München Mix: Castles, Dachau, Surfing and the World Cup

So after a long day of walking around, sleeping in parks and drinking at the Hofbräuhaus at night, Kristi and I crashed hard at the hostel. We were hoping that we would have our 3-bed room to ourselves, but when we got back a really nice Malaysian guy was in our room. We didn’t see him much, as we either left or returned immediately after one another, but the little conversation we could have in broken English, the kid was pretty nice and a good roommate (who knows what he thought sharing a room with a married couple).

This was my first hostel experience, and it wasn’t too bad at all – except one big lie:

Lies!

Now I don’t think I’m playing the old guy card, but when you have to keep your windows open because of the lack of air conditioning, it gets quite anoying when guys playing Third Eye Blind (horribly, I might add) and leadig sing alongs on their crappy guitars and drinkning out in the street until 4 am  every night. I can sleep through just about anything, but I apparently have found my kryptonite. But, nothing that 2 liters of beer each night can’t help me get through.

Hohenschwangau Castle

So, day two in Munich started with us heading to the station to catch a train to go see some castles. We grabbed what we assumed to be some normal breakfast burritos because Kristi was craving eggs, only to find that they both were covered in ketchup. The ketchup eggs were a bust, but we were heading to see some mother f’n castles, so we couldn’t be in too bad of a mood.

Neuschwanstein, aka "Cinderella", Castle

There are two main castles to visit here, and we got the skinny that one is great to tour and the other is great to look at. We first toured Hohenschangau Castle, which was at one point torn down by Napoleon and later was home to Mad King Ludwig. It was pretty neat, incluing secret passageways for the king to sneak into the queen’s room, holes covered in crystal in the ceiling in the king’s room so somebody above could light torches and it would look like stars when he was in bed, and a lot of Waggoner stuff. A LOT. Like the king had a room built just for him, and Waggoner was the only person able to stay inside the castle.  This lead us to assume that old Ludwig and Waggoner might have had a little more going on than just a friendship.

Neuschwanstein Castle

We then headed over to the grand daddy of castles – Neuschwastein, which was what Walt Disney modeled Cinderella’s Castle after at Disney World. After hiking one mile uphill, we arrived. This was Ludwig’s dream castle, but unfortunately he only finished about 4 rooms before mysteriously dying, so while the outside is amazing, apparently the tour isn’t much. So we stayed on the outside, hiking over to get an amazing view from Mary’s Bridge.

On the way back down the trail we stopped and picked these incredible fried cheese ball/poof thingies, which America should definitely adopt. That night, we ate at the Augustiner by the Glockenspiel, and then headed to the beer garden in the market to watch end of the Uruguay v Netherlands soccer game.

Delicious

Day three in Munich kicked off in stark contrast with the castles; we made our way to Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp and the one that all other’s were modeled after. Kristi had been there before and I’m positive wasn’t extremely excited about going back to (they aren’t the most uplifting places), but I really wanted to go so she let me drag her back. It was definitey an interesting, unforgetable experience and I’m glad we went.

Interesting note, apparently all German school children are required to visit one concentration camp, and, according to Rick Steves, almost no German’s know their national anthem and their flag is rarely seen outside of soccer matches. All efforts to minimize blind patriotism.

Getting back, we looked for something to get us back into vacation mode, so we headed over the park to try to find the German surfers. Yes. They exist. There is a little river running under a bridge that causes some tides that allow you to jump on a board and ride for a little while.

Memorial at Dachau

Think the boogie board ride at Schlitterbahn or Wet N Wild. No crazy tubes, but fun if you happen to live in Munich and for some reason own a surfboard.We then headed back to Kristi’s favorite spot, the Vikualienmarkt, for some soup at Die Munchner Suppenkuche, visited another Eatzi’s-esque upscale market called Alois Dallmayr’s, and then headed over to watch the world’s largest cuckoo clock, the Glockenspiel. Very disappointing, but something I guess you have to do if you are in Munich.

Surf's Up! Sort of.

