Hello! Welcome to the 5th country on the Herring Sissy Vaca: Germany! If you'd like to see the first four, you can click these links:
When we arrived in Germany, it was FREEZING and raining outside. I believe it was in the 30s, and we were wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts. We hightailed it into the Starbucks (the closest indoor heated place) to find what hostel we were going to stay in. There was another Wombats right up the street, so after some coffee to warm us up, we walked there.
Unfortunately, they were full. They did let us use the bathroom to change into more appropriate clothes for the weather. We also grabbed some maps, because all the Wombats we stayed in previously had the best maps. There were tons of ideas of things to do, some touristy and some off the beaten path. Since Wombats was full, we went next door to Jaeger's Hostel. Definitely more "party time" than Wombats.. you got a free shot when you checked in. Since we were early, we booked a room and put our bags in lockers to head out for the day.
Our hostel advertised a free tour of the New Town Hall, Neues Rathaus, so we walked towards that.
The most famous thing about New Town Hall is the Glockenspiel. Every day at 11am, it chimes, and these life-size figures recreate stories from back in the day. We made it in time to see it in action.
Bink and I really enjoyed that it looked like RAT HOUSE in German.
This is the Old Town Hall below.
We walked over to the Victuals Market (Viktualienmarkt).
The Munich Maypole!
Bink LOVED these mouse traps haha
After the market, we went to the Olympiastadion, the site of the Olympics.
Yet again, I was digging the architecture.
You KNOW we wanted to get into those water balls.
Right near the Olympic Stadium is the BMW Headquarters.
There was this little interactive station. Of course we tried to see who could win.
Of course we tried out the bikes outside.
After that, it was time for us to experience the great German tradition of beer halls!
I wish we would've dressed the part
Liter or half liter? Uhhhh, liter. Every time.
Soo Bink ordered the Munchner Sommer, thinking it was a summer brew. We ended up getting an English menu. Upon comparing the two, Binky flipped out thinking she had ordered the non-alcoholic wheat beer hahahaha! Turns out, it was a normal beer she ordered, but the horror she had was hilarious.
Too much fun at Hofbrauhaus.
Should we check out another beer hall??
Of coooooouuurrsee!
We were told these beers were delicious, but very strong.
Well they weren't kidding. We ended up having a conversation with some old grampas, and they didn't speak English, and we didn't speak German.
Beer= the universal language.
We decided to go back to the hostel after that..
While I was digging the subway tiles, someone was not thrilled that I wasn't helping read the map.
Of course I took more pics.
Well, we got separated. It took me HOURS to get back to the hostel. I finally made it back, and Bink had gone to our room, but told the front desk I hopefully would be arriving. They showed me to the room, and I fell asleep on the first open bed I saw (we were in a room with about 4 sets of bunk beds). When I woke up the next morning, Bink told me I slept in the wrong bed :/
Oops.
The next day we went in search of food. Our maps suggested this beer hall. When in Rome..
We split pork knuckle. It was delicious!
After looking over the suggestions on our map, we decided to take a couple of educational tours.
SIKE.
We took a tour of beer gardens!
The first was the "must see" beer garden.
Everywhere we went, it seemed that people were in LoOoOoVE!
We broke out the Susie Coozie! I wish we would've taken pics with this in every country. (Background: these are the coozies we had made for mom's 60th surprise bday party, and the pic is of her doing Glamour Shots. Oh so popular in the 90s)
Next we went to the biggest beer garden on earth!
We walked this trail to get back to the subway.
This one was definitely huge.
Cheers!
Of course we tried some more sausage.
We also took the time to write some more postcards!
Bink enjoyed the dark beer, called Dunkel. Of course she pronounced it DUNK el, and the locals laughed before telling us it's DUNE-kel. I tried the wheat beer. Delish!
Bink saw someone eating this pimento cheese-looking dip at a nearby table and went to get some with a giant pretzel. Scroll through the next three really fast for best effect.
It wasn't pimento cheese, but it was good!
We commented that we wish we knew more German. Knowing that German is in the same language branch as English (thanks Ms. Mack and 7th grade language foundations), we thought we could figure out some things. Looking at this stand, and seeing that people were leaving with whole fish skewered on a stick, I said to Binky, "well that should just say 'fish on a stick'"… Turns out pretty much it did! We laughed our heads off, and I got a pick with the sign.
Next we went to Nymphenburg Palace.
Woo!
The gardens were beautiful!
They warranted a jumping pic! (that I failed at capturing)
We moseyed back to the hostel afterwards to grab our bags to catch our overnight train. We sat at the bar for a bit since we had a little time to kill. We chatted with these guys sitting next to us, and it turns out Binky had a mutual friend with them! They were from Boston and knew a girl from Auburn.
(cue It's a Small World After All)
Funny story. Well, funny or disgusting. While we sat there, a guy was walking to the bathroom and vomited on the ground. The bartender didn't see who it was, so he was going to have to clean it up. We ended up squealing on the guy, so the bartender gave us free drinks! Then he promptly gave sick dude a mop and cleaner to take care of the mess.
We were almost late for the train, but we ran to the station and made it onboard. We were in a sleeper car this time, so we had beds, but we had to share it with two men. Uncomfortable to the max, but it was fine. When we woke up we were in Holland! EEE!
