One 1.5 hour smooth train ride later, I found myself at München Hauptbahnhof and walking around to find my hostel which was literally a 4 minute walk from the station, very conveniently located! By coincidence, Sammy, a friend who studied with me at Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, was in Munich the exact same weekend with her boyfriend Dan, woohoo! Friends in Munich! Dan came to Barcelona after finals were done and Sammy and he had been travelling through Europe by train for a few weeks hitting up some amazing places. Anyways, I have to thank Sammy and Dan since they did they’re research on Munich much more than I did. The first night we went to the FRUHLINGFEST (literally “springfest”) which is the spring version of Oktorberfest and happens in the same fields called Theresienwiese. It’s much smaller than Oktoberfest but still much crazier than any carnival-type event that I’ve been to. Mental image (since I didn’t take many pictures, oopsies): huge carnival grounds with rides, beer halls with people dancing and singing on top of long tables with 1 liter beer mugs, lots of stumbling, and EVERYONE, all ages was dressed in traditional Bavarian outfits.
The next day I decided to go on a tour of Neuschwanstein with Sandeman’s tours, it was a really small group and everyone was really nice and interesting. There were two girls from the Midwest who were studying abroad in Copenhagen and decided to do a trip through Berlin, Krakow, Munich and Prague; next was a girl studying in Granada; and lastly there was a tiny Taiwanese girl who I thought was 16 but turned out she was a chemical engineer for a company in Kazakhstan [SUPER COOL job, she worked exactly every 30 days, so during her 30 day breaks she would rent apartments and travel around or fly home to Texas, and during the 30 days she was working, she lived on the work base in Kazakhstan and had everything provided there. Also, she told me Borat was wrong and that the natives of the country don’t look like the people in the movie; she actually was constantly getting mistaken as a local there]. I forgot to say we had a guide who was a little loco, he was from northern England and none of us could understand him, seriously, it wasn’t a regular British accent, it was like those people that say “GRRRRRRRANFATAA” instead of “grandfather” or “guillfen” instead of “girlfriend.” He knew his history really well, even though he wasn’t from the area and was only in Munich since his girlfriend decided to leave England and he followed after her, we asked him how long he was planning on staying in Munich and his response was “until my girlfriend kicks me out”…..hmmm okay then. Two hours later by slow-regional-train we reach Schwangau, the area where the castle is!
Back to Neuschwanstein, it was built for Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1868 but he only lived there for 91 days or so total, he was a bit strange and would invite a horse to eat dinner with as opposed to people. The strangest was his mysterious death which you all should Google so I don’t have to type up a section from a Bavarian history book. The castle is amazing and built on top of a mountain with a waterfall in the back; it’s actually the inspiration for the Cinderella castle. I’m sure it looks equally as amazing in the wintertime as well. To get pictures from a distance of the castle, I had to walk through this path in the woods and then go onto this extremely narrow wooden bridge, Marienbrucke, hoisted hundreds of feet in the air between two cliffs of the Alps…with about 70 people on it. AHHH! We got some good pictures and I ran off that little bridge to safe grounds. On the way back to Munich, a bachelor party decided that they wanted to play their gambling dice game with us, pick a number, groom picks a number, whoever is closest on the die has to pay whatever they bet or get a prize; the big basket of prizes was pretty sweet, lots of mini bottles of liquors and wines! This was the first of about 150 bachelor and bachelorette parties that we spotted that night in Munich; I got some Brazilian cachaça for writing “Rybak” on some bride-to-be’s shirt since her new German last name was translated into “Fisherman” and she wanted it written in a bunch of languages.
Turned out that the two Midwestern girls were not only in the same hostel as Sammy and Dan, they were in the same ROOM. So all of us went out to Hofbrauhaus that night, probably the most famous biergarten (beer garden) in Munich; it was one of the coolest environments ever, just about a thousand happy people of all ages singing and cheering and eating and drinking. Historical fact, I’ve heard that Hitler actually got kicked out of there, not sure if that’s fact or legend. There were more bachelor parties in there, and even more out in the center Marienplatz area. Dan led the way for all of us, [not to support the stereotype, but guys DEFINITELY have a better sense of direction], and we found ourselves at another biergarten outdoors in a park, Lowenbrau! Mmm good beer. By the way, Munich has 6 breweries: Hofbrau, Lowenbrau, Paulaner, Augustiner Brau, Spaten-Franziskaner and Hacker-Pschorr.
Next day I took a free walking tour of the city and took a lot of pictures and learned a lot of history especially to do with Nazism since it all started in Bavaria and Munich. There were lots of landmarks that were important including the mark where a plaque honoring Nazism was hung and everyone had to “HEIL” it when they walked by, also there were two lions that Hitler gave speeches while standing in between but the irony there was that one lion faces the church with a closed mouth, symbolizing that you shouldn’t speak against the church and the other lion has an open month facing the Maxmilianeum, the state parliament, symbolizing that one can speak their mind against the government…well not with Hitler in between. I skyped my parents from the Englischer Garten which is the biggest urban park in the world, much bigger than Central Park. It evens has man made rivers, a surfing spot, and Nudists’ Meadow (can’t miss that one…its right when you walk in).
One girl in my hostel room was from Madrid and we hung out (I got to speak Spanish in every country now that I think about it!) and she told me lots of interesting things to do with getting a job or internship after college and the job markets in different countries of Europe. She finished architecture in Spain but had a studied a semester in Germany as well, so after she graduated she got an internship in Munich at a good firm, and was doing pretty much all the bitch work in the beginning, but still was getting paid better than she would have in Spain. When I told her I was visiting Madrid in a few weeks, she got me in contact with her younger brother who offered to show me around the city and to go to a music festival with his group of friends. Making connections is so simple in Europe, it’s great.
Oh, one thing that I missed in Munich is seeing the Glockenspiel statues dance…it’s at super inconvenient times and I guess it’s overrated so maybe it’s not that big of a deal anyways. Another fun fact, when the Swedes were invading and were demanding gold from Munich, and the citizens simply couldn’t come forth with the gold, they offered liquid gold. Yep, they offered to pay in BEER. The Swedes loved this liquid gold and fully accepted the offer, and Munich was SAVED! Therefore they made more beer and perfected it and they put up a golden statue of the Virgin Mary on a big column in the middle of now-Marienplatz that is monitored 24/7 even though I think it’s quite difficult to steal a gold statue that weighs a few tons that is standing on top of a 60 foot column.
Anyways, Munich: fun time and great beer….and I don’t even LIKE beer usually.
spyinginspain 