Finally, what the entire city was waiting for the whole day – the World Cup semi-final game of Germany versus Spain. All day people were running around with flags, blowing vuvellas, painting their faces and, of course, drinking beer in preparation for the match. With liter beers and giant pretzels in hand, we headed back over to the beer garden in the market and staked out a spot in front of the tv Despite Spain basically owning Germany the whole time, with the score 0-0 most of the game, it was electric watching in the small crowd of people. There was still some hope after Spain scored, but wasn’t enough to pull it out. I was hoping for a giant celebration afterwards, and was not looking forward to what would happen if they lost. However, I have to hand it to the Germans, they went over and congratulated the Spaniards in the crowd and everyone took it in stride.

Deutschland v. Espania

Currently, Kristi and I are on a train headed to Berlin. We have been extremely impressed with Germany and the people here. Everyone is overly nice and helpful, and their by-the-book attitude (they all wait at crosswalks until the light changes, even when no cars are around) makes it a clean, welcoming place. (Not to mentioned the overdose of sausage, pretzels and beer!)

Germany….The Promised Land

After the miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable train ride from Florence to Munich, Blake and I arrived in the Munich train station, which was comparable to a space station after the complete disorganization that was the Florence train station.  One step in, and we knew we had arrived in heaven.  It was about 15 degrees cooler than the sweltering heat of Italy and there were giant pretzels everywhere.  Being 6 in the morning, the station was relatively empty, so Blake and I (following my brother’s advice) waited in the slowest ticket line known to man to purchase our reservations for Berlin.  Our line was so slow, that after about 15 minutes of standing there, we separated, and I was able to actually get through my line in the time the slow ticket lady was still talking with one couple.  As soon as we made it through, we were advised that we didn’t need reservations to Berlin and our love for Germany increased (despite having purchased a Eurorail pass, it turns out you must also purchase reservations for destinations in France and Italy…This is an annoying expense.  Why can’t they just add that to the ticket cost?  Argh.  I guess its actually lucky though.  There were people who didn’t purchase reservations in advance on the sleeper train chilling in the hallway, sitting on their luggage the whole time.)

Exhausted, we quickly found our hostel – Euro Youth Hostel, where we were informed that we could not check in until 2:00 in the afternoon.  Considering that we had gotten a combined maybe 4 hours of sleep on the train, we stumbled around the main section of Munich and found the best market known to man.

Yum!

Note – if you find yourself waking up before 8:00 (or being forced to be awake before 8:00) in foreign countries, it is actually the best time to be awake in all these cities.  Being the summer, there are massive HERDS of people everywhere during the afternoon, but you can count on it being virtually empty at 7:00 AM.  The market was just opening, so we found someone crushing up fruit for juices and bought two tiny cups (I am making us have at least one fruit serving a day.  I don’t want us to get scurvy!) and something called a “Philadelphiaring” which awesomely turned out to be a bagel and cream cheese.  We debated joining a walking tour of the city or a walking tour of “Hitler’s Germany” at 10:00, but decided we were way to tired, and instead walked to the English Gardens, which was the best decision we have made on this entire trip.  I can’t even describe to you how intensely happy we were walking up to a shaded area of green grass we had decided to nap on.

Our approach to the glorious napping spot

We laid down, and thus began my favorite activity of the entire trip – the best 3 hour co-nap anyone has ever had.

We were asleep approximately 10 seconds after this picture was taken.

The view

After three great hours, we woke up and headed over the nearby beer garden, where Blake decided that Germany was the greatest country in the world (apparently he is moved by sites of giant beers, sausages, and pretzels).

The biggest smile Blake has had all week.

We ate and drank and headed back to the hostel to finally check in, shower, and figure out our next few days.  We wondered around the city using my buddy, Rick Steves, as a personal reference guide for the city’s sites.  Eventually, we found our way to the Hofbrauhaus, which while extremely touristy, was just one of those things we thought we had to do in Munich.  After 2 liters of beer a piece, ridiculing the table of teenage American tourists next to us acting like complete drunken idiots, a giant plate of gravy soaked pork and sausages, and about 4 pretzels, we stumbled back to the hostel for the night.

All in all – a great day.  We are now Germany fans for life.  Future plans include traveling to see some castles, Dachau, the glochenspeil (I have no idea if I spelled that right), and the Germany/Spain World Cup game.

