June 4-7 - My Trip To...Munich!!

Day 10-13, Prep + Munich

First off, some bad news: I wasn't able to go to Basel yet :( We decided to cancel our trip because the trains weren't going at the times we needed. But it's alright, I'll make sure to head their later.

Anyway, my Eurail pass arrived LATE (and here I payed an extra 20 euros for expedited delivery). So, I was pretty depressed since I wouldn't be able to go to Straussborg, but luckily another group going to Munich had a spot open, so i jumped at the chance!

No Eurail pass wasn't a problem; we were going to do the backpacker's way: regional train hopping. We switched trains 4 times each way, but the train fare was only 23 euros so that can't be beat.

I must say running from train to train was fun. When we finally got there, it was pretty rainy. Oh, and we decided to stay in a hostel. No, not a hotel, not a motel. Those were far too expensive. For those that don't know, a hostel is essentially packing 14 people into bunk beds in a relatively small room with 2 bathrooms.

I had never stayed in a hostel before, but I thought it would be a pretty fun experience to try out. I made sure to lock everything in my personal locker (you never know, right?, and the first night was a breeze. We woke up bright and early, and headed out to the Marianplaz.

Let me tell you: Munich is the COOLEST CITY ON THE PLANET!! Obviously, it hosts Oktoberfest, the largest beer festival in the world, but it also has such an amazing history. We took a tour all around, including finding the most famous beer hall in the world, the legendary Hofbrauhaus, a place older than Christopher Columbus (LITERALLY). Oh, and i mean come on, it has it's own VOMITORIUM!! Really, that's what it's called!! There are few things on the planet hotter than Bavarian women in full costume carrying 10 Liters of beer to our table.

Oh, and check out this church (sorry for the poor quality, took it on my iPhone):



We also learned some details of the Holocaust from a Munich perspective. The Nazi party was essentially based in Munich, so obviously they tried to be as ruthless as possible when dealing with the Jews.

Only 81 Jews survived out of over 8,000 in the city. In 2006, the Jewish community of Munich was large enough to rebuild a very large Synagogue. I know that the outside looks a bit ugly, but inside is one of the most beautiful synagogues I've ever seen, both for the symbolic message it sends and it's sheer beauty.

Beyond that, of course, was the BEER!! SO MUCH BEER!! EVERYWHERE!! Apparently, Munich set up their first standards for what could go into beer in the 1500's (Wolfgang I think?), far before anyone else. During the late 1800's, they had cow festivals every year and drank wine. However, they decided that it was too expensive to continue doing that, so they instead decided to change it for the more profitable beer. For years after the beer festivals would get larger and larger, and Oktoberfest was born!! Munich's size of 1.4 million grows to 5.3 million for that period of time.

Another story: back in the day, only the nobles were allowed to have Wheat Beer. Then one of the Kings of Munich decided that he wanted to sell it to the people. So he set out two declarations: First, that only HE could brew and sell wheat beer, and second, that he had gathered a group of top scientists together (this is the 1600's I think) and they concluded that for men 8 Liters of beer per day was healthy and for women 7 Liters (literally true!!).

You would think that would make everyone fat, but they got so drunk that they thought it made everyone else more hot ;) Of course, those two policies were totally unrelated I'm sure.

They also have this holy grail of beer. It has all the beer recipes from the major brewers of Munich, and it had 4 keys. All keys must be inserted simultaneously to open it, but they're apparently lost. Legend has it Budweiser is on a worldwide mission searching for the keys. Every year at the end of May they have a church ceremony honoring this grail (I saw the ACTUAL grail, it's really just a wooden case and it's over 500 years old)

They have 16% (?!?) volume beer which i find absolutely incredible, and is the highest potency beer on the planet i think. I don't think i can ever drink Budweiser again...it's officially "piss water" in my book. Seriously, this beer is so much better.

Our guide Ricky told us a funny story about a guy from Alabama who was a big drinker. He bragged to Ricky that he could down 15 beers in a sitting, unlike Ricky who could only down 6.

Ricky challenged him, and the poor kid curled up in a corner after 4 beers...Munich beer is STRONG!! Anyway, enough about beer (although did I mention it was really good in Munich??). The rest of the trip involved visiting the sites, all sorts of huge churches and the synagogue, as well as taking this great tour around the city. But the most memorable experience didn't occur till later that night...

I also met English-speakers of all varieties on the tour which was so cool! I met a Canadian, Australian, a Scottish couple, Brits, and of course a Deep South American (that's an accent!). So many accents trying to speak the same language, but it sounded so weird to anyone watching i guess that we were able to fully understand one another. English is such a cool language.

Here's the story that I'll remember for quite a while... So we needed to stay in Munich for a second night at the hostel. We got back around midnight and we all got to sleep pretty quick. Remember, this is a hostel so there are far more people than simply the 5 of us who went together. At around 3 AM I was awoken by an...odd noise.

The blog is PG-13, so I'll only put in some subtle innuendo... Let's just say that the bunkbed next to mine was very clearly lacking in WD-40, in all the wrong ways. Being groggy, I confusedly looked around for the source of the noise that woke me...yea, site I never want to see again. Really, to do it in a public hostel was nothing short of insulting. And the guy wasn't even staying in the hostel.

So I'm the closest bed to them (they covered the opening *mostly* with a blanket, how thoughtful...), and it goes on for a good 45 minutes, all the while me hearing things that I really didn't want to hear and wishing I had a giant thing of WD-40 and earmuffs.

If I wasn't scared that the guy would pop my face in, I would have just yelled my ass off at them. I couldn't fall asleep so I just read a book, all the while this WD-40-induced sound (and others, unfortunately...) continued.

Now I have an all-new one for the great game "Never have I ever..." lol.

There goes my sanity and 45 minutes of sleep that night...When the rest of my friends in the hostel found out they were cracking up to no end (they were separated by a door so they didn't wake up from it.

Anyway, I'm back in Freiburg now. Gotta do my homework, shower, and head to bed, so talk to you all later!! Still searching for the perfect gift for Katlyn :) I considered this outfit from Munich, but it was too expensive ;)