Munchen, Bavaria

 February 24, 2022

We started our time in Munich with a free walking tour. It began at the famous glockenspiel so we got to watch the marionettes dance around while the bells rang. 

We learned a lot of things on our tour including:

-It was tradition that after finishing their butcher apprenticeship young boys would have to jump into this fishhead fountain naked.

-This statue of Juliet (as in Romeo and Juliet) is a gift from a Shakespearean town in Italy where the play originated. They have a co-op program with Germany and wanted German citizens to have a way to earn good luck. The legend says they simply need to rub Juliet's golden breast and luck will be theirs.

-This plaque marks the place where Hitler gave his kristallnacht speech. It is now a toy museum.

-Legend has it that King Ludwig's monkey went rogue in the palace one day and kidnapped Ludwig's heir to the throne. The monkey climbed all the way to the top of this spindle with the child before returning him safely back to his cradle.

-Hofbrauhaus: enough said.

-The bows on women's traditional German clothing is used to tell their relationship status. Bow on the right- taken. Bow on the left- looking. Bow on the back- widowed or waitressing.
Yeah, that last one didn't make sense to me either 🤷‍♀️

-This beautiful yellow church was built as a gift to honor ONE. SINGLE. CHILD. 🤯

-These gold bricks bear witness to the resistance movements happening in Germany during Hitler's reign. Citizens who did not want to heil Hitler in the main square took side roads like this one instead.

After our walking tour we got lunch at an Asian soul food pop up. It wasn't the best sushi I've ever eaten, but the bathroom was free. 😊 

After lunch we enjoyed the sunshine in the Munich Residenz Gardens before making our way into the Palace for a tour. The opulence and grandeur are mind blowing.  Velvet walls, gold plated windows, custom made mirrors.

After the palace we went back to our hostel so Gina could shower and I could blog. We grabbed a happy hour beer at the hostel bar (with 1 euro off it was 3.90 for a half liter 🍻)

 

For dinner we went for traditional German food. Our waiter was obsessed with yelling "chi-ca-go" every time he came to our table. We tried a deer meat stew with spaetzle, beets and pear with chutney. I thought it was delicious! We also ordered some dark bread with spreads, however they were skimpy on the bread; we only got one piece to share. 😔

Friends I travel with always joke how friendly and approachable I am, sometimes to a fault. And it was no different on this trip. Gina went to the bathroom and immediately the men at the table behind asked if I could take their picture. They started chatting with me and invited me to have a beer with them (two of my favorite parts of travel- beer and making new friends!) But we had places to go and people to meet so we declined the offer from the Austrians and headed to Killian's, an Irish/Australian karaoke pub. It was packed so we ended up being sat at a table with three others we didn't know. After ordering our first round we got to chatting with the girl who looked about our age. She told us she met the two (much older) men that she was with while grabbing pizza and came here with them 😬 hhmm.. I had assumed she was out with her dad and uncle or something. After she finished her drink she left and then Gina and I were stuck with two old men we couldn't communicate with. They kept trying to talk to us and we kept trying to use gestures and words to hammer home the point that we did not speak German. They tried to order us shots but we declined and the waitress had to translate-- thank goodness for her! The atmosphere was buzzing and the karaoke lineup was really good. Gina got her name on the list and when she went up to sing the crowd went wild. Everyone was singing along and the old men at our table went up to the stage to get a video. They then proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes trying to show Gina the video (she was there so I'm pretty sure she remembers) and trying to convince her to give them her number so they could whatsapp it to her.🤦‍♀️ These are the type of friends I don't like making when traveling. We appealed to a table of younger Germans across the way who immediately adopted us into their karaoke family. Our friends were clearly jealous and came over to chat with the boys in German. Luckily for us the boys sent them on their merry way. Too bad it was almost bar close. We had a really fun night at Killian's and I would highly recommend it for those diehard karaoke-ers out there.