Now, I must wake up Blake.  It’s 8:30!

BYE!

Museums, Street Performers and Awfulness

So currently I  am on an overnight train from Florence to Munich. Unfortunately, due to a stupid error in our Eurail time table schedule, we had to take the overnight train which we did not take into consideration in our budget, so we are in coach and not a sleeper car. But fortunately, our car is pretty happening, with an Italian/German 18-year old going into flight school, an Indian Monk who is going to study German, an English college grad who is going into graduate school for Librarian-ism, and a mom from Winter Park, Colorado who is joining her daughter and her boyfriend on a leg of their trip through Europe. And, not to mention, Kristi and I just finished a full bottle of wine by ourselves (we offered, but apparently the monk and the 18-year-old flight student don’t drink), so we are feeling good to sleep on the way to Germany. UPDATE: NIGHT TRAINS ARE HORRIBLE. Contrary to my feelings written above, this was one of the worst experiences I’ve had. Nothing to do with the company, but the seats were like old solitary confinement spaces where it is just too short to stand up, and too short to lay down. It was just too small to be comfortable.  (KRISTI INTERJECTION:  Also, the air conditioning wasn’t working, there was a baby stranded in a stroller in the hallway near our car – crying its little eyes out, and at some point, I decided that I would be more comfortable laying on the dirty, dirty floor.  This lasted until I remembered trying to find a bathroom to use earlier, only to find the closest one filled to the brim with pee and poop.  While laying on the floor attempting to sleep, all I could imagine was that toilet overflowing and pee and poop making its way over to me, laying there on the nasty floor.  Needless to say, I quickly stood back up and rearranged myself uncomfortably in my tiny chair.) So our advice would be to avoid the night train at all costs, or at least spring for a sleeper car.

But we need to get back to our last days in Florence…

Our last two days have been comparitively relaxing, being our Florence museum days. However Kristi is still waking up at 6:30 am and rearing to go, so they are starting out early. Yesterday, we woke up and found a little local cafe for breakfast, which turned out to be a lot like the Italian Cheers where everybody yelled the guys’ name who walked in, only subsitute cappucino for barley pops, and insert two American tourists who have no idea what the hell is going on. The highlight of the day was going to the Galleria Accademia to view the David, by Michealangelo. It was 100% worth the hype. Then we walked around Florence, which turns out to be much more beautiful and amazing than the area around our hotel would make it out to be. We found ourselves at a wine bar and then a great pizza joint across the river for dinner, partaking in many a vino and bierre before treaking back to the hotel – only to be sidetracked by what I can call the greatest street performance known to man. We caught a few words of English and figured they had to be from the U.S., so I went and talked to the camera man (who was documenting their travels) and it turns out they are a 19-piece brass band from Providence, Rhode Island, some go to Brown and others just used their vacation from work to do a 2-week mini-tour through Italy. Check out the greatess of the What Cheer? Brigade:

The next day began with a MacGyver-like adventure involving a camera charger. I accidentally brought a charger from Kristi’s old cameara and the battery wouldn’t fit; running through my options of buying a new camera, using disposables/iPhone for the rest of the trip, or smashing apart the old charger with a chair in hopes I could piece it together to fit the new battery, I went for the latter and here’s the result:

Yes, those are band aids holding it together.

We then packed up and headed for the Uffizi gallery, which, along with rows and rows of baby Jesus and Mary paintings, main acts include Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Spring.

And later that night, we packed up for our overnight trip to Munich and leads us to now. We will see what Germany has in store, but I can tell you it will include many pretzels, beer and sausage. I can’t wait.

4 Hours of Waiting, 3 Minutes of Horse Racing

I can sum up our first full day in Europe with about 4 words:

1) Hot
2) Crowded
3) Exciting
4) McDonald’s

Thanks to my 9:00 pm bedtime, I was all bright and shiny by 5:30 in the morning.  Luckily for Blake, I am nothing but considerate, so I let him sleep until 6:15 am, before waking him up with a thoughtful poke to the cheek.  In the 45 minutes that I was awake, I had googled “best cappuccino in Florence” and had a list of cafes for us to try in the next few days.

