Munching in München

Germany: Munich

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We gathered all of our things early in the morning on our last day and walked to the bus stop in the pouring rain. We had been lucky with the weather up until then, but sadly we weren't so lucky for our last day. Jess has left super early that morning to catch her flight because she had friends flying in later that day, so it was just Miri, Kendyl and I in Germany.

We took the train to Munich and spent the day in the city until we had to go to the airport. Miri didn't know too many spots to show us in Munich, but she brought us to the few places she could think of. As we walked around, the architecture looked very German to me which was cool to observe. We walked to a church and a very gothic and beautiful cathedral. I think the cloudy skies added to the darker feel of the city, but not in a negative way.

We walked to a small market but there wasn't really much to it, so we decided to make our way to lunch. We decided to eat at the original Hofbräuhaus restaurant which was founded in 1589 and now there are franchises all over the world. The inside of the restaurant was overwhelming. It was packed and there were waiters running everywhere and tourists walking through and a band playing in the middle. One thing I noticed about restaurants in Munich, or at least the two we went to, was that they sit you at large tables next to strangers. I didn't really mind, I just had never encountered that before. The other thing that quickly caught my eye was the giant beer steins. Miri and Kendyl each got one and not only could I not believe their size, but their weight was surprising too. I didn't know drinking beer could also be a workout.

For my meal I got pork belly with a bread dumpling which was pretty good and very filling. As we were eating our food, I experienced another bad encounter with an Asian. I swear I'm still not racist, but wow, most of them seem to have no respect for other humans. Here's what happened: We were eating our food when all of a sudden an Asian man walks up to our table, unusually close, and then pulls out his phone and starts taking pictures of our food. Weird.. and then it got even weirder when he started taking pictures of us with our food. We weren't smiling or anything, we were confused and a bit shocked that this was actually happening. After we shook our heads at him and clearly looked displeased, he finally walked away and we continued eating. Maybe two minutes later, he comes back even closer and starts trying to take pictures of Miri eating. She says no and he keeps asking and telling her to hold the beer stein and and keeps saying no, but he doesn't seem to want to accept that answer. He finally walked away and didn't come back, but I still cannot believe how arrogant and inconsiderate that man was. Last time I checked girl eating aren't a tourist attraction..

On a more positive note, two women ended up sitting down next to us and I had some great conversation with them. One was from the UK and the other was from California and apparently they meet up once a year. I honestly could have talked to them all afternoon, but sadly we had to get going. I regret not asking to add them on Facebook or something because I really enjoyed chatting with them and would have loved to stay in contact.

We started walking to a bakery on our way to a park in hopes we could get a large pretzel to take and eat in the park. Unfortunately, hardly anywhere in Munich accepts card, so we needed to take cash out before we could purchase our pretzels. We found an ATM and then walked to the park which had a beer garden, and we hoped we would be able to find a pretzel there. To our surprise, when we arrived, the beer garden was closed and I overheard a guy who worked there saying it doesn't open until September. Oops. So we hopped on the bus to take us back to the city center.

We ended up finding a place with super cheap beer and pretzels, so we decided to stop there before going to the airport. I got a Radler which is the closest thing to beer that I can tolerate. It was okay, but I still prefer cider or something else. We enjoyed some pretzels and drinks and then hopped on the train to the airport.

I wish we could've spent more time in Munich and had better weather, but we were lucky with how much we were able to see over the few days we were there and with the great weather we had up until the last day.

On the plane, I couldn't believe that the next plane I would be on would be to Connecticut.