Small People In Small Places Do Small Things

February 23, 2022 

Today was our last day in Berlin. Gina went on a 3.5 hour walking tour that I opted out of because the bathroom situation here in Berlin is tricky. Many places don't have bathrooms, and those that do require payment. I didn't think I'd make it 3 and a half hours without the toilet and was afraid I'd lose my group if I wandered too far. (Y'all remember the Russian restaurant incident, right? And that was close to home!)

Anyway, I relaxed at the hostel and caught up on some blogging while G was away. Then Ben and I (one of the guys we had met the night before) met Gina at The Berlin Wall. There's lots of cool art work along it, but some of my favorites are below:

After we went to this super cool hippy commune with artwork made of garbage, a telephone booth sized solo disco and lots of small eclectic eateries and drinkeries.  

Our day wouldn't have been complete without a good dinner so we checked out a Japanese American fusion place called Shiso that made burgers in a whole new way. Since the three of us were now besties we ordered 3 burgers to share. The kitchen was outraged at our request to cut the burgers, or to get silverware at all, so we became fast friends and shared bites of burgers with one another. We're triple vaxxed for a reason, right?

After saying our goodbyes (to my favorite lobby giraffe) at the hostel, we took public transit to the train station where we'd be boarding our 4 hour train bound for Munich. 

I tried to sleep but couldn't get in a comfortable position so was in and out most of the way. Luckily for us, our hostel, Wombats, is a 3 minute walk from the station so we (I say we but y'all know I really mean Gina) had an incredibly easy time navigating us there. When we arrived we ended up in the elevator with another American who happened to be in our room. She was so excited that we were roomies and escorted us the rest of the way and excitedly introduced us to everyone upon entering. It was a mini midnight party 🥳  What a fun way to start our time in Munich!

Museums Minus the Disgusting Food

 February 22, 2022

We were up and at 'em early so that we could enjoy coffee with a hostel mate before heading out for the day. He was Canadian and has been traveling for almost 7 months. He took an immediate interest in us the night before because of our friendliness, and invited us for a coffee the next day. His story is that of a traveler, but is especially intriguing because he was in Ukraine prior to coming to Germany. After wishing him well and saying our goodbyes we set out for the Cathedral. There are 267 steps up to the dome that provides a small walkway with 360 degree views of the city.

While it was very cold and windy at least it wasn't raining. The views were beautiful, both inside and out. 

After we went to the Pergamom Museum which shows the history of the Middle East. It was 3 floors of artifacts, but one of my favorites was this stone carving in which the men appear to be playing rock, paper, scissors 🤣

After we had lunch at a traditional German restaurant where we tried currywurst (it was HUGE) and flammkuchen (the equivalent of German pizza). They weren't our favorites but they weren't bad. I enjoyed the mustard based potato salad with cucumbers most. 

After lunch it was on to museum number 2, The Bode. The Bode is an art museum and some of my most favorite exhibits were the room of mirrors and the photography installation of sex workers through snapshots. 

We decided to take the scenic route home and boy am I glad we did. As we walked along the river we heard SO MANY HORNS honking so we stopped to see what was happening. A group of cars had crowded onto a sidestreet and blocked traffic. There were drummers who stepped out and were playing while men in suits were hanging out of cars honking and laughing. There was also a photographer and flowers adorning the hood of one of the vehicles. We never were able to figure out what why this was happening, but after it dispersed a few of the cars were heading our direction. We heard the men sporadically honking and hanging out their car windows all the way down the street. 

We got back to the hostel and packed our bags since it was our last night in Berlin and then went out for dinner with Lola, one of the girls we had gone to the Disgusting Foods Museum with. We went to a tiny cafe where I had lentil soup and cheese filled naan- so delicious! We decided to spend the evening at the hostel brewery and were so glad we did. There was a new bartender, Danylo, and he let us play DJ for the evening. We met travelers from Australia, Israel, UK, Brazil and danced the night away with them. We had so much fun singing that at bar close we decided to head across the street to Mein Haus Am See, where there was supposedly a dance floor. Unfortunately the downstairs was closed so we ended up sitting on stairs with pillows and paying cash only for drinks. Either way it was a fun night with new friends.