Vegetarian Meatloaf?

Another week another trip. I'm spoiled. Be jealous. Mostly kidding.

I can't recall anything significant happening last week so I'll get right to the good stuff. Friday mid morning I had a flight out of Bilbao with my friends Brittany, Grace and Tiffany. Brittany goes to GVSU but I didn't know her before Spain. I was glad that our flight was a little later so that we could take the metro and bus to the airport because otherwise a taxi costs about $40 one way! The flight was only 2 hours and beautiful - got to see the snow capped alps from the sky.

When we arrived at the airport,  we found  our bags and headed out to find a huge market outside of the terminal. It was an open but covered space that was full of little huts selling hats, slippers, jewelry and knick-knack Christmas stuff. And lots of bratwurst and beer! We watched a couple ice skate and a few rounds of a game that was very similar to curling. I picked up pretty quickly that the majority of people know English and that the weekend would see very few severe language barriers.

Taking advantage of Europe's ridiculously wonderful public transportation, we took a train to our hostel but it took a little while to find. Along the way we saw some cool shops and found some weird pizza. (I didn't eat it. I was waiting for some good German food!) I instantly noticed that not everyone on the street stared us up and down and gave us the stink eye. Munich was populated with many different races and unlike Bilbao, they were used to seeing people who don't all look like clones. If you're going to Munich, Easy Palace Hostel is the place to stay. The staff was great and as soon as we walked in we got a great, chill vibe. Compared to the hostel in Barcelona this room we had did feel like a palace! It was huge. We booked a 4 bed but they had run out so had to give us a bigger 6 bed room free of charge. OKAAAAYYY!

Spent a little time settling in a then got going to the main square Marienplatz to go on a beer and brewery tour. It was 530 but already pitch black outside. The square was full of people and all lit up for the Christmas markets that were starting this week. Our tour guide was from...guess...WISCONSIN and we ended up having a really good sized group - 7 people and off we went. Some great history and trivia about beer was shared on our way to a popular restaurant Paulaners. It's still run by a direct descendant of one of the original brewmaster's of Bavaria that made the royal recipe a success back in the day. We went in and our guide explained a little more about the different beers we could get. I got a dark wheat beer that actually had double the alcohol content as most beers in Bavaria (12.6%) It was really good and made me happy.

Our next stop was via metro and that is where we took a tour of a small brewery. But first, a tale from the metro where the most interesting things usually happen. The metro is about 2 floors underground like in Bilbao, and we were about to go up when the guide (I guess I can use his name Levi...) said, "This is the part of the tour where I challenge you to run up the down escalator!" Feeling incredibly courageous I started running up the huge stairclimber. I was making good time when my heart started beating out of control, my legs started hating me, and my stomach felt like it was gonna fall out of my butt.

I was a little over halfway and thought I had to stop. But when I turned around to admit defeat, there were people standing on the central stairway and traveling up the other escalator cheering me on. Not just my tour group, lots and lots and LOTS of Germans. So I couldn't give up. I took a quick breather and a bunch of quick painful steps later I was at the top looking into the eyes of a little German lady who took me by the shoulders and kept saying "GOOT JUBS! GOOT JUBS!" I was in serious pain for a while but I got free beer later!

So we take the tour of the brewery and even tried the wheat that beer is make out of in its grainy state. Afterwards we went upstairs and had 3 samples of the most popular beers there. We were going to eat at our final stop, the famous Haufbrahaus, but Levi told us that the food here was cheaper and better and they gave u bigger portions. Don't gotta tell me twice! I ordered pork knuckle with dumplings. DEEEELICIOUS! God bless the Germans and their love of pork and beer. We met a group of guys at the restaurant that were celebrating their final exam in an

accelerated brewmaster's course there in Munich. Real brewmasters must go to school for 5 years to receive a degree because it's illegal to brew beer in Bavaria otherwise. Crazy California kids!

On our walk to the Haufbrahaus (which means royal brewery, I think) we saw some other cool stores and stopped to listen to one of the best street bands I'd ever seen! We had a short tour of the place including upstairs where they had a band playing and the super long tables with lots of drunkards sitting around and...well, drinking. There was a cool traditional thing that the "regulars" (usually crusty old German dudes), had specific tables that if you were sitting at, they could make you get up and move. There was even a special room where they kept a personal stein that was locked up. You can only get a spot by having one handed down to you. The waiting list is hundreds of people long! Back downstairs we found a table at the back of the huge beer house and ordered up some liters.

That's the only size they serve at Octoberfest! And heck yeah I finished mine! By this time, we realized that this 3 hour tour had taken us about 7.5 hours. That's how much fun we had. Our guide said we were a great group and he definitely was a great guide.

The late night that it was, we headed back to our Palace to rest up for Saturday.

I the morning we were up bright an early to pack in as much as possible. We noticed the night before that it got dark really early so we tried to plan accordingly. After a stop at McDonald's and the bakery we headed to the metro to get to Dachau. It was a 40 minute metro ride and then a short bus ride outside the city. This was the site of one of the first concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

I had taken a class last summer all about the Holocaust and it's always interested me so I thought it would be a good trip to take. The main museum building that is currently the museum used to be the maintenance building that had work shops and administrative stuff. There were a lot of posters with pictures and testimonials and biographies of prisoners and other people involved in the process. It was really interesting to read all of the biographies and learn more about specific people and groups of people that were persecuted in that depressing place. Out side there were a lot of memorial sculptures.

