Munich, or as the German's Call it: Munchen
Day 1
Arrived in wintery Munich on Friday afternoon. I've never been in a Euro country that I can't at least semi understand the language, so I was pretty overwhelmed right away. We spent 25 mins at the airport just trying to figure out the train into the city. The train ticket dispensing machine was difficult to figure out because it has no English, and we were accosted by a nice/creepy taxi driver who wanted to make some extra cash at the end of his shift; finally we just went and purchased our train tickets from a human –what a concept.
Got into a massive airplane-hangar like train station and were confronted by chanting ‘football’ fans enroute to the evening’s game. Wow, because I’ve never been to Europe around world cup time, I was slightly taken back by the soccer fans’ behaviour.
Our hotel was about a 7 min walk from the train station. Apparently were staying in the Turkish part of town. Interestingly enough there is a large Turkish population in Munich. I’m told that the Germans would prefer to leave more service-oriented jobs to others…
Once we’d settled into our 90’s-style hotel room, we headed into town to have dinner with Nathan’s work associate. He took us to a great thai place and then out for mohitos at a swanky German hotel whose bar is on the top floor overlooking the city.
Day 2
Woke up at 5am because of the time change repercussions and ended up talking to our friends dave and steph in Korea via skype.
Went to Nathan’s work associate’s house for breakfast with his family. It was cool to see typical German house ‘in the flesh’ and see what type of architecture/interior décor they gravitate to. Was very nice.
For breakfast we ate: mango pieces, strawberries, an assortment of buns and pretzels, muesli, curd (like thick yogurt), cheese, meats and tomatoes. After chatting with the family (with two young kids) over breakfast, we were chauffeured around the city to see major areas/tourist attractions until about 3pm. I can’t remember the names of anywhere we went. One highlight was seeing Munich’s amazing soccer stadium which lights up at night according to the colours of whatever team is playing.
In the mid-afternoon we met up with my friend Rachel whom I met at Rockridge this past August. She is aupere-ing there for the year. It was so great to hang out with her. She was a fabulous tour guide as well. We did some touristy things like climb a billion stairs to the top of a cathedral to get a bird’s eye view of the city.
Saturday night we went to a Granville-island like food court and watched a free concert by the eddy miller band (a German bad who sings English songs) and grooved the night away to favourites like “Isn’t she lovely” by Stevie Wonder and “Sex Bomb” by Tom Jones. Germans really like their English music, but I think we were the only ones in the crowd who knew all the songs. Hilarious. Great people watching venue.
Day 3
Woke up at 6am today. Grrreat an hour extra sleep….Today I ate a lot and participated in a long-time German pastime called ‘the beer garden’. Picture this scene:
-Went to a beer garden in a location called “English Garden” (scroll down to see chinese pagodat I talk about below) - a large park in Munich….
-Sat out in 3-degree weather drinking a beers mixed with lemonade and eating a giant pretzel
-Listened to the music of a Bavarian band performing from a 4-tier Chinese pagoda……
I love the irony! I told Rachel and Nathan that I felt like I was at Disneyland because as sad as this is, my only knowledge of a German beer garden-like environment is from Disneyland……
Later that day we went to an international church with Rachel and then went out to dinner with some other internationals to an Irish Pub….
Interesting observations of Germany:
1. People actually wear leh-der-ho-sen in public
2. Most restaurants don’t serve ice with drinks…Nicole S would die…..
3. Have a great underground rail system. You don’t need a car if you live in the city
4. Lots of people have bikes and every sidewalk in the city has a bike path….if you get in the way of the bikers, look out. They travel on their bikes at the speed of light and they take no prisoners….actually, I think they take prisoners…..
5. Because of the bike-riding phenomenon, everyone parks their bikes at train stations and no one locks them…….
6. DOGS ARE ALLOWED EVERYWHERE…even in grocery stores and on the underground
7. Amazing ‘to go’ style bakeries everywhere
8. Underground train system really nice, clean and safe
9. No retail stores are open past 8pm and all shopping (even grocery stores) are closed Sunday
10. Not allowed to do any outside work like mowing lawn on Sundays
11. Favourite place – main train station in Munich. Drank coffee from a coffee shop on second floor and watched interesting German people waltz by..get it?
12. Here are style trends I noticed some German women embrace: a) really blond and tanned b)orangy hair c)older women with short white hair with a streak of black d)short hair and boyish clothes
13. COLD – it was freezing. Climate is a lot like Kelowna’s because they are inland. Can get to 40-degrees in summer is COLD and windy in winter. Doesn’t rain much.
