Our train left Freiburg at 7:50 in the morning which meant getting up around 6. The train was really quiet, but as usual I was unable to sleep. I was also in charge of making sure everyone else got up and off the train at our change in Karlsruhe. Watching the German countryside go by was not a bad way to spend the first 5 hours of being awake.
Once we got to Munich we had a couple hours to kill before we could check in so we dragged our bags to a Brauhaus and had an amazing German meal. I had some german ravioli and stuffed meatballs covered in gravy all atop spätzle. We went to check in to our hotel and then began to explore Munich. By this time it was 4:30 and everything basically closes at 5, so anything touristy was out of the question. We decided to just wander and see what we found...which was the Palace of Justice. We think it's their big courthouse, but was architecturally beautiful and austere. Then we walked down the main stretch of town which was lined with stores, many high end clothing. We must have given off an American Tourist vibe because a guy from Syracuse offered to take our picture. He's been living there for four years and recommended some places to go and eat.
We kept wandering eventually getting hungry and had a great dinner. I had trout salad...which we quickly determined Alyssa did not like. Adam, Alyssa, and Kori got an apple strudel dessert which they shared a little of that was incredible and Kori's apple fritters were set on fire at the table. We walked around a little more, but it was cold and we'd been travelling all day so we fell asleep by 12.
The next morning we visited three churches (dad, are the insides of the picture below carved or moulded?). It's really strange to think that churches here are twice as old as our entire country. We obiligatorily watched the Glockenspiel, but got bored before the cuckoo and left. We climed the tower of St. Peter's church which had an amazing view of the entire city, but was bitterly cold. By then we were all numb and hungry so we found a cafeteria type place for lunch then split up: Adam and I wanted to go to the Bontanical Gardens and the other three went to a museum.
The Botanisher Garten was exactly what I needed on a frigid January day. It was at least 20˚ celsius in every room and they smelled amazing. The Orchids were so colorful and after my last rant about smoking the air felt like therapy for my lungs. We wandered through all the rooms (each was either a different region of the world or a different type of plant) and then sat in the victorian garden room and talked for a while. After we met up with the others back in town...or at least attempted to. We knew we had seen the really touristy Hofbrauhaus where we were eating, but couldn't for the life of us find it. It was snowing and really cold and our German did not get us any clearer directions than our english. One fruitstand lady just kind of pointed off to her left. We finally found them and had a good dinner. We ran into the group of IES boys who were in Munich too, but were at different stages of dinner so we didn't join up (it's also really hard to do anything in a group bigger than 5 anywhere in Germany).
We took naps, and got ready for the night. Our hotel gave us free passes for either beer, coffee, pop, or tea at the bar. I had a cappucino because i was exhausted. We went to a nice bar to have drinks before dancing. I decided to be a real person and have an actual drink. Peach Cooler was a good choice. After sitting and talking for a while we went to find Kunstpark Ost: an area that has 25 different clubs all in one area. We tried out a couple and ended up back at the hotel around 4:30. Paul ended up in the front of the cab, which could have been disaster as he doesn't speak any German, but lo and behold the driver was from Belarus and Paul is from the Ukraine and they had a lovely conversation in Russian while our cabby raced another.
The next day being Sunday there was nothing open. We went to the Residenz Museum which is an old palace with over 100 rooms. It was so ornate almost to the point of excess, but it was old and must have been acceptable back then. We had time to kill before our train, but like I said nothing was open so we went to get hot chocolate which turned out to be the best hot chocolate I've ever had. It was served as hot milk with whipped cream and a little pitcher of chocolate on the side for you to mix in. It kept us warm as we wandered back to the train station where we killed an hour (there's nothing to do there) and then took the train back.
It was a great trip, always fun to see another foreign city and of course spend time with some awesome people. This weekend I'm going to Berlin to visit Christof and see another city!
4 comments:
Peach cooler? PEACH COOLER? Munchen is about the beer. BIG glasses suitable for taking a sponge bath.
MTH
Halley! Your trip sounds awesome, and I'm proud of you for having an actual drink. That's more than I've done in Paris, anyway... But what I wanted to tell you is that the German girl I met in one of my classes is from Freiburg! So she was really excited to hear that I had a friend there. When you come visit me in Paris I'll have to introduce you two, and you can speak German together while I sit there interjecting my two words of German. It'll be fun!
Sounds cool, Halley! I have tickets to Germany but I only have 5 days... is it possible to do Frankfurt, Trier, Freiburg and Maastricht Holland in that amount of time??? I need to plan everything better this weekend... I'll definitely keep you posted. I enjoyed reading about your trip.. I've always wanted to visit Munchen... another time this year, I'm sure!
-RITA
"We obiligatorily watched the Glockenspiel, but got bored before the cuckoo and left."
Good call, Halley. Never tour out of duty. Kind of like seeing the shoe museum when you're in Toronto... I mean, why?! Or Loma Linda... as if!!
Question for you: I spent a year in Freiburg (as you know) and stayed in the "Studentensiedlung am Baggersee" (how quaint). Where are you staying? I have such great memories of Freiburg. Naturally, I'm jealous. Our Stockwerk (sieben) had a communal kitchen and no other Americans cluttering up the place. We really "bonded" with each other, as they say. But unfortunately, I have lost touch with them all. Sad but true. In the days before email it was much easier to lose touch with people.
Great blog. I will try to keep in touch. Problem is, we are flooded with busywork here. Administrators keep multiplying like self-replicating genes, coming up with new data for us every day, and then we have to disaggregate it! I don't know how they can sleep at night!!!
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