So Anna, Ivo and I went to Munich (München) two weekends ago, and it was absolutely fantastic!!! I want to go back there as much as I can before I leave, because we didnt get to see nearly enough of the place!!
Anna and I decided we would go on Saturday morning, planning to catch the 9.22 train into the Hauptbahnhoft (main station) and then train from there to Munich. Unfortunately, we went to bed about 4:30am, so waking up was a bit of a bitch. Then Ivo called me at 8am saying he'd decided to come with us. So at 9.15am we all met and wandered off to the train station, and actually (to my suprise) made it on the 9.22 train!
At the Hauptbahnhoft (HBF) we got our tickets to Munich- 27 Euro, yay! And got a coffee and toddled off to the train... Its two hours to Munich, and we got a booth to ourselves. Anna had a nap, and she wasnt feeling so good, Ivo sketched me a picture of a Polo-bear (personal joke, half the reason he wanted to come to Munich...) climbing out of its cage about to attack the three people. One (apparently me) says "Ivo, Anna, lets get out of here" but "I" am really round and look like an obese American tourist, which made me laugh very hard for a long time... Thanks Ivo!!
Anyway! We made it to Munich, walked out of the main station and started walking off down the road.... But then realised we had no idea where we were going, and thus had to turn around and go back to the station to get a map of Munich. After which, we stood outside and tried to sort out what direction "Marienplatz" was. Petra told us to use that as our main base, and wander round from there.
We found it, and ohhhh myyyy goshhhh it was SO beautiful!!! Its this square, with the Old and New Town Halls on one side, and a church and bell tower, and a fountain, and lots of people!! The Town Hall is this Gothic style building which was AMAZING. We found this old church called Frauenkirch, which was heavily bombed in WWII and its still being repaired. Inside, it was so weird, because the walls were very bare, and the roof had no frescoes or anything. Also, there was this crypt downstairs, with a painting of Christ, but in a very abstract, almost Pop Art style... Which I have never seen before in a church! So that was interesting.
We found this market that, as soon as we started walking through it, i thought, Martine would like it here. Its called the Viktualienmarkt, and it had EVERYTHING, fresh fruit, chocolates (chocolate covered strawberries on a stick-- yummmmm!!!), spices, home-wares, everything!
We wandered past a lot of street performers, which I really liked, because it really added to the atmosphere of Munich. My favourite was the hobo-looking guy playing the trumpet, but there was also this 4-piece band, they had drums and everything! I ran out of coinage to give them :P
We stayed at Petra's house, she is Martine's best friend and my adopted "German Aunty". She lives about 4 stops away from the city on the No. 19 Tram Line, and welcomed us into her apartment to stay Saturday night. I loved it, and it was WAY bigger than i thought it would be. She made us dinner (lamb, potatoes and beans, yuummmmm!!!) AND got us breakfast on Sunday, and Melina (one of Petra's twins) was such a sweetie and gave us all kisses on in the morning. So it was pretty much perfect... Except maybe the 3 flights of stairs we had to stumble up at 3am when we arrived home on Sunday morning...!
Even though by this stage Anna had completely lost her voice, we went out Saturday night to have a look at the Munich night life. Petra and Harras, her beautiful Retriever, walked us up the road and she showed us where to go, but we ended up finding the "Kunstpark", which looked like you needed to off-your-nut drunk to even enter. It was like a clubbing theme park, and we are too mature and classy for places like that, ha ha ha.
So we wandered back towards home, and found this cute little bar on the corner, about 3 minutes away from Petras. So we went inside, had a couple of drinks, Anna and I rated all the boys (the bartender serving us got a 20/10, the guy with the hairy back was a -2) and we had a great evening there :)
On Sunday, I got up early to watch the Chinese Grand Prix. It was great, because Hamilton won, but still pretty boring because nothing too interesting happened... We went to the Zoo after a late breakfast (Pretzels, eggs, and strawberry jam on toast) which in itself was a mission. We had to fit three big kids, two little kids, plus the big dog and Petra into her car.... It was fun :P Except i ended up with blonde hair ALL over my black jeans... The Zoo was super, and I loved the monkey enclosure, and the Antarctic animals- Penguins are too cute!!! The kiddies loved it too, and I found that making them fly like superman when they get cranky is a great way to distract them from crying!!
We were there for about 3 hours, and did intend to go to the German Museum, which is just down the road from Petra's, after we got back. But we were all pretty wacked, and still had to catch up with Hannes for dinner! So after we got back and said our goodbyes, we trammed back into the City and caught up with Hannes in Marienplatz. We were pretty hungry, and to keep in the Bavarian theme, went in search of a Bavarian dinner.
I loved mine- it was beef with bread dumplings and red cabbage, with gravey, and it tasted amaaazing!! Quite like a Kiwi roast, so i was happy :) Anna and Hannes had a pork shank with potato dumplings, which looked disgusting :P And Ivo had white sausages with sweet mustard, which is traditionally a breakfast meal, but oh well... It was lovely to see Hannes, and he hasnt changed too much, so that was good!
After dinner (I was stuffed!) we made our way to the main station via old-school train (seriously, wooden panels and everything!). We made it back onto the train and walked down the entire train before we found somewhere to sit, then chilled it (I almost fell asleep on Ivo) and off we went back to Salzburg...
It seemed like, as we got back to Urstein, that we'd been away for a lot longer than 2 days. I had a great time, and I cant wait to go back!! :D
No comments:
Post a Comment