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.