New city, new sites and amazingly new experiences

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The next few days in Munich were filled with much fun and excitement. Every morning began with a traditional Bavarian breakfast. This consisted of fresh breads, jams and jellies, cheese, tomatoes, and many pork products including ham and white sausage. We also saw many new and exciting tools in use that epitomized German efficiency. They had a soda water maker where you simply screw in a bottle of water and can inject bubbles into it. They also used a hard boiling egg machine that only required a teaspoon of water and five minutes to boil three eggs! Each morning was such an experience and provided me with energy to explore the city. The first day we went into the city center with some of our roommate’s friends from home. They were really nice and showed us around through the gardens, to the opera house, churches, to city hall, and many other historic buildings. We walked for hours around town, absorbing the sun, the people, the cleanliness and the beautiful atmosphere.
We encountered many beer associated things along our adventures. Beer gardens were commonly dispersed along our walk (places where people gather outside just to drink beer), filled with people to the brim since it was such a beautiful day. We also found in use throughout the city streets beer bikes. These were wagon like structures on wheels that had five people per side and one driver. The people on the sides were required to pedal while also drinking the beer from the big canister inside. It was such a site to see, especially when they stopped at a destination and tried to walk and talk like normal people (which was obviously not possible due to their amount of beer consumption).
The second day we spent there was even more beautiful than the first so after breakfast we changed into shorts and t-shirts and went biking through the English gardens. There was so much grass and park and people enjoying the clean outdoors. We biked for an hour through the paths surrounded by trees and encountering amazing rivers and bridges. We also discovered some very unexpected things such as a few nude beaches, which almost made me drive my bike off the path due to its unbelievable-ness, and we also found some men surfing through some rocky parts of the water with spectators on looking. It was here that the weather took an unexpected turn and began to rain and we were forced call Ayline’s mom too bring the car, load up the bikes and head home.
By the time we arrived at her apartment the sun was back out from behind the clouds and shinning down on us. This lead to the decision to lay in the apartments common backyard and absorb some (as we were still in our summer shorts) until it was time to leave for dinner. We went with her parents to a restaurant/beer garden that was called fat lady and it was here that we were subjected to very traditional German cuisine. I ate some white asparagus that was grown locally and was very much in season. Nadine and Ayline ordered some pork soaked in beer juices that were served with bread balls and potato balls (which look and taste exactly how they sound). Ayline’s parents both ordered pig foot (fried to perfection, apparently) dripping in sauces and also served with the potato and bread balls. We all had a side of sauerkraut and drank beer mixed with lemon and soda water. It was all so delicious and due to this fact all of it was devoured. Her family also insisted on ordering a very traditional German dessert for us which I did not think I would have room for, but that all changed when I tried it. It was called Kaiserschmarrn and was the most amazing thing ever consisting of a broken pancake mixed with sugar, raisins and sweetened with plum sauce. It was literally to die for and probably my most favourite food I tried on the trip.
The third day in Munich we spent at the Olympic park. We were able to see the residences that were made for the athletes and we climbed the tower to see so much of Munich and the surrounding park. It was not the prettiest or brightest of days but it was amazing to see so far and so wide. We went home that night to a homemade fish dinner that was to wonderful and warm. We sat around the table with her parents and stayed in that night just talking and relaxing and taking in our time away from our home in Istanbul and reflecting back on our home home in Canada.
We enjoyed some incredible nightlife at Russian, hip hop, high end and cheap clubs, we had amazing food and met some amazing people. We had only been in this city for three days and already we were falling in love with it. We knew nothing of what the road had in store for us the next day but we knew that any road that leads to Vienna for an adventure was a road worth travelling.

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