Munich, Germany

Munich was a blast! There is a company that basically caters to backpackers and offers a free walking tour of the city. And it's three hours long! So you definitely get your money's worth. :-) So we basically saw everything we wanted to see in Munich on the tour and also heard all about the history of Munich. It was extremely interesting and fun. Some of the highlights of the tour were the huge Glockenspiel that goes off three times every day. It plays music and the lifesize figurines dance around. There is even a jousting tournament and of course the Bavarian knight knocks the French knight off his horse. It's really funny. And at the end there is an owl (why it is an owl I do not know) who waddles forward, opens his wings, and says "Coo, coo, coo." And then it's over. It was pretty sweet.

I learned a lot about Hitler and the Third Reich. We saw the window where Hitler and his buddies celebrated the anniversary of the Crystalnacht. Interesting stuff. Also went into the the Church of Our Lady and saw the "Devil's footprint." We learned a cool story inside this church. It was basically destroyed in the war, so when the city was trying to rebuild it after the war, several church congregations were pitching in and helping and all the churches who helped got to put their church seal painted on the ceiling. The tour guide pointed out a crest with a Jewish manorah on it and explained that after World War II, when it was time to rebuild, one of the local synagogues, who also had to rebuild their church, took time to pitch in and help rebuild this Catholic Church. Isn't that amazing! I got chills just hearing about it. What amazing people to put religion aside, even after such a devastating time of persecution, and pitch in to help rebuild. Wow!

We also visited the Hofbrauhaus, the world's most famous beer hall and heard stories about it's origins. Apparently, it didn't used to have any bathrooms, so the men had to go outside to go to the bathroom. But it was quite the popular place, so if they got up they lost their seat and they also probably lost their beer. So as a solution, the managers of the beer hall made these big troughs under the tables so the men could just relieve themselves right under the table as they drank and it would flow down the floor to the outside of the building and into the gutter in the street. Luckily, they have now installed bathrooms, so it is much cleaner and better smelling these days.

After our lovely tour of the city, we took a nice stroll out to this big park which just happened to be the location for Oktoberfest! I had assumed that Oktoberfest happened the whole month of October, but in actuality it is only a couple of weekends and we just happened to be in Munich for the last night of Oktoberfest. Lucky us! Oktoberfest is a HUGE celebration. There were carnival rides and food stands and all sorts of crazy things in the park. But the most popular place is the big tent with all the beer. There a a bunch of tables and you have to try to squeeze onto a table with a bunch of other people. It was packed with women in traditional dress and men in liederhosen. They were all standing on the benches or even up on the table dancing and singing along with the band. And they seriously were swinging their glasses back and forth with the music exactly how you would picture it. Henry and I managed to find a table with a couple of spots left. We ended up next to a group of five lovely people from Italy, a guy from Russia who was very drunk, and a guy from Prague. We were friends right away, because it's Oktoberfest and everyone is friends there, and before I could say "one small beer please" I had a HUGE liter size mug in my hand and was toasting to everything under the sun with everyone at the table. Every time I tried to sit down everyone was yelling at me to get up and toast to something else or dance or just swing my beer back and forth. It was pretty ridiculous. I was really excited about the HUGE pretzel I bought though. It was the size of my head and was pretty delicious. I guess they don't do small sizes at Oktoberfest. Needless to say, the evening was quite the experience. I really enjoyed the group of Italians. They were really nice and a lot of fun! I spent the whole evening there just laughing and enjoying how jovial everyone was at the huge party. The band played a ton of English songs, so I could sing along and I even learned one of the German drinking songs they played over and over again. I think being at Oktoberfest for an evening was one of those crazy unique experiences I will always remember. :-) The next morning I couldn't figure out why I had this big bruise on the skin between my thumb and my pointer finger on the side of my hand. And then I realized that I was trying to hold my huge heavy mug full of beer like the Germans do with my hand around the side of the mug inside the handle and the top of the handle resting on my hand. And it was so heavy it bruised my hand! I guess I shouldn't have toasted so much. :-)

The next day we did some more cool stuff around the city. We went to St. Peter's church because I wanted to say hi to St. Mondita. Here skeleton is laying there in the church all dressed up in jewels and whatnot. St.Mondita just happens to be the patron Saint of Lonely Women. So we bonded for a few minutes. She taught me an important lesson. There she was on a little couch. Laying back with all her jewelry and finest clothes on. Waiting for the perfect man to come along. And guess what? She's still there...

So we were off to the 300+ stair climb to the top of St.Peter's tower. From there you get a spectacular view of the city and it was such a clear day we could see the Swiss Alps! We also watched the Glockenspiel go off again from up in the tower. Perfect timing!

Definitely got our exercise when we hiked all the way out to the Englischer Garden with it's beautiful Chinese Tower. The gardens were beautiful. They were like Munich's answer to Central Park. Huge! And lovely just to walk around or enjoy a picnic there. Then we hoofed it back into town and went to the Deutches Museum, the only thing Henry requested of our whole trip. We got to see gliders and planes and boats and machines. Basically a bunch of guy stuff but I did find it quite interesting.

All in all, Munich was pretty amazing! I'm really glad I got to go there.