The last day of traveling with (part of) my family had finally arrived. Not saying that it is a good thing, it just means that I am getting closer and closer to taking off on my own for a month. A lot of planning had been done by my brother and parents to make the first 3 weeks a blast and now it falls all on my shoulders to plan (or not plan) what I will be doing for the next month.
In our last full day in Munich and Germany as a whole, Bryan and I checked out of our hotel and went to the central train station to find a locker to hold our bags for the morning and part of the afternoon until we were able to check into our hostel. We eventually found them and of course the lockers only take coins...we only have paper left. HERE WE GO AGAIN. I figured we were going to have once again go on a wild goose chase to turn our paper money into coins, like we had previously in Salzburg, Austria while trying to do laundry. But no, we quickly saw there was a change machine in the wall. That was a relief. We left our bags and decided to take the train out to the olympic grounds of Munich. I believe they held the olympics back in 1972? I may not have the year right...however, there are a bunch of stadiums and a really nice park so we decided to go check it out. Located right next to the olympic grounds is BMW’s headquarters. It is an impressive building, somewhat reminded me of the Renaissance Center for GM in Detroit. They also have a BMW museum and a huge showroom located across the street. Bryan and I decided to bypass the museum but we checked out the showroom of cars, since it was free. Cars, cars, cars...I dont get it. People geeking out everywhere, we just walked through. We went and walked around the olympic stadiums. There were 3 venues that all had very similar spider web structure surrounding the structures, providing rain relief for the fans. Later we went and grabbed some lunch at a small restaurant next to the lake in the park and sat outside as it turned into a beautiful sunny day. We sat at the table talking politics and life for about 2 hours. It is good to do every once in awhile, especially since I don't see Bryan all too often throughout the year. We decided to go walk up this huge hill in the park and boy am I glad we did. Once we made it to the top, you could see all of Munich. 360 degrees of buildings and city surrounding us, we could see everything. The hill towered over the stadiums, we could see down into them actually. We could also see what we thought were the German Alps off in the distance. We sat on the top of the hill continuing our conversation for another hour or so, then we walked down to the hill back to the train station to go check into our hostel.
Once we checked into the hostel, we ventured out into the new part of town. The hostel was in an area that we had not yet explored and it appeared to be much more residential. Possibly an Italian neighborhood, as there were quite a few Italian restaurants. We sought out the giant “Goddess of Bavaria” statue. Jeez that thing is HUGE. She had a lion by her side and everything. It seemed to be the “Statue of Liberty” for Munich. Fortunately the statue was located on the back side of the fair grounds of the Spring Fest that we had attended the night before. We grabbed italian for dinner at a place a few blocks away and we decided to go back and check out the festival on a Friday night, to see how much crazier it could get.
Walking along the back of the grounds, we could see how much smaller than Oktoberfest this festival actually was. The fair grounds extended another 3 times the size of the current setup, so I cannot even imagine what goes on there at the end of September. We went back to the same beer tent that we had eaten with our parents the night before. This time the party had moved throughout the entire tent. The tables that we were sitting at eating the night before had been taken over by people standing on the benches and drinking and having a wonderful time. The tent was much more full than the night before. We decided just to grab some beers and stand along the edge and enjoy the music, we did not feel like fighting to make room at any of the full tables. We walked through the craziness of people, one kid standing on his bench saw the block M on my hat and grabbed me exclaiming, “ANN ARBOR! I LOVE THAT PLACE”. He had a thick, drunk, German accent. We had a very short conversation before we kept moving.
We posted up in an area where we could see the band playing and we enjoyed ourselves again taking in the sights and sounds of a true German beer festival. Later in the night, we started talking to these 3 girls all decked out in their fancy dresses and they were trying to explain the various drinking songs to us. The 5 of us started chatting about various things, from their experiences in America, to them asking us how we liked Germany, etc. Their english was way better than our german, but they made us speak a few words here and there in german just for kicks. We hung out with the 3 of them until everyone was kicked out of the tent around 11pm and we split ways.
Today, Bryan and I had to be out of our hostel by 10am so we tried to go grab some breakfast nearby, since we were in a residential neighborhood. We spent about 15 minutes trying to find a place, to no avail. We went back and packed up our things and went back to the main train station and grabbed some quick pastries there. Bryan wanted to store his bags again in a locker for a couple hours before he headed to the airport and I kept mine with me as my flight was a few hours before his and I was going to be heading straight to the airport. We originally were going to take the train and go wander around the downtown market area again for about 20 minutes or so until I was going to take off and Bryan would continue looking for souvenirs, but the train that was waiting for us was the train to the airport and the next one wasn’t coming for a good 20 minutes. Bryan and I parted ways as he got off the train at the main downtown station and I stayed on the train going to the airport.
This capped a wonderful 2 week adventure with my brother that I never thought would actually happen. We met up in Amsterdam 2 weeks prior and the time just flew right by. Now I am back to the road solo. I had a short dose of it for 6 days in England, but there language was not an issue. As I am currently writing on my Thai Airways flight, flying across the Black Sea, I am sure that language will become an issue at certain times, but I am excited for the challenge!
Off we go to Asia…
