travelogue - part II Munich

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Finally I feel like writing again... At last, I should still fill you in with a detailed report of my German holidays...I will start by saying that we had a blast there!!!!
Ok, I will be religiously following the notes that Ricky and I wrote down on the last night there from now on...

Tuesday, 29th October: We left our hotel in Salzburg at 9am, of course after having a satisfying breakfast! I think I tried everything (literally) they were offering there... And they didn't charge us for one more person when paying! As much as we had stuffed ourselves with at breakfast our room was probably worth more than what we paid it for! Anyway... We left to Munich, that is one hour by car from there. We were lucky enough not to find any traffic to reach the city and we were still pleased with the German streets that have not speed limits. We were in Munich in slightly more than 50 minutes and we found our hotel no problem (we're smart...). We were so happy being there early in the morning because it meant more time for sightseeing, but to our discontent we found out that the owner of the pension, Mrs Karolin, wasn't there. A lady, her maid (told us Karolin), opened us the door and she was not speaking a single word in English! Hooray... not! She gave us the keys to our first bedroom (yes, because we'd to move into another one on the following day) and we were pleased to find an old fashioned apartment (of which one bedroom and the bathroom were unlocked) that was spotless. We got our backpacks and were ready to go when the maid explained (I make it sounds it was easy to understand eachother, but it actually was embarassing and challenging to try to communicate with her!) that we couldn't go because we had to meet Mrs Karolin first. Aw! We were not pleased, not at all. The problem was with our car, we had asked Karolin to give us a special card that would have allowed us to keep the car in the street in front of the pension and not getting fined. We'd pay this card to Mrs Karolin 2€ per day that was cheap to us, but then thinking of it better Karolin was a robber... Ok, I probably am unfair to her, because all in all she was polite and nice to us (I think she was fancying Ricky!) but the card that she gave to us actually wa her parking card and she was asking all of her guest pay it 2€ per day, that would of course earn her much more money than what she'd originally paid for it... Anyway... Back to the maid, she told us to wait for Karolin 10 minutes first (thinking of it now I think she was telling us 10 minutes because she had just 10 fingers to show us! ) that we did. But she wasn't there more than 20 minutes after... I was quite bored and we agreed we'd have checked the street around the pension in the meanwhile and we got to a shop where we bought a map of the city. Again we were back to the pension and Karolin was nowhere to be found. Argh! We had been waiting there for 1 hour already and I was a bit bossy and asked the maid to please phone Karolin. I wasn't understanding a single word the two ladies where saying at the phone and asked the maid to please hand me the phone. I could finally speak to Karolin in English and she said she'd have been there in half an hour because she was at the lawyer's and was delayed. I said ok (I had no other choice, had I?!) and again we had nothing to do but waiting for her. Thankfully she was there within the stated time (we'd been waiting long enough for me to be pissed off of course, but I wouldn't let some German lady spoil my holiday!) and she gave us the card that spared us a fine. She then asked us to pay for the whole staying in advance... We were puzzled, because everywhere we'd stayed in in the past none had ever asked us for money before actually enjoying the stay, but we agreed to pay (inside of us we were both thinking she would have surely disappointed us some way and we'd have had a bad time having our money back). Bad surprise for us again: Karolin didn't accept visa or any credit card (shit, shit, I should have double checked it when home!) and we had to pay by cash, that was a bit tight since then. Luckily I had brought more than planned (I always think it's better to have some money for emergencies and I am proud to say that I am wise! ) so we didn't have to give up anything at the end. Karolin and I didn't like eachother much. She was an old lady in her 60's but I think she had a crush on Ricky, especially when he told her he was a lawyer practitioner. And she must have disliked me since I asked her about Dachau concentration camp. I didn't think Germans don't like to talk about the Holocaust much. And she was like "what would you visit Dachau for?"... I said "the camp maybe?!", being ironic of course. And she said that it wasn't worth it, that it was sad (of course I didn't expect it to be a funny place to visit!) and that it would have spoilt my holidays! I said thanks that I would have thought of it. And off we went! Our holidays in Munich officially started! (mind you, by the time Karolin let us free it was 1.30pm...Argh her!) Whoohoo!
Our pension was in the University area of the city and near one of the main entrances of the Englischer Garten that are said to be the biggest park in Europe and are English park-like, the name says it. We went to the city centre walking through the gardens and eating a pizza (me) and a sandwich (Ricky) that we had bought in a bakery next to our pension - bakeries: it is what I miss most of Germany! Germans have the best bread ever! The gardens are absolutely beautiful, relaxing and ... enormous! In some 40 minutes we managed to walk to their end (our entrance was past their half) and got to the city centre. There it was Marienplatz! The Rathaus is stunning! And when we read in the guide about the Glokenspiel we made it our holiday goal to see it working! Ricky was so kind to let me choose what I liked to visit first and I was bully and childish and I dragged him to the Spielzeugmuseum (aka the toys museum). If only it wasn't for the narrow stairs and the million of steps we had to go through to the last floor, the museum itself was cool! There were ancient toys (a doll made off chestnuts that was labeled as medieval or something of the like) to quite modern toys. There were the first Barbie dolls issued (wonder how girl could find them fashinating at all.. they looked grey-ish and alien like! Blah!) and dolls houses. I loved it lots!
After that we went back to Marienplatz and reached Sankt Peterskirche where the Holy Father was archbishop back in the early 80's. Ricky wanted to see the view from the tower...I had read in the guide that it was 306 steps to reach the top of it and didn't fancy the idea of course, but I couldn't refuse because he'd agreed the visit to the toy museum and I sort of owed it the view from the tower! We got to the top and... It was quite disappointing, because you could see the landscape of the city from some closed windows and it was not as cool as we'd figured it to be. But I left my note to the guest book they had there that made the lot of steps worth it!
After so many steps we both were hungry and we went to Viktualienmarkt (yes, our first day was pretty random, again we crossed Marienplats - my favourite place in whole Munich by the way-) where we had a hot dog and a mug of beer (first litre of it for Ricky) at 4 pm! There were stalls everywhere, lots of smells and voices and people chatting while drinking and eating at the biergarten. I loved the atmosphere there!
We had some more time for sightseeing but museums and everything seems to be closing by 6pm up there (something we Italians aren't that used to) and we ended up visiting the courtyard of the Residenz (we didn't visited it inside because that day it was past the last admission time and on the following days we had better places to visit than that) and then we nearly had a row because I needed a toilet and it was nowhere to be found and Ricky was still taking photos and... This is one of the situations that can drive me up the wall: you need a toilet and it is nowhere to be seen! Argh! We ended up in a Starbucks (that I would be thrilled to have in Perugia) and I was then much more sensible and nice to deal with! I am a spoilt brat I know! The Starbucks back exit was on the Hofgarten and we took our time to visit them as well. We took lots of photos and we enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere there.
Again back to Marienplatz to look for somewhere to eat. We found a big restaurant called Pschorr that was our favourite place to eat at and that was presided over by Slowfood - that we're fan of-. We had some delicious meat and two mugs of beer! Yes, folks, I had beer. I was silly asking for beer, but when the girl came to our table and took our order and I had to tell her what I fancied to drink...well, I felt as if I was going to disappoint her had I asked for a coke or -worse- for still water... And my mouth spelled the word beer before I could hold back my tongue! After dinner we walked back home, and on the way we stopped at Viktualienmarkt to fill our bottles of fresh water (it became our daily stop there before going back home for the night during the holidays).

