Back to Munich

10/29/2009

This morning I woke up extremely early so that I could make my 7:05 am train from Milan to Munich. I had to take the metro from Gabrielle’s apartment to the train station and was quite surprised about how crowded it was so early in the morning. When I arrived at the train station, I had a little bit of a difficult time figuring our how to get out of the metro part and into the train part. Eventually I did figure it out, got my reservation (which at first I wasn’t sure if I really needed it because it was so cheap, but as the train ride went on, I was glad that I had it), and boarded the train in perfect timing.

I had not booked a hostel for Munich yet and was planning on doing that right when I got in. So ahead of time I knew that my first priority in Munich was to find some place with free wifi, book my hostel, and catch up on Internet things that I fell behind on when I was in Milan. I was hoping that this plan would work out ok. Traveling with the Gorntos was a good way for me to transition into traveling on my own. I really like hanging out with them.

The train ride went from Milan, through the Austrian alps (a favorite place of mine on this trip), and into Germany. I had a second thought that I probably could have just gone to Innsbruck, Austria, stayed there, and took a train from there to Fussen to see the castle. Oh well, I had some things that I wanted to buy in Munich in addition to giving Munich another chance. The train ride was gorgeous. The fall foliage is out in full force and up against the background of a clear blue sky and snow capped mountains, it was breathtaking. I realized that I have seen a lot of the scenes from a puzzle sample I bought once in Walmart when I was bored one night. I thought that was pretty cool because I bought the particular sampler because I thought the pictures were so pretty. The train ride was over 7 hours so I had a lot of time to occupy myself. I ate three apples, which I had bough from the grocery store the night before, fixed all of the pulls in my scarves, wrote three journal entries, which I intended to post to the blog when I got in Munich, slept, listened to a great party shuffle on my ipod, and read a little bit. It was very relaxing.

When I arrived in Munich, the first place I saw that was advertising free wifi was Starbucks. This was the first Starbucks I had seen all trip and it made me unexpectedly excited. I ordered a light chai tea latte because it is my favorite and reminds me of fall and studying for exams (it gives me a nice sense of calm and comfort) and went to get started on my Internet work. That is when I realized that Starbucks is set up just like the MacDonalds in Italy are. I needed to have a German phone number in order to have the login name and password texted me. I find these situations to be so annoying and unfriendly to travelers. At this point, I said screw it and just bought and hour of internet for 8 euros (I know that is a ridiculous point but I just wanted to get things done right then and quit monkeying around). Turns out if I had walked 20 feet to Burger King, I could have gotten free wifi there, which I did later on in the night because the hostels internet was broken, but that is all water under the bridge.

I enjoyed my chai tea latte, booked my hostel, which was located very close to the train station and offered a free breakfast and free Internet, and used up the rest of my hour catching up on my emails. After the hour was up, I walked to the hostel and checked it. It turned out to be a very nice hostel and was definitely on the cheaper side, making it a winner in my book. Unfortunately, the wifi was broken that night so I had to postpone my Internet work till it was fixed. I feel like I am becoming oddly dependent on my computer and I don’t know if I really like that feeling. Oh well, I only have a little less than two more weeks of if being my main form of communication, so hopefully it wont be a full fledged addiction by then.

I decided to spend my night walking around Munich, because Katherine and I never really did this, get dinner, and then get my shopping errands done. We took the Metro everywhere. I was still craving Asian food, so I ate at the first legitimate Chinese place that I came across with an English menu. I ordered hoisen sauce chicken and it was ok. However, my waiter was terrible. My plan was to walk in the direction of the Hofbrauhaus. When we were here the first time, we only went to the Oktoberfest tent, not the actual Hofbrauhaus. I figured it would be a good place to begin looking for what I was shopping for. Don’t worry mom, when I was walking I stuck to very populated places.

I was actually very surprised about how populated the streets were, but then I remember Katie and Mike telling me about how wild Germans are and how they stay up partying all night all the time. I walked down a main shopping street and eventually cut over to where the Hofbrauhaus is located. I saw a bunch more Starbucks and MacDonalds. Munich is really first city that I have come across so many American things like this. I really enjoyed walking around Munich because it totally changed my opinion of the city from the first time I visited it. I would really like to have a friend, who is a local there, that could show me around the city. I think Munich would be reach an awesome level if someone could show you all the hidden treasures of the city. The Hofbrauhaus is located in a pretty cool area that is where a lot of other beer houses too all on a cobbled street area. I found exactly what I was looking for in this area (it is a surprise, that is why I am being vague) and popped in the beer houses to look around.

At this point it was getting very cold. Germany is transitioning from fall into winter, unlike Italy who is still going from summer into fall. So I walked back to the hostel. I knew I had to go to bed pretty early because I had woken up extremely early this morning and was going to get up early the next day to go to the castle. I went to the bar in the downstairs of the hostel and had a beer before I went to bed, in hopes that it would help me sleep well.

There was another guy sitting at the bar by himself so I started talking to him because he looked lonely. He turned out to be a complete Looney tune. He was from Italy originally, but then his family moved to Brazil, and speaks Portuguese, Italian, and German fluently (oh yea he is 23 too). He is traveling for 5 weeks and has a strict schedule to stick to because everything is all booked. So far Iceland has been his favorite. To quote “I left my heart in Iceland”. Now one would think that he found a ladylove there, but no he fell in love with the extremely blue water. He had an extremely interesting accent and energetic personality to go with it. He kept complaining to the bartender about the music that was playing and had her change it to something he liked. Then he went on a rant to me about how he did not like wii. Needless to say, after the first five minutes of talking to him I realized that it was not going to be the interesting conversation I had hoped for and decided that I would prefer to be sleeping rather than talking to. So I finished my beer quickly, wished him all the best and said goodnight.