Another day in Munich

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Hallo!

Yesterday morning I met up with Greg for a little while, then he had to head back to Prague. Ironically enough, he happens to be catching a flight to Madrid tonight, and I am catching a flight from Frankfurt to Madrid tomorrow morning! Random, but cool... so Jessie and I will be meeting up with him for a Espana style 'Thanksgiving' dinner, filled with tapas and sangria.. then I think we are headed to this bar/restaurant for a flamenco dancing show that my co-worker Stacey recommended to us. She will also be in Madrid while I am there!

So from there I had just enough time to run back over to Marienplatz and settle in with the other tourists in anticipation of the big Glockenspiel that goes off at 11am daily. This is located on the big clock tower of the Town Hall, and basically turns into a cuckoo clock of sorts. It was pretty cute, bells start chiming and there is this little song that sounds like a music box. All these big characters come out and start dancing around and rotating. Apparently there are always two knights that come out, one from Bavaria who wears the traditional light blue and white checkers that you have probably seen before. The other knight wears the German colors of red, gold and black. I could be wrong on all of this, but I was just gathering the information from another tour guide that I was trying to listen to. Anyhow, sometimes these knights will begin to joust (spelling?), other times they will just pass each other by. Today they did not joust, and there was a big sigh of disappointment from the crowd who knew about this and were hoping to see a battle.

From here I headed past Peterskirche to an area called Viktualmarkt. Its an open-air bustling market, filled with vendors selling all kinds of German sausages and other meats, specialty shops with special honeys, mustards, jams, cheeses, etc. There are several produce stands, selling anything you could imagine, as well as some artisans selling their handmade goods.. a lot of wreathes and little Bavarian trinkets. This market would be comparable to the Ferry Building and farmers market in San Francisco, or Chelsea Market in NYC, just with more of a European flair. I found an adorable little cheese shop with all kinds of awesome looking foods. I chose a little spinach and goat cheese quiche that the nice woman heated up for me, then I settled on a park bench and people watched.

From there I headed on down past the market and stumbled upon several more cute shops, selling all kinds of specialty items. Lots of chocolate shops, yes Mom, I hooked you up. Went into some Trachten (spelling?) shops, which sell all the traditional Bavarian wear. Lederhosen (literally translates to leather pants) and dirndl, which is the womens outfit of the corset style dress, with a white blouse and apron. They are really cute.. I wanted to buy one and wear it for Halloween next year.. with my blonde hair in breads it would be perfect.. I would just need to find a guy to wear some Lederhosen hehe. These shops were no joke.. the outfits are expensive and very high quality.. and yes, people actually wear this stuff. The women all wear them at restaurants and bars, and people especially were them on special occasions or holidays.

After a few more hours of wandering and shopping, I was as frozen as an ice cube, so headed back to the hostel for awhile to relax. Then I met up with a couple of my roomates to go out with them for dinner and drinks. I am staying in a 6 bed room (3 bunks) we have our own private bathroom, and big lockers in our rooms to store our things. All the girls are really sweet, and from all over the world. We had me, a German girl from Cologne above me, a French girl, a girl from New Zealand, a girl from Morocco, and last but not least, a girl from... drum roll.. Yonkers! Pretty cool.

Anyhow, the French girl and Moroccan girl are studying at a university in Paris, and are here with a big group studying for a couple weeks. We met up with the rest of their group (all guys mostly from all over France, including a Norweigan, and a cool guy from the Netherlands. We headed back to Marienplatz area to eat/drink at the Augustiner, another very traditional Bavarian bier hall and restaurant. The food was really good. I had a weisse beer and the tuesday vegetarisch (vegetarian) special. I have no idea what it was, but it was yummy!

Later on we headed back to the hostel to hang out and have a few beers. Met more world travelers here, again many more French guys, a Belgian, and a girl from... New York! Well, actually she is from Kentucky but lived in NYC for 6 years and is now getting her masters degree at a university in Holland.. Amsterdam I think. So her and I chatted for awhile and exchanged email addresses.. hopefully I can make it to Amsterdam sometime, I would love that! Also got a lot more email addresses, which is awesome.

The amazing thing about all these travelers, is that everyone is so excited to be on this journey whether its a long one, or a short one (like mine) and everyone is so excited to learn about different cultures and ask questions and meet people. Even though most of us havent spent too much time together, its as if there is some special comraderie between us even though our paths crossed only briefly. To now now people in New Zealand, Holland, Morocco, Paris, etc. is awesome and I will definitely stay in touch with them in hopes that I can visit there countries some day. They all really want to see San Francisco and NYC too!

Now I am just killing some time before I catch my train back to Frankfurt soon. Jessie and I have a very, very early flight to Madrid tomorrow.. can't wait!!! Oh, and I have been taking a TON of pictures, but I dont have a way to upload them at the moment, but check back at a later point and I will fill the blogs with pictures!

More to come on Madrid. CIAO!

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