From here you walk to the other end of the camp past where the huge roll call square and the barracks to the religious memorials. There was some kind of cloister where nuns live called the Carmelite Convent. There was the Protestant Church of Reconciliation, the Jewish Memorial and the Russian-Orthodox Chapel. From here you walk off of the main road to see the Krematorium. There are actually two, a small old one and a larger one. Not to say that the visit had no effect on me, but having studied and seen pictures before the experience wasn't completely overwhelming. But it was a heavy morning, and in many ways unbelievable. That I was standing and walking around freely in a place where so much fear, hate and death had once been present. The other girls I had traveled with hadn't gotten as in depth in the past, and the effect was a little more profound for them. I was really glad I went and hope to visit other sites in Europe sometime and the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. as well in the future.

After this we headed back and could already tell that the sun was going down! We hit up a Palace just outside of Munich - Nymphenburg. This was built as a summer residence to celebrate the birth of some heir in the 17th century. Gosh I thought kids these days were spoiled!

Later kings expanded the huge palace to what it is today. There were only a few rooms that we could see and they were emmaculate to say the least. Lots of fancy drapes, beds, furniture, yadda yadda. There was a carriage museum that had the most tricked out carriages and sleds that the royal family used on a regular basis. Talk about pimp my ride. There was also a porcelain museum/exhibit that we saw but all that breakable stuff makes me nervous so we took a walk through the gardens. They were very beautiful and seeing the fall colors was really nice. Out in the middle of the gardens was a house (mini palace) that was constructed for a queen so that she could escape and relax. She actually liked to go out there and hunt pheasants from the roof! This was called the Amalienburg. There are three other things you can see in the summer months but they were closed now.

Our next plan was to go to the English Gardens but by the time we would've gotten there it would be too dark to enjoy. Instead we went to have dinner at the restaurant we had tested beers the night before. On our way we walked down a street that had every couture store you could think of and then some. If you were bursting with money and needed to do some Christmas shopping, that was definitely the place to be. At the restaurant we ate upstairs and had to sit at a table with another couple until they left. I'm not sure if that is the custom in Germany, to seat one party at a table with another unknown party, but they kinda did their own thing and left shortly. Instead of bread we got a basket of pretzels and ordered beers. We all got something different - I had ordered a cheese thing and some roasted pork. Here's the weird part.

The waitress brings out the pork first and I'm like oh well...I dig into the coleslaw that is on a different plate and then she comes back and says, "Oh, you ordered something else let me go get it." And snatch...there goes my pork. I never see it again. My cheese ball comes out instead. It was delicious. It was good that the pork never reappeared because I wouldn't have been able to eat it. My stomach has shrunk so much from not eating at the dorms that I'm not the hoss I used to be. I split a delicious apple strudel for desert instead.

We did a bit of souvenir shopping and then made our way back to the hostel. It was a little after 8 when the free beer tasting at the hostel started and we sat down to listen and try them out. Our bartender was from Montreal, Canada and was traveling all around on a "6 year plan." Sounded fun, but it wasn't much of a plan. We actually heard that from a lot of people: That they had sold all of their possessions and were wandering around the world. After the tasting was over we stuck around and got to know the other people who had joined us. 2 Australians, a Russian, and there were 2 others at one point from the States. Later during happy hour, more people including some mid western Americans showed up and we got to meet a lot of cool people. Went to bed pretty late and loaded. I packed up as much as we could since we were leaving the next day.

The hostel let us keep our luggage in a special locked room since they kick us out at 10 but our flight wasn't until 3. This gave us some time to hit up the English Garden. This public garden began in 1789 and was originally the hunting grounds on the River Isar. It's one of the largest public parks in the world. One of the main sights was the Chinese Tower. That's right, a Chinese tower in the English Garden in Munich, Germany. No - I have no explanation. The other main thing was the Eisbach (the name of the insanely strong beer I had on the tour!) Just past one of the bridges, the river forms a 1 meter wave that makes it possible to surf in. We didn't see this crazy thing, but pictures of it are pretty cool. Strangely enough there have been surfing competitions held there but rumor has it that authorities want to get rid of it due to liabilities...hmmmmm. It was a beautiful day and we walked through the gardens for a bit. We were asking for directions to the wave and one man said, "Oh no English. Hablo español." Hey spanish! We can do that. He told us how to get there, although we never reached it, and we talked to him and his family for a while. They were the nicest people from Barcelona and when I told the woman that I love that city best in the world she said she lived in a big house on the beach and would have me anytime. Definitely might call her up sometime!

Well our time was unfortunately up so the boring stuff: back to the hostel, to the airport and headed home. We had a little bit of time to walk around the airport market again and get a brat and hot wine. (some kind of Christmas drink...gross)

In summary: Munich is colorful, diverse, rich in culture, modern, and more often than not, drunk. Absolutely loved the city and my travel companions and hope to go back soon. Perhaps next year for the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest?!?!