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Published: August 19th 2006
Munich was always going to be our major comfort stop on our trip, as we were going to be staying with our great friend Vicki from back home in Australia. Vicki bravely moved from Sydney to Munich 6 months ago for a 18 month stint for work. One of the funniest and most frustrating parts of our trip happened before we even got to her house after the half day drive from Lucerne.
We had an address but no real directions to get to her house, and our maps are really designed to get you from A to B and seeing the major sights in the cities, not finding a specific house on a small street just outside the city centre. Anyway, after a couple of texts, calls and a few u-turns we discovered the problem as to why we couldn't see the Swim Centre that Vicki was saying we couldn't miss....we were on the right street but on the wrong side of the river. This we thought was a major piece of information that was missing from our directions, but we quickly discovered that Vicki spends her driving life taking directions from a female voice blurting out from her
Serious Stuff
The Germans are serious about drinking beer."Navman" satelite navigation system, so she doesn't have to worry about identifying landmarks that most people use to find their way around, she just does what she is told. So after well over an hour we finally ended up in the right place and there she was on the side of the road laughing her head off at us commoners that still use maps.
It was nice to have a home for a week or so and Vicki's place was fantastic, a really nice apartment in a great little area just outside the city centre. Of course the World Cup was in its final 2 days so we were really looking forward to watching the Germans play for 3rd place on the Saturday night and then catching the final at a local beer garden on the Sunday night. It was very busy and a great atmosphere with loads of French and Italians and we ended up with about 6 Italian born Germans on our table who were a really great bunch and who thoroughly enjoyed their victory. They even agreed that Australia was robbed!!!
Munich itself is definately one of our favourite cities, being both beautiful and fun,
World Cup Final
Local Beergarden for the World Cup Final where the locals really know how to enjoy themselves. Of course food and drink is a central part of all of this, and the outdoor lifestyle would be right at home in Australia.
Our stay consisted of a fantastic walking tour of the city, time spent in many beergardens, breakfast cooked for us by Vicki, catching up on lots of washing, trying to convince Vicki that she should try camping (we had to dry the tent out and only just managed to get Vicki to lie down in it), Vicki assuming the role as "Navman's" promotion team (she had me convinced by the end of the stay), the first installments of the travel diaries, way too much shopping in my (Simon) opinion (which of course Rachel blamed on Vicki's bad influence), buying shoes which she couldn't actually walk in (so had to swap with Vicki one night out!), great restaurants, Vicki winding Rachel up and pretending she had a new boyfriend - to which Rachel responded he was too tall (even though the photo was a head shot - you actually had to be there to appreciate the hilarity). Not to mention Rolling Stones spotting, the fantastic Munich street
When in Rome
The smallest size is 1 litre - oh well fair, trying unsuccesfully to get into the coolest club in town, and the late night intruder which was actually the neighbour's son, all in all the 3 of us had an absolute blast and had not laughed this much in a long time. Thanks Vicki.
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