Arrived in wintery Munich on Friday afternoon. I've never been in a Euro country that I can't at least semi understand the language, so I was pretty overwhelmed right away. We spent 25 mins at the airport just trying to figure out the train into the city. The train ticket dispensing machine was difficult to figure out because it has no English, and we were accosted by a nice/creepy taxi driver who wanted to make some extra cash at the end of his shift; finally we just went and purchased our train tickets from a human –what a concept.
Got into a massive airplane-hangar like train station and were confronted by chanting ‘football’ fans enroute to the evening’s game. Wow, because I’ve never been to Europe around world cup time, I was slightly taken back by the soccer fans’ behaviour.
Our hotel was about a 7 min walk from the train station. Apparently were staying in the Turkish part of town. Interestingly enough there is a large Turkish population in Munich. I’m told that the Germans would prefer to leave more service-oriented jobs to others…
Once we’d settled into our 90’s-style hotel room, we headed into town to have dinner with Nathan’s work associate. He took us to a great thai place and then out for mohitos at a swanky German hotel whose bar is on the top floor overlooking the city.
Day 2
Woke up at 5am because of the time change repercussions and ended up talking to our friends dave and steph in Korea via skype.
Went to Nathan’s work associate’s house for breakfast with his family. It was cool to see typical German house ‘in the flesh’ and see what type of architecture/interior décor they gravitate to. Was very nice.
For breakfast we ate: mango pieces, strawberries, an assortment of buns and pretzels, muesli, curd (like thick yogurt), cheese, meats and tomatoes. After chatting with the family (with two young kids) over breakfast, we were chauffeured around the city to see major areas/tourist attractions until about 3pm. I can’t remember the names of anywhere we went. One highlight was seeing Munich’s amazing soccer stadium which lights up at night according to the colours of whatever team is playing.
In the mid-afternoon we met up with my friend Rachel whom I met at Rockridge this past August. She is aupere-ing there for the year. It was so great to hang out with her. She was a fabulous tour guide as well. We did some touristy things like climb a billion stairs to the top of a cathedral to get a bird’s eye view of the city.
Saturday night we went to a Granville-island like food court and watched a free concert by the eddy miller band (a German bad who sings English songs) and grooved the night away to favourites like “Isn’t she lovely” by Stevie Wonder and “Sex Bomb” by Tom Jones. Germans really like their English music, but I think we were the only ones in the crowd who knew all the songs. Hilarious. Great people watching venue.
Day 3
Woke up at 6am today. Grrreat an hour extra sleep….Today I ate a lot and participated in a long-time German pastime called ‘the beer garden’. Picture this scene:
-Went to a beer garden in a location called “English Garden” (scroll down to see chinese pagodat I talk about below) - a large park in Munich….
-Sat out in 3-degree weather drinking a beers mixed with lemonade and eating a giant pretzel
-Listened to the music of a Bavarian band performing from a 4-tier Chinese pagoda……
I love the irony! I told Rachel and Nathan that I felt like I was at Disneyland because as sad as this is, my only knowledge of a German beer garden-like environment is from Disneyland……
Later that day we went to an international church with Rachel and then went out to dinner with some other internationals to an Irish Pub….
Interesting observations of Germany:
1. People actually wear leh-der-ho-sen in public
2. Most restaurants don’t serve ice with drinks…Nicole S would die…..
3. Have a great underground rail system. You don’t need a car if you live in the city
4. Lots of people have bikes and every sidewalk in the city has a bike path….if you get in the way of the bikers, look out. They travel on their bikes at the speed of light and they take no prisoners….actually, I think they take prisoners…..
5. Because of the bike-riding phenomenon, everyone parks their bikes at train stations and no one locks them…….
6. DOGS ARE ALLOWED EVERYWHERE…even in grocery stores and on the underground
7. Amazing ‘to go’ style bakeries everywhere
8. Underground train system really nice, clean and safe
9. No retail stores are open past 8pm and all shopping (even grocery stores) are closed Sunday
10. Not allowed to do any outside work like mowing lawn on Sundays
11. Favourite place – main train station in Munich. Drank coffee from a coffee shop on second floor and watched interesting German people waltz by..get it?
12. Here are style trends I noticed some German women embrace: a) really blond and tanned b)orangy hair c)older women with short white hair with a streak of black d)short hair and boyish clothes
13. COLD – it was freezing. Climate is a lot like Kelowna’s because they are inland. Can get to 40-degrees in summer is COLD and windy in winter. Doesn’t rain much.
posted by trish at 9:49 a.m.
1 Comments:
Snow every day since you left. Brrrr....
De Germans are very German.
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