München: Land of Beer and Giant Pretzels

Spelled in English, this is Munich. Try your hardest to think of the most stereotypical German setting. Then try harder. Maybe you're thinking of giant beer steins filled with an impossible quantity of pitch black beer. Or perhaps giant pretzels bigger than your face. How about outdoor seating for 500 people filled to capacity for lunch AND dinner with people consuming huge, fatty meat and potatoes plates of food and washing it all down with liters upon liters of beer. Yeah, that's München.

Almost as soon as we dropped our bags at the hostel (and got our wifi fix, of course), we set off the three or four blocks to the Augustiner biergarten, one of the most popular in the city. Saying this place was packed would be an understatement. We're taking every single table filled. My guess is that there were well over 800 people there. Getting the food was a crazy experience in and if itself. To put it simply, we shoved our way into a corral where there were several stands with plates of fatty, wurst-centric food and gigantic 1L beer steins. I got a curry wurst with a 0.5L weissbier because I didn't feel like drinking a full liter of beer, nor did I feel like paying 7€ for it. After paying, we proceeded the 10 minute walk around the gigantic area of tables looking for a place to sit. Having read that it's common in biergartens to sit with people you don't know, we tried doing exactly that. Unfortunately, no one would have us. We got waved away by more old dudes and ladies than I care to mention. Eventually we gave up and just sat on the ground near the playground toward the entrance of the place.

 Munich itself wasn't a terribly interesting city architecturally or monumentally, to be quite honest. We did a ton of wandering around like we do for most cities, but there weren't any stunning things to look at or amazingly rich history to attempt to absorb. However, the place was a lot of fun. We only had two nights in the city and both of them were spent drinking beer and eating delicious, fattening German food. We also had our fair share of fun at the hostel, meeting a lot of hilarious kids traveling from London and the west coast of the US among other places. Our asses were kicked several times in foosball, but I think I held my own in pool. This was the first time we really partied with any vigor with the kids at our hostel.

The second night we went to the Haufbrauhaus; a beer hall. This was an indoor place and was pretty much exactly what you might imagine a German beer hall to look like. There were huge long tables everywhere, packed full of people, a live band, and waiters running around carrying 8 1L beer steins in two hands from table to table. Everything was in German and communicating with the natives and the waiters was interesting to say the least. It was an absolute blast. I finally consumed a full beer stein (plus an extra half liter), too. The dark beer was surpringly delicious. Good thing it was so freaking plentiful!

We also went to the BMW museum. Alex and Michael are way more into cars than me, but it was still pretty cool to look around and see all the pretty cars and exhibits. They even had their hydrogen-powered prototype engine on display along with some pretty cool gadgets.

Our night train from Munich to Berlin left at 11pm; our latest one yet. It was also the last night train of our trip, and that made me quite sad. For some reason, the regular sleeper compartments we had become so accustomed to were nowhere to be found on this train. Instead, there were two bunks on each side of the car, protected from the isle lights by a curtain. It was quite strange. The ride was good though. I actually slept for more than an hour, something I had not yet been able to achieve on this trip. Train couchettes are never really all that comfortable and they can be quite claustrophobic.

All in all, Munich was definitely worth the itinerary change. We all had a lot of fun in the city, and I'm very glad I got to fatten myself up with all that beer and German food. Next up is Berlin and my 22nd birthday!

Final Words on Austria

I actually did not expect to be back in the shadow of the glorious Alps again after our departure from Switzerland. But I am so glad I was wrong! Our REAL final encounter with those mountains came from the Austrian side of things, in the city of Innsbruck. Upon our arrival in the city and the sight of the alps dominating the skyline once again, you can bet we set off hiking as soon as possible (meaning, of course, the second day in town since the first night was spent stuffing our faces full of pizza from a university-oriented pizza shop while sitting by the river).

Unlike Gimmelwald, where we essentially took the cable car to base camp and then hiked both up and down the mountain for multiple days, here we just took the tram/funicular (one of the coolest transit engineering feats I've ever seen) and cable car up to Seegrube at around 2200m above sea level, which also happens to be the tree line. The three of us got a real kick out of being able to throw snowballs at one another in July. All the snow and stark gray walls of rock surrounding us were quite beautiful. The view of Innsbruck and the surrounding Austrian countryside wasn't too shabby either.

 

 

Our hike this time was completely down the mountain. That means that, while we didn't get the cardiovascular workout we got in Gimmelwald, we definitely got very intense leg workouts. The hike took a total of around 7 hours, if I'm not mistaken, and was made up of a mixture of overly graveled roads and a few poorly marked woodsy paths. One thing is for sure: the Austrians fail at mountain path signage compared to the Swiss.

Besides all the Alps hiking and general exploration of this cute town sized somewhere between Bern and Interlaken, this was a pretty low key stop for us, and a nice close to our time in Austria.

Quiet Days in Salzburg

We were in Salzburg, home to Mozart and The Sound of Music, for two nights. The first night we stayed in a place that was an odd combo of a hotel and hostel instead of Yoho (where we had our original reservations) because of the date changes and reservation conflicts that resulted from our addition of Munich to the itinerary. We spent that first night wandering around the old city and the gardens where a few scenes in The Sound of Music took place. We also found an awesome ice cream stand with odd flavors such as poppyseed and chocolate chili that all proved to be delicious, and indulged ourselves there for a while.

The next morning we woke up to a 45°F, windy, rainy city. We trapsed the 30 minutes from the hotel, past the grocery store at the train station, and to the Yoho hostel where we were to spend our second night. After a few hours of watching The Sound of Music and eating our grocery store lunches, we decided to just kill the rainy day by going to see Harry Potter at the cinema.