Wednesday, 30th October: Must say that Mrs Karolin's breakfast wasn't half as satisfying as the Austrian breakfast we had in the previous days. And we were about to get pissed with Karolin because we'd to move into another room downstairs (the pension is located in a building and each room was part of flats where Karolin would lock and unlock as many rooms as she needed. In our case we only had one room and the bathroom unlocked.) but she said we couldn't move in before mid morning, that would have spoilt our day and wasted our time. We agreed with her that she'd have moved our things to the new room and she gave us a spare key to the new room so that we could finally go.
We'd planned to visit the Deutsches Museum in the morning. The weather wasn't the best ever, being it cloudy, but we're Mr and Miss Lucky and it didn't rain! In the museum there's lots to lost one's head about if you are fond of sciences (that is not my case, ok, but I liked it there nonetheless). I think we concentrated too much on the first room that was about navigation. There were lots of boats, ships and rafts from everytime. I especially loved the model of a real cruise ship where you had the feeling you were really on the sea and in a ship! LOL* We had to rush a bit through the other rooms (I admit having gotten a bit bored by the time we were done with the first room... Ok. but I am not a science geek!), but we enjoyed the main things there. I threw a tantrum (not a real one, but was tempted to do it) when I found out I couldn't enter the Kinder Reicht (or whatever it was called), because only children aged 3-10 were allowed in! So, either I asked someone to lend me a kid or I couldn't go in. Argh! This was not fair! We had fun at the shop of the museum where Ricky bought a gift for his cousin and I got a blu biro looking like a pencil with a pink eraser on the top.
We had lunch at PizzaHut (again some place I would like to see in Italy also, even if I think Italians wouldn't much agree to Pizza Hut idea of pizza) where we had a Cheesy Crust pizza that was so yummy! And we got two glasses of coke that we could refill with 50 cents more (ok, to most people this is something perfectly normal, but remember folks that I live in Italy and we have not such things, so everything sounds interesting to me).
We got back to the pension to check that they had brought our things to our new room (on the ground floor). They had, by the way, but the new room wasn't as good as the one we'd slept in the previous night. The bed wasn't comfy at all (the mattress was almost smashed in and definitely not the best place to sleep on) and the furnitures were older than those we had in the previous room, but there wasn't much we could do about it. So we left again to Schloss Nymphenburg where we spent whole afternoon walking through the huge park. It was stunning! We enjoyed it lots. There were kilometres and kilometres of park!!! We had a relaxing afternoon (and an ice-cream) and we both agreed that we did the best choice ever when we chose Nymphenburg over the Residenz. On Wednesday it was the big day for Ricky: Bayern Munich vs. Juventus Fc for the Champions League. We went back to the city centre by tram (that to my discontent isn't too different from a bus) and looked (should I add desperately?! LOL) for a bar that would show the match. There was no place to be found but the Pschorr restaurant we'd dined at the previous day and there we went. They had maxi screen and we sat at a spare table and dined while waiting for the match to start. Now, Ricky gets pretty emotional and noisy when watching the match and I was quite nervous being there because we were sorrounded with tens and tens of Germans. Truth has to be told and Ricky behaved and didn't show his love for Juve too much (even if I think his moaning anytime Juve lost the ball surely didn't help) and we were ok, untill a group of German folks sat at our table. I was biting my nails in anxiety (Ricky's right that I shouldn't bite them, after all) and a boy of the group who'd joined us at our table told me something in German. Shit! I stared at him with the dumbest face ever and he repeated the same phrase once again...Again my dumb face was the only reply I could produce. A girl who was there tried to explain to me what the boy had meant to say, again in German...I couldn't understand a single word and my puzzled face made the girl realize that I was not German. The girl was quite smart and had 2+2 done and got it right that I was Italian and there for the match (the way she asked me if I was Italian, wishpering it to my ears and twisting her mouth, gave me one reason more to be anxious!). Ricky was so impressed with the match that he noticed about me talking to the Germans on a later moment only and he joined our talk. He actually got to talk a lot (now they were speaking in English) with a boy who was so kind and funny. The only one of the group I didn't like at all was the boy who'd tried to tell me something about biting my nails. He didn't much like Ricky and he was cross and I think he'd have liked to start a fight that luckily didn't happen. I am sure Ricky wasn't pleased about it, but I say that luckily none of them won and we could go back home in friendly terms with the Germans. Phew!