Of course, we were some of the only people on the street, but we drank our cappuccino and ate our pastries and started off towards the train station, where we needed to reserve our tickets to Munich for the next day.  There, we met my nemesis, Rude Italian Train Ticketer.  He rudely informed us that there was only one overnight train to Munich, despite our liar of a Eurorail Train Guide.  He had no patience for us, so I, of course, had no patience for him.  Either way, he won, and it looks like we have to head to Munich on a train during a time in which we should be laying down instead of sitting upright.  Hopefully we have improved our sleeping while sitting skills on the trip over here, because from 9:30 PM – 6:30 AM on July 4 we will be on a train in route to Munich.

After all that excitement, we boarded our bus to Siena.  I had big plans of watching the scenery, but ended up napping the entire trip.  Upon arriving in Siena, we immediately headed up the giant hill to get a look at the main cathedral.  Worried (for no reason, it turns out) that we would not have enough time to both tour it AND wait in the heat to see the Palio, we admired it from the outside, and I got this amazing shot of both Blake AND the cathedral.

Look! I got on a knee to take this picture because I am such a good photographer.

After exploring the city for a while and walking approximately 8 miles entirely up hill ( seriously, I feel it today.  Italians should have amazing butts with all that hill walking they do), we bought some pizza for lunch and ate it in the nearest doorway we could find.

Our favorite place to be, out of the sun.

After a while, we decided that we better hurry up and sit out in the sun and wait for the race or we might not get a good spot.  This proved to be a mistake.  First of all, it was one million trillion degrees outside.  Second of all, only the young people (of which I am not) waited in the sun for 4 hours for the race to start.  Everyone else piled in right before, and seemed to be just fine.  However, Blake and I are dumb, so we sat out in 100 degree weather on some cobble stone ground, sweating and waiting for the race to begin.

The water truck, which kept the dirt down and cooled down those of us who were sitting in the sun for hours.

Finally, at around 5:00, there was some activity occurring around the track.  Assuming the race was about to begin, Blake and I got ready picking our favorite mascots (side note:  the race pits the 17 neighborhoods of Siena against one another.  Each neighborhood is absolutely covered with flags displaying their colors and mascots.  These mascots are sub par.  I mean, there is a porcupine, a clam shell, a caterpillar, wood, and a fish, amongst others), the porcupine – me and the duck – Blake.  However, unbeknown to us,  we still had a 2.5 hour procession to sit through.  Thanks to our new friends, Francesco and Lizbeth, who had been sitting next to us the entire time and wanted to work on their English, we learned the meaning of each of the different groups who walked slowly by, throwing flags and wearing velvet.  I won’t bore you with all the facts, but I will show you this picture of a man in a mask with a hand coming out of his hat because it is awesome.

Weird!

Finally, after the longest most boring parade ever known to man, the horses lined up for the race.  And then there was about 10 faults, which caused the audience to yell out in anger.  Finally (seriously, FINALLY), the race began – and man, people were EXCITED!  You can hear my screaming in this video (I actually think it might be someone else, but who know.)

In about 3 minutes, the race was over.  I am pretty sure that Wood won, but there was no real way to tell.  Horses were running without riders, people were shouting obscenities, and men began crying.  And then violence began.  The man next to us began SOBBING with despair that his neighborhood’s horse did not win.  Other men joined him.  Still others began pushing us around, looking to fight someone.  Our new friend Francesco told us in a worried voice that we needed to exit the area quickly (we were right near the track, thanks to our awesome waiting abilities and therefore, a little too close to the action), so Blake and I worriedly started walking quickly to the bus station.  We then entered, what I can only describe as pandemonium.  There was blood on the ground and men running around punching people.  It was intense.  You can see all the blood on the ground and hear my bad-ass-ness in this video -

Needless to say, we made it out safe and passed out on our bus for the hour long trip back to Florence.

Oh yeah, and McDonald’s?  It was way too late, and we were way too tired, so we made the cultured decision to eat a quick dinner of McDonald’s near our hotel room.  It was the best big mac I have ever tasted.