Let me just take this minute to compliment the Austrians on their seemingly ubiquitous English skills and politeness, even in non-touristy areas. It has been consistent our whole stay in Austria thus far and it has been really nice.

After the movie we got dinner at the grocery store (noticing a pattern here?) and went back to the hostel where we spent the remainder of our evening talking to the awesome British girls in our room who had decided to stay in for the night when the rain ruined their plans to find apple strudel and ice cream in the city. We were lulled to sleep by constant shouting and banging from a number of the other guests imbibing in the bar downstairs.

We woke up early the next morning to be out before 10 (the earliest we've left a hostel this whole trip) so we could actually see some of Salzburg. We took a fernicular to the Salzburger (not kidding) castle on top of the large hill in the city and afterward, we stopped by Mozart's birthplace and former residence. Finally, we hopped the 2pm train to our final stop in Austria, Innsbruck.

First Days Back West

We got into Vienna, spelled "Wien" in almost every language except English, yesterday evening. We took a 4pm train out of Prague and spent those last hours in eastern Europe just bumming around the hostel. We got here around 9pm and took a very slow tram (quite reminiscant of a city bus, actually) from the Südbahnhof train station to Westbahnhof, where we had taken our connecting train to Budapest from Venice at 6am a week or so ago. It was nice to see a familar train station and eat at a familiar pastry shop while using familiar currency. That's not to say that I haven't loved using forints, złoty, and korüna, because I loved all those, but it's just nice to not have to do decimal point moves and division in my head every time I look at a price. I actually think I'm now more used to thinking in euros than in dollars, something I'm quite sure will be reversed upon my return to the home of the latter.

Anyway, this hostel is called Wombat's and it is quite the factory. This place is more like a college dorm than a hostel, with the addition of a large bar in the basement. This is definitely a party hostel; the staff is distant and mediocre, most of the people are American frat guys, and there is hardly an air of community (outside being drunk) anywhere. This place makes me miss hostels like those in Gimmelwald and Barcelona. To make matterw better, we are staying in another branch of this hostel in Berlin as well.

We got quite a late start today. We took the metro over to Schoenbrunn, which is a palace and set of beautiful gardens that mimic Versailles. Our day was filled with walking around there, getting chased by merciless mosquitos at every turn while still enjoying the fountains, gardens, and above-ground mazes. After, I was finally able to find a replacement pair of my linen pants at a nearby H&M (mine have a huge hole in the crotch, black leather stains from the rainstorm in Rome, and hadn't been washed in about a month since I literally wear them evey day) before we got dinner from a grocery store. Packaged sandwiches, yogurt, and apples; our de facto meal for the past few weeks. Delicious!

To end the evening, we went to a kitchy, local movie theater and saw Brüno (English with German subtitles). It was quite funny and stupid, I must say, but it certainly did its job in providing me with an evening of entertainment. It would appear that Vienese people have yet to get over the whole Hitler thing, judging by the almost absolute silence in the theater whenever he was mentioned in the movie.

There has also been a route change for the trip! This is our first major one, and has proven to be quite an interesting experience to plan. Let's just say I'm very glad we booked all our hostels before this trip began. Otherwise, things would have been way more stressful, annoying, and expensive. Anyway, we decided we wanted to see Munich after all. So we cut a night each off of Vienna and Salzburg and got a hostel in Munich for two nights. I believe that increases the city count for this trip to 22!

Czech, please!

 

 

 Without a doubt, Prague was one of the most beautiful cities we've visited thus far (excluding all Swiss cities, of course). Castles, towers, and other forms of ridiculous architecture cover appear in almost every part of the city. The Bohemian flag is flown everywhere in addition to the modern Czech Republic flag, testifying the country's strong connection to it's cultural history. There is even a good story behind the Czech people's perverse adoration of their absurdly difficult language, but I won't get into that here except to say that their language is truly one of the most ridiculous Western languages I've ever seen.

This turned into quite a relaxing city, even though I don't think we meant it to be. We arrived on Saturday and meant to go out to a really good club, but ended up all falling asleep instead. I blame the ridiculously good pasta we made with vegetable sauce and sour cream. It was quite heavy and coma-inducing. Finding the ingredient was quite the adventure, too. We must have spent 20 minutes staring at a case full of cream cheese and wandering around the yogurt sections in the grocery store before finding what we hoped, and what turned out to be, sour cream. We sure bought that tub on a gamble! Gotta love languages with almost no English cognates.

Most of our three days in Prague were spent wandering through all the different quarters, touristy and not, taking in the amazing views at ever corner. The Jewish quarter here is home to the oldest synagogue in Europe, dating back to the 13th century AD. It was quite the sight, and if I'm not mistaken it still functions as a synagogue as well.

Since the Czech Republic is famous for its beer, we decided to try to sample some of it in a few different local bars. Unfortunately we were not all too successful in finding any local brews outside of Pilsner Urquell, which is basically like the Budweiser of Czech: very light and not too flavorful. The bars themselves were always a cool experience, and it only cost us about 30Kč—or $1.50—for 0.5L, but I was a little disappointed at the lack of variety we found. Perhaps we just weren't looking in the right places. I did, however, discover a new favorite liquor! It is called Becherovka, and basically tastes like Christmas in a glass. Has anyone heard of it before? It's also really good with tonic water. Hopefully it's sold in the US, otherwise I may find myself importing bottles from a distributor's web site that hopefully already exists.