BMWs, Mercedes-Benz, and Lexus again. Been a while. Fall was in full effect there, too, and it was really cold out compared to Roma/Athens. Kirsten really was hit hard, and she bundled up heavy and still was cold. But the last thing that was odd was the number of gambling / strip clubs / sex shops in the area. I mean, everywhere in some places. It never really felt sleazy, just excessive and numerous.
Anyway, we wandered down into the Karlsplatz / Marienplatz area, which has tons of shopping, food, and jewelery shops. Really was a fun time there. Kirsten and I went into the Augustiner Brauhaus to get a bite to eat, and we had a really nice Persian waiter who was very eager to talk about America and see what we thought of Munich so far. And it was there that we had some delicious pretzels and German beer that we've been waiting on for oh-so-long now. Yum.I had an awesome sausage and sauerkraut plate, and before I say anymore, yes, sauerkraut. It sounds, looks, and smells not so good, but man, can your senses deceive you sometimes. I mean, I was all over the sauerkraut. Plus, they had an awesome mustard too that was just strong and delicious. . . man, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.
From there, we finished off our half-liters and went back to the hotel, got checked in, and rested a bit before heading back out around dusk. We wandered back towards the Marienplatz area from before, and we found a shop called the Oberpollinger, which had Prada, Fendi, Dior, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and a billion more designers I couldn't name off the top of my head, but Kirsten sure could. We had to wander around in there for a bit. It was pretty amazing to see such designer stuff all in one place, it felt like Pasadena or Beverly Hills for a minute.
We continued on after that and walked past the Rathaus and the Glockenspiel area, which was this really cool Gothic structure in the heart of Marienplatz. We stood in awe for a minute checking it out, and vowed to come back during the daytime the next day. We kept on wandering until we got to our desitnation for the evening, the Hofbrauhausen, or the State Beer Hall. It's really famous in Munich, and the hall is huge, and we knew we had to go check it out during our time there, as it's huge and famous. Like Nazi history happened here too, with Hitler really starting the Nazi party with his theses there. It was pretty crazy to think about being in the same place as Hitler once was and having an excellent time, but the atmosphere was irresistable.
It took a long time to get a seat, as it's every man for himself in there, no joke. I mean, you just find a table, sit down next to a
bunch of people you don't know (yet) and wait for your waiter to wander by and order some beer and snacks and hang out. Chat. Do whatever you want to do, really.So we did. We ordered some beers, and I went with the Dunkel, at Travis's behest, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I had a liter and Kirsten got a half of the Weiss bier, or the Hefeweizen. We got our frothy brews and some pretzels and celebrated away, with pictures, laughter, and good times all around.
By the way, I couldn't possibly put all my pictures on here, so if you want to see them, head on over to my picasa site at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/NoMomentWasted
There we go. Anyway, we enjoyed our beers for a while and chatted with our neighboring beer drinkers, a group from Mexico City who spoke English and we chatted away, enjoying our the festive atmosphere and everything. It was cool to see how many people were there, I mean, literally, hundreds of swarming beer drinkers. Plus, some German guys in the traditional garb. I kid you not. That was really fun (and funny) to see.
After that (and my helping Kirsten finish her beer), we went back to the hotel and just took it easy before heading to bed early. Kirsten was starting to not feel well, and so we wanted to make sure to get rested up.
We got up after quite a long sleep, but Kirsten was feeling pretty terrible, which was not good news at all. We got some pretty good breakfast from our hotel for free and ate all we wanted, but went back up to our room to rest some more. I went out and got some German meds for her, and we medicated her up and got back out on the trail. She was a really gamer this weekend, and I'm just sorry she wasn't feeling well.
We got on the Metro and took it over to the English Gardens, or these huge, landscaped gardens in the center of Munich, designed in the late 18th century with building designs from all over the world. They were perfectly fall-seasoned, and we just oohed and ahhed for a few hours, just enjoying the beauty of the bridges over the cool water, the really cool buildings, and the awesome scenery.
We both have the same issue: no fall in our cities. In California, either. I really, really miss jumping in leaves, seeing all the colors, enjoying the seasonal changes, but I haven't really been able to enjoy a fall in a long, long while.
It was lovely, to say the least, and I really felt like I could live in a city like Munich. Good food and drink? Check. Good public transportation? Check. Good natural areas as well? Check. Seasons? Check. It really did have it all. Kirsten would add really good shopping too, and it had that as well.
The gardens I could go on all day about, I'll just stop and say to check out my pictures on Picasa and know that I loved them dearly. There's a few more pictures I'll post, and a video, but it's awesome, just trust me.
One part of particular awesomeness? The view from this little Greek tower. Maybe it was better since I haven't had any fall recently. Maybe because it was with someone I was so glad to be experiencing it with. Maybe it was the view itself, or maybe it was the candied nuts we'd just ate that were fantastic, but I really just wanted to hang out there for hours, relaxing, taking in the cool air and beautiful scenery.
I'll move on now, but know I could linger much, much longer.
We went back to the hotel for a little while after that, relaxed, and later went back to the Augustiner for some lunch / dinner, since it was so good before. It was equally good t
his time, and Kirsten and I both got two seperate dishes from before and enjoyed them again. Love good hearty food. Just awesome. We also checked out the Rathaus and everything again during the day, like we said we would, and we took lots of pictures, some of which are on here, the rest of which are on Picasa.The Gothic Architecture and everything is such a departure from Rome, and the feeling of the place was straight out of Disneyland in a way, since it felt just so stereotypically Bavarian, but it's not stereotypical: it's the way the place actually looks. I really was pretty excited about it personally. Kirsten did an excellent job hanging in there, and we stopped and checked out the real German H&M shops, which was interesting to see up close and compare to those in L.A. and such.
It was getting darker, and Kirsten and I got some McFlurries from McDonalds (go ahead and hate, but they were delicious and we both thought they'd make and excellent dessert / birthday cake type deal. We got two and I sung her happy birthday in the crowded German McDonalds and we ate until we were both so stuffed we could burst.
Mmmm, good stuff.
From there it was time to head back home, and we crashed watching terrible MTV trash television as it was in English and hysterically painful to watch, but really kind of funny in a degrading-to-humanity kind of way. We both thoroughly enjoyed it, watched a few music videos, and just relaxed and went to bed, and when we got up, it was 11/9, or Kirsten's birthday, which also meant leaving, which was really sad and hard to do on her birthday, since she had a few hours to wait after I left. Still feel bad about that one.
But I got through security and home pretty easily, even though we were delayed on the runway, which burned me since I wanted to be with my girlfriend, but I got home soon enough and here I am. I hope you all had a great weekend and if you have any questions, as always, ask away.
Tomorrow is back to school, but also excavations under St. Peters! Woohoo! I hope you have a great remainder of your weekend, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIRSTEN, and until next time,
Ciao.
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