Thursday, 1st October: Again a not that satisfying breakfast at the pension to start the morning with. A group of Italians were there having breakfast with us and they were so noisy and rude that Ricky and I got up and went back to our room as soon as we could. Sometimes I loathe the way Italians act abroad, they think they own the world! They're noisy and people abroad don't like them at all!
We spent the morning shopping: we had to buy presents for our dear ones at home and I was Diddl pads hunting all morning long. Thanks to Nad I extended my search to toy shops and there it was: the last edition pads! Of course I had to get them all! It is not like I can go back to Germany whenever I need a new pad, so I had to buy them all.
After our morning shopping, we went "home" (it felt like home with us living together: it was perfect, really!) to get rid of our bags and left again to the Theresienwiese where the Oktoberfest is held. I was so wrong about it! It is all about fun and colours and sweet treats and, ok, beer. I had imagined drunkards and people throwing up everywhere, instead everything there was lively but normal. I mean no excess, just lots of fun. They've the biggest funfair ever seen for the Oktoberfest and the bier houses are HUGE! We first sat at the Paulaner's and Ricky had his first mug of beer. I wanted to take some videos and lots of photos of all the people drinking and toasting there! It was so funny to be there and I was not forced to drink beer nor anything I had feared when planning the trip! I think I ate way too much junk food there, but everything looked yummy and Ricky was happy with the beer and would not stop me, so... I had banana with a milk chocolate cover, an enormous brezen, apfelstrudel with vanilla and whipped crean, fries, an apple krapfen... And Ricky bought me a gingerbread heart that I would wear like a necklace! We sat at Spaten's then and again Ricky got another mug of beer (wow, litre 2 in so little time!) and a group of Spanish (drunk) boys sat with us. They even asked me to pose in a photo with them! LOL They were toasting with everyone and making lots of noise. Actually they were so noisy that a group of German teens who were at the table next to us asked me if we were Italians!!! I told the boys that Ricky and I were Italians, but that the noisy ones were from Spain! Bah, I hate it how we're labelled everywhere (even if I am proud to say that Ricky and I are not Italians when travelling). We were home by 6pm and Ricky took a nap (beer vs. Ricky ended 1-0 LOL) while I uploaded all our photos on Facebook. I think all the junk food I had eaten was even worse for my stomach than beer was for Ricky's and I had heartburn that night, so that when we went to dinner I asked for a soup only.

