09/15/11
Woke up to a chilly morning. Hopped onto the bus and off to Munich.
Contiki tours is all about the youth movement as you need to be between the ages of 18-35 to travel on this tour. Sophia made all us come up to the front and do introductions – name, occupation, where you are from, green, yellow or red light (green being single, yellow being complicated and red being taken) and of course a joke or embarrassing story. It was actually really fun as you get to see the personalities of everyone.
We rode on the coach for about 5-6 hours with a 45minute break in-between. Munich is a beautiful city and by far the prettiest. The people here are also quite beautiful as well and tall. PDA is normal here. Our hotel for the night was Haus International. It is a very popular hotel especially during Oktoberfest. They have these drunk-proof locks for the rooms with a swipe key then a turn knob. Their logic is that it is more difficult to clean inside the rooms if you puke in there so they would rather you puke in the hallways for easier cleaning. We got dropped off and given time to explore for a few hours around the main square – Marienplatz. We stopped by the Peterskirche Church where for 1,50€ we climbed the stairs to the top of the tower to see the wonderful view from up above. I am definitely out of shape. We wandered around for a bit and ended up getting Haagen Daaz – Creme Brûlée was so good. We waited until 5PM to see the glockenspiel ring and move about; it was nothing fancy but something to say we saw in person. We entered into a cafe to grab something light to eat and I had my German-made 1955 Walzflex TLR camera around my neck and an older gentleman noticed it and gave me the nod of approval.
Our group dinner was at a Bavarian beer hall – Münchner Haupt’ Gasthaus Biergarten – where we had a litre of stein which is the minimum you can get here – I finished mine! It is indeed an arm workout. Remember, if you don’t mix alcohols, you can drink as much beer as you want and there will be no hangover! As for dinner, I had the traditional pork knuckle which reminded me a lot of the chinese crispy bbq pork but saltier. Crystle chose the chicken option and the fries tasted like Mcdonalds. We had live entertainment with some people playing instruments then performances by 4 ladies in the traditional dirndl dresses come and perform by twirling and also playing multiple cowbells at once to create a wonderful tune. Everyone had a great time at the beer hall that we continued the party on the bus with everyone standing and dancing. We then got back to the hotel but for some odd reason, after having some alcohol in me, I got the door open on one turn of the knob. There was a bar in the basement where we continued the party. Just a great time by all.
All in all, Munich is beautiful in general. The architecture is amazing and even some of the buildings look like paintings. Very colourful and a very clean city. I just wish we had more time there.
