Now This is More Like Germany

When we arrived in Munich yesterday and went to our hostel, the streets we walked down didn’t seem much different than even mid or downtown Omaha. Today after returning from Dachau we headed straight to Munich’s city center, where the town hall was located. Immediately we felt like we were in Germany. We found pretzels, beer, and sausage. We walked around the town hall area and then went to Munich’s food market which was conveniently located adjacent to their massive beer garden. It was so different than any social setting I’ve experienced in the United States. I’ve seen beer gardens at sporting events, but this put those to shame, especially considering there were just there to be there and not because of some other event. It was tent, next to tent, next to tent, filled with people at every seat on every bench at every table. It wasn’t a place of excess or overindulgence, but rather the place where everyone wanted to go and be with everyone and have a beer.

After getting my giant pretzel in the town hall area we headed to the Hopfbräuhaus, Munich’s famous and original beer house. This place is what you picture when you think of German festival and beer. The Hopfbräuhaus had multiple halls and rooms, indoor and out, and (despite its great size) was packed. After walking around for 30 minutes or so we finally found a table to sit at; it just so happened an American father and son were sitting there as well. I got the Hopfbräuhaus Original and Erica got their wheat beer. Oh and in case you didn’t know, when it comes beer Germans must follow the mantra of go big or go home. The Original comes in a 1 liter stein and the wheat in a 0.5 liter portion. After a certain amount of contemplation I ended up getting the weiβwerst (vice wurst), white sausage that apparently Hopfbräuhaus is famous for. It was a fun night that was even accompanied by the occasional German folk song performed by live band (I’ll try to post the video). Until next time….

270 Euros…I don’t think so.

God is good. It just took us a while to realize this today. Last night when looking for trains out of Paris to Munich the 11:24 am appeared to be full but the 3:24 pm was not. So we planned on taking our time this morning getting ready, heading to the train station at some point to make sure we had seats for the 3:24…only to find out, unbeknownst to us, it is the busiest weekend of the year for the entire country of France. It really didn’t help that the guy at the ticket desk was your stereotypical, rude Frenchman. That’s not to say all are, in fact, he was the only unpleasant French person we encountered our entire trip. He insisted on “no bookings out of France…not today, not tomorrow, not Saturday, not Sunday” as he muttered what I can only imagine were French expletives under his breath. And not just to Munich, but no train at all was possible…according to this man we were stuck in Paris with no place to stay unless we paid the unpleasant fee of 270 euros for 1st class tickets even with our previously purchased EURail Passes. Well, at this point we had no choice; we already have the next week of our trip planned and didn’t want to be stuck so we paid. When we returned to Cecilia’s to get ready to leave Paris we told her of our unfortunate situation. Her and her husband insisted that this wasn’t right and that we should pursue the matter further, but still our departure was only a couple hours away and we’d already paid for the tickets. So we took the metro and walked to the Gare de l’Est, which in itself was a task because as I’ve stated before European street signs are awful. We approached the first counter we saw in the train station and Erica simply said to the people there “English?” hoping for a response. The women at the desk quickly replied “yes” and so we explained our situation to them, they quickly let us know what happened was not correct. One of the women marched me straight to the ticket desk and fixed the matter immediately…full refund…only a 5 euro seat fee per person. Our prayers were answered….praise the Lord.

A couple of side notes: 5:35 pm (local time here), officially in Germany...my first trip to the land of the majority of my heritage, 3/8 German. I’m the epitome of European mutt: German, Swedish, Irish, English, and French. On this trip I’m crossing all but Sweden off that list, pretty cool I think. Oh and there’s a cute little Indian girl in the seat across the aisle from me, I think she’s sleeping with her eyes open…really creeping me out.

9:05 pm, almost to Munich. Funny how we almost had to pay 270 Euros for the high demand seats here; and now we literally have an entire area of 16 seats to ourselves.

Gute nacht.