Karissa's European Adventure: Munich

Hallo Everyone,

After leaving Vienna we travelled onto Munich (Munchen) and into Germany. On our talk Mia told of lots about this country and it's history.

Me with my beer stine in Munich

Germany:

Is the richest country in Europe and is very famous for its beer/beer halls, ice wine, forests and cars (BMW, Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen) amongst other things.There are more than 1500 different types of sausages countrywide and Germany also has many beautiful vine covered valleys. Germans love their food, some famous traditional foods include: pork knuckle and potatoes, chicken and gravy, pretzels and black forest cake. Germans are said to be very precise, orderly people who are also very punctual and take things a little more seriously. They have strange rules like they can't wash their car or mow their lawn in between 12-3pm and you can't tune your piano after 12pm either lol. Germany it famous for its beer and beer halls and also the famous party known as Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest originally started out as a wedding party and brings in travellers from all over the world. Germany is also famous for its composers Beethoven and Bach and used to be known for its famous techno music 'Love Festival' which was cancelled in 2010 because their were 21 deaths and became too dangerous.

Munich (Munchen):

When we arrived in Munich it was a Sunday and everything was pretty much closed and the streets were pretty quite. We decided to have Burger King for lunch because we were dying for some normal take away food. After walking around we decided to walk up St Peter's Bell Tower to get a birds eye view of Munich. There were so many stairs which were quite skinny and made it difficult to walk up. Once we got to the top we could see over the city and many of the main sites of Munich. After that we decided we would go sit down and have a coffee and relax since hardly anything was open. I don't drink coffee but Rachael and Hamed were slight coffee heads and wanted a cup to get their fix. When we got to the restaurant this waiter that stunk of smoke popped out of nowhere and tried to get us to come into the restaurant. We all walked in with Hamed towards the back and apparently saw him say something smart about us all to the waitresses and they started laughing. The waiter made some harsh comments about us not being able to speak English and Hamed just cracked!lol So awkward but funny at the same time watching the two of them get into an argument. Hamed ended up asking to speak to the manager and the waiter soon changed his smart ass tune into an apologetic one. The place had a bad vibe so Jess, Hamed and I decided to go somewhere else. Hamed was quite worked up but after a smoke and a laugh about what just happened he was his crazy old self again. We all sat and had something to eat and drink at this nice little German bakery shop and chilled out.

German bakery

Me at the top of St Peter's Bell Tower

Me in Munich

Taylor and Rachael in Marienplatz

Mia had told us that the Toy Museum here wasn't worth going to and quite creepy but with hardly anything to see that day and time on our side Jess and I decided we wanted to check it out lol It was 4 Euro to get in and some of the toys in the Museum were creepy and you kept waiting for the dolls to start moving as we looked into the weird displays. I remember thinking to myself who actually comes and visits this museum and enjoys it....?lol We did however get to see some of the first ever 'Barbie' dolls and the original Ken doll which was the highlight of the museum but I definitely wouldn't go back there ever again lol

Creepy Dolls at the Toy Museum

World First ever Barbie Dolls lol

At 5pm we waited around the Marienplatz- a great starting point for historic buildings which dominates the square with it's neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus. We got to watch its ever dancing Glockenspiel which brought the square to a stand still as we watched knights jousting and listened to the music as the toys inside spun around for about 5-10 minutes.

The neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus

Beautiful human statue in Munich

Me and the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus

The Neues Rathaus

The Glockenspiel

Me in Munich

That night we stayed at the 'Haus International' in Munich and I stayed in a room with Tara and Rachael. We decided with only one mirror in the bathroom to have 2 minutes each in front of the mirror while we were getting ready for the German beer halls that night. It worked quite well and none of us got stressed out as no one was hogging the mirror that night lol After a quick change we we off to one of the city's famous beer halls. We arrived and immediately had our drink orders taken. I don't drink beer but tried a raddler-beer cider and lemonade. I absolutely hate the taste of beer and the froth pfffttt yuk!I now know how the boys that visited the winery with us felt when they didn't enjoy drinking wine, god help me drinking beer at Oktoberfest later on this year! I did try and drink as much as I could but was enjoying seeing Steven having a good time. He had been dying to come to Germany and is a big beer drinker so he was in heaven. He had quite a few pints of beer that night and Cumber (dads) schooner sculling best friend would have loved this place! We watched traditional German dancing and saw girls in their 'dirndl's' which is a traditional German dress and the men in their 'Lederhosen' outfits.

Me and Mia (wearing her dirndl)

Everyone was singing the German toasting song and saying prost before drinking their beers and we even got our photos taken with our stines that were placed into a keyring for us to purchase. We also got to eat German pork knuckle which had amazing crackle on it with weird tasting potatoes. I enjoyed the night but was ready to drink some drinks I actually liked back at the hostel with the two Contiki groups that were staying there. We got back to the bar/club and started dancing with the girls. The bar was pretty packed and the bar staff were so slow serving everyone drinks it was ridiculous. One of the other boys from the other Contiki group tried to fight Michael from our group after he'd bumped into him whilst dancing. I think that the guy from the other group was just trying to act all tough and if he really wanted to hit him he would have that night instead of being all talk about it. It was kind of exciting because as everyone knows I don't mind seeing a good biff but it killed the atmosphere and the dance floor became dangerously slippery.

Rachael and I went outside to have some smokes on the balcony and after she went back inside I saw a man walk angrily into the car park closely followed by a girl who seemed upset. I couldn't see them after they went around the corner but I could hear what sounded like him hitting into her and she was screaming and calling out for him to stop. I hate hearing any kind of domestic violence and it just bought back too many memories. I quickly ran inside to grab the security guard to help the girl and he went outside to find they had already driven off in their car. If she didn't leave him after that she's an idiot who will put up with that for the rest of her life! I finished my smoke when Hamed came out for one too. We decided we were hungry and went to get something to eat from the shop across the road. We sat and chatted while we ate our food outside the reception area that night and watched drunk people coming and going which was funny. I decided I'd had enough of drinking and Hamed and I said our good nights and went to bed.