Friday, 2nd October: Our last day in Munich started with Mrs Karolin's breakfast. By Friday I had noticed how Karolin would give croissants to other guests, but to us! I hated her for that!!!
Again we headed off and went on a shopping spree (we had gifts left to buy and I wanted to look for some more Diddl pads). We got to the mall and there we bought beer and chocolate for everyone at home and Diddl paper for me (hoooray!). Finally (after having missed it by minutes several times on the previous days) we could see the Glockenspiel working! It lasted some 15 minutes, that I had every second of recorded with my camera! After that we had the unhealthier lunch ever at Burger King and then back home to leave our bags. We'd planned our afternoon to be very relaxing and at the Englisher Garten and there we headed. We took the tube to the northern part of the Garten and we walked south. It was the best moment of the whole holiday! Couples there have benches with their names written on and I liked it so much that I begged Ricky to buy one ourselves (wouldn't it be cool to have a seat in the middle of the Englisher Garten with the written "Martj&Ricky May 15th 2001" on it?!?) but he didn't like the thought as half as I did! Wonder why... Again we took lots (and I mean it) of photos and we walked a lot and it was perfect, really! We were so much in love!
We went back to the centre by 6pm and walked around and looked for the few shops that were open till late (that up there means 7pm - people here would be happy to close at 7 in the evening!) and we spent some time in a Timberland store where Ricky asked for help a black boy who was speaking English so fast that I could get half of the whole speech. Our last dinner there was tasty and I enjoyed it big time. By then I was sad we were leaving on the following day, but had still something to look forward to: the German bread! We had planned to buy some bread at the bakery near the pension and we'd have eaten it on the way back to Italy. I was thrilled at the thought of that delicious bread and it surely helped me not to moan too much that the holiday was over.

Saturday, 3rd October: We woke up early and went to breakfast to find out that October the 3rd is a national holiday in German and that there were no shop (read=no bakeries) to be found open in the whole town! I almost was in tears when Karolin told us and when she offered us a sandwich for the journey. Her bread wasn't half as good as German bread usually is. But I think we had to be grateful because she had offered us something to eat after all. Now I was officially sad because the holidays was over and because I had no German bread to fill my stomach with. We left an almost desert Munich at 9am and we started our journey back to Italy, where we spent a night in Arona, by the Lake Maggiore where a friend of Ricky works as a policeman.

I think this is enough of a travelogue. Germany was great and I would definitely go back today if I could! I want to see more of the country and I hope we'll be able to plan another holiday as soon as possible!

PS: For everyone wondering about Dachau, I gave it up after all. Karolin managed to put me off it and I didn't want to spoil my good mood with a sad visit to a concentration camp and I gave it up. Hope I won't regret it with the time.

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