Spring Fest

April 30, 2011

This was our last day in Munich, so we went back to the area we explored the day before to walk around. We had passed by a Japanese restaurant yesterday, and that is where we decided to go to lunch. I didn’t think I would be eating Japanese food while I was here, but it was a nice treat since I’m sure it’s the only time I will have it during this month. 

 

After lunch, we walked around and I got a couple of souvenirs and gifts. Yurie wanted to buy one of those traditional German outfits that woman wear…you know, the ones that squish everything up to enhance a certain part of a woman’s body. It was really cute and I would have liked to buy one as well, but they were a bit over my price range. So I resisted. Maybe someday….

 

After walking around for a while, we went back to the hostel to relax for a bit. I took advantage of the free Wi-Fi of course. The hostel apparently sells vouchers for a dinner at Hard Rock Café, but we found out that night that the vouchers don’t work on Saturdays. Darn! One of Keenan’s roommates told us about Spring Fest that was going on near the hostel. So, we thought we would go check that out and see if we could find some dinner there.

After getting a little lost, we found our way to the Spring Fest. I was very surprised when we arrived at a carnival – it reminded me of the Del Mar Fair. There were a lot of rides, food, and people. Finally, we arrived to the beer hall. We went inside, and the sight we saw was one I was not expecting. There were so many people crowded around tables, and many were standing on the benches. Everyone had a beer, of course, and they were singing and dancing to the music that was playing. Interestingly enough, it was a song I knew. We tried to walk along the sides of the room to see what else was in there, but we kept getting shoved by people, especially the servers who were carrying about 4 or 5 beers at a time. It was a little too crazy in there, so we turned around and fought our way back to the entrance. I was glad to be back outside where it was about 15 degrees cooler.

 

This is where the madness was!

 This looks so fun!! Unfortunately, I didn't spend the money to try it out.

There wasn’t really any food there besides carnival type food, so we ended up going to Hard Rock Café anyways. It was pretty late by the time we got there – around 9 or so. I ordered one of the “smaller” burgers because there was no way I was going to get through a 10 pound one. 

We were excited for the next day…Salzburg, here we come!

Exploring Munich

April 29, 2011

Our hostel told us about a free walking tour in the main part of Munich. We decided that would be a great way to start off our first day exploring the city, and it was a very good decision! We met in the lobby at 10 am, and one of the tour guides met us at the hostel to escort us over to where the tour begins. His name was Adam, and he was from Australia. 

 

Breakfast included a delicious chocolate croissant.

We had to take the train to Marienplatz, which was only three stops away. He told us about an all day ticket we can get for a group of up to 5 people, which was a really good deal since we planned on going back and forth throughout the day. It ended up being only 1.95 Euros for each person.

There were a lot of people who showed up for the tour, mostly college age students like us. We were split into two groups, and the tour guide we were with was an Irish man named Donagh. He was a great tour guide, really funny, and had very interesting stories to tell. I am not really a history person, but I will actually remember most of the stories Donagh told us because he told them in a fun way. It also is more interesting learning history when you are actually in the location that the events took place.

 

 

Our tour guide.

 

Weird Michael Jackson memorial...

 

Mother and son hand-holding zone?

 

In front of the opera house.

The tour was around 3 hours, although it was a little bit more than that because we took a break at one point. The group voted on taking our break at a beer hall to try some of the local beer. I’m not sure if “Augustiner” is the name of the beer hall or the type of beer, but we were apparently drinking a popular type of beer. I don’t really like beer all that much, but I was in Germany for crying out loud! I had to try at least one for the experience. Most people in the group got a half liter of beer. That’s what I got as well. It was a lot bigger than I was expecting. Did I mention that we were drinking this on an empty stomach? Probably not the greatest idea. Caitlin and I were not able to finish our beers, so we handed off the rest to Keenan. Keenan probably drank closer to a full liter, so he was feeling pretty good by the end of our break.

 

After the tour was over, we were really hungry so we went to grab some lunch at the beer hall we went to earlier. Thankfully, they had an English menu, and our waitress spoke English well. I ended up getting a sausage salad, which was pretty much just a bunch of thinly sliced sausage with pickles and onions on top. Now, for one of my favorite stories of the trip so far – surprisingly enough, this is not a Keenan Moment story.

As we were finishing up our meal, a group of German guys walked past our table to go outside. Yurie told us that the guy with a backpack on waved to her as he passed by. I saw that they were standing outside in a small circle talking, and one of them looked back at us. Seconds later, the guy with a backpack was walking back inside and stopped right beside Yurie. He had his phone out and said something in German.

Yurie: I’m sorry, I don’t speak your language.

Backpack Guy: Can I have your phone number?

Yurie: Oh, I’m not from here.

Backpack Guy still wanted her number.

Yurie: I’m from Japan, and I live in the U.S.

Backpack Guy didn’t seem to care, but eventually gave up asking.

Backpack Guy: How long are you here for?

Yurie: Just a couple of days.

Backpack Guy: Oh. What are you doing tonight?

Yurie: Uhh..I don’t really know.

I guess that was enough of a rejection for the guy to finally leave. It was such a random moment, and something we were able to laugh about for a long time afterward.

We tried to walk back to our hostel from this where we were, but unfortunately, we didn’t quite know where we were going. We managed to find the station right before ours, so we hopped on there and were easily able to get back to the hostel that way.

Dinner that night ended up being very late. Caitlin was tired and went to bed while the rest of us went out to a bar and ordered two pizzas to share. They were quite tasty!