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Published: February 7th 2009
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I <3 Haufbrahaus
Seriously... look at the place - its the best place on Earth Disclaimer before I start. Since some people (ie - my mom) have been writing with concern to my social activities here, I'd like to reitterate that this is not the norm for me (as everyone knows), and now I remember why. My body is exhausted from hours of walking each day, then little sleep, and then excessive drinking. So don't worry mom. You know what they say "when in rome, do as the romans do." Well the romans go out all the time, so we are just doing our best to fit in. Sleep easy 😊
Greetings from our final train of the trip to Berlin. As usual, getting on was no easy task. We got on a train at 12:20 PM which was overflowing with people with ski equipment and jumped off as it pulled away because there were literally people sitting on their packs in the aisle. Not cool.
We waited for the 1:20 PM train and were kicked off of about 6 cars (I was carrying both packs as Mike explored) and we finally found a seat. It just feels good to be on our way.
Anyways, as expected Munich was a blast just like last time. We got in around 9 PM after a horribly long 7 1/2 hour train from Budapest. We got into the hostel which was pretty cool. We roomed with a guy from China and a couple from Brazil who were really nice.
We didn't really meet anyone worthwhile in the bar, so we decided to explore on our own. We hit an Irish Pub, an Austrailian bar then to my favorite bar in Europe - the Hofbrauhaus. Sure its a tourist place, but it... Is... Awesome. Litre (about 2 1/2 normal beers) beers, five pound pretzels for 3 bucks, and German folk music from the band. It is so German. We ended up throwing back a few litres that put us right to bed so we could get some sleep for our tourist day.
We were again stalked by hoards of people asking about Obama, including another crazy guy who didn't speak English. Hey... Its all part of the expierience. With that, an easy-going but fun first night was done.
Now, we have run across this a few times on the trip but I've failed to document it. Obviously sleeping well in hostels is tough, but Mike and I have been having some weird/messed up dreams on a nightly basis - and this night was no different. We will literally wake up and be like "yup, had 8 more totally f_ed up dreams." Unfortunately we rarely remember details... But let's just say I will be happy to sleep in my own bed soon.
Our first full day was tourist day. We got breakfast at Starbucks (see? we are definitly starting to miss America). Then we took the free hostel walking tour around all the sights of the city (the pope's church, the glockenspiel, the Hofbrauhaus (again), the city may pool, market, etc) and got some beer and sausage for the road. The tour was great (even though I had done it before), but it was FREEZING. Everyone hated on us traveling in the dead of winter, but I am yet to wear gloves and this was literally the first time I have been cold since we arrived. 6 hours later, we showered to warm up and then met a group for dinner/drinks at 7.
The plan for the night seemed simple enough, but as with everything - things changed. We were to meet with a French Canadian we met on the tour, and others and head out for food and drinks.
Plan A was to go to a "local" place since the tour guide had everyone sold that places like Hofbrauhaus are tourist traps. Well I'm a tourist, I wanted to go there and did not like Plan A. We walked to the place, and as I expected - it sucked. Plan over.
Plan B was to hit up the beer tour that all the hostels did together - but that was full of like 35 weird dudes - so that plan was over too.
Plan C was my idea... And what was it? Go to Hofbrauhaus! I just love the place. So we headed over and it was packed to the brim. It can hold 5,000 people at a time, and serves on average 10,000 litres of beer per day (about 25,000 standard US beers). We finally found a seat after some issues and got down to business. We met a ton of "interesting" people to say the least. I mean, it was a friday so it was packed. The band was playing, people were dancing on tables and doing chants and drinking contests took place at every table. Mike became obsessed with a game that involved stacking coasters and flipping them all (like a stack of 30) and catching them all in mid-air. Ill admit, it was quite entertaining and the 4 tables around us loved it too. Good times.
We had a few litres and some food and left at midnight when it closed. We also met some nice Australians, Irish, Brits, and a German who worked at Google and want to get me a job there. Professional networking at the beer hall - Awesome. We walked home and of course realized - tomorrow is a travel day, we can't be in bed early and dead sober.
Tradition is tradition, and we have come to appreciate tradition on this trip. And thus... The night continued at the hostel bar till 2. There we met tons more people from Australia, Brazil, Namibia (yeah, I know right?) and all over. We all taught the others our local drinking games. We taught more kids the beauty of flip cup, and we learned some crazy dice game. Finally, we headed to bed at 2 AM just in time for 6 hours of sleep before our fabulous 10 AM checkout. Great decision as usual. This morning was tough, but my day was splendid compared to Mike's. But... Through all the darkness he did manage to buy the pair of Puma shoes he has literally been looking at in every city. I'm pretty sure the alcohol was still affecting his system but he finally just did it. So bravo for that.
We also found something odd about Munich and found out why. We had heard that Munich is the most policed city in Germany - but the police presense was ridiculous. We did some digging and figured out why there was literally a SWAT team in riot gear, 6 cop cars, and 2 dog teams on literally every street of the entire city. Friday was the start of the Munich Security Conference (ironic I know) and there were 300 delgates from 60 countries in town including Joe Biden, Henry Kissinger, Nicolas Sarkosy (France), Andrea Merckel (Germany), the Russian VP, etc. We really hoped to see some riots or protests to see if they still picked only on the U.S. - but sadly none happened. But I can say with certainty that people over here love Obama. It really is nice to see people embracing the change and hopefully that continues. But that doesn't stop each and every place from telling us why they are in financial difficulty because of the States or that we bombed their whole city/country. There is always definitly some animosity, but I guess that's the price you pay.
And with that, we are almost done. Munich was again very cool, and tons of fun. We are off to Berlin where I will be visiting my family's exchange student from last year - Jana - in her hometown of Hannover. I'm really excited for that, then a "tourist day" on Monday before starting the long trip home on Tuesday via Ireland. I hope I can torment you all with my world travels for just a few more work days and Ill check in after Berlin.
Have a great weekend.
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