Munchin' in Munchen (Munich)

Continuing the late-posting of trips: Munich

For our little trip, we decided to go places none of us had been (although Mad had been to Munich before), but we thought, Germany? Awesome! And Munich? Even more awesome. Beer, pretzels, Bavaria. Could it get better?

We flew there since it was the same price as a train and would take about six hours less. Our first night, we saw the glockenspiel which is apparently the 2nd worst tourist attraction in Europe after the Astronomical Clock in Prague. It's the little dancing people around a clock that goes off three times a day - 11AM, 12PM, and 5PM. I don't know why five o'clock.

And where could we go on our first night in Germany but a beer hall?

There was delicious pretzels, sauerkraut (although I'm still not a big fan), potato dumplings (omg, I must learn how to make these), and crackle! We spent most of the three days we were there drinking different beers, eating pretzels, and wandering around downtown Munich. We also took a little jaunt out to the Olympic Park and saw the swimming pool which was pretty cool.

Munich is also well-known as the place that started it all - Hitler's ascent to power. He started in a beer hall which no longer exists, and ran his headquarters from Munich for a long time. All over Munich, there are subtle little reminders of the Nazis, erased but not totally erased. Like the little golden path down one side street that marks a form of Nazi resistance by the citizens.

A little outside the city lies Dachau, Germany's first and most important concentration camp. Walking in is surreal as it's surrounded by trees and twittering birds and you think to yourself, "this doesn't seem so bad," but then the guide points out that none of this was here back in the 30s and it was all desolate landscape. 

work sets you free

I suppose if you really want ambiance, go to Dachau on a rainy, dreary day. It was obnoxiously sunny and hot when we went. We drank away the sadness that night at Englisher Garten, a very large beer garden in a huge park.

Munich is also the birthplace of the Lesbian Jacket, which I don't feel the need to explain as it's sort of an inside joke and doesn't really make sense at all unless you were there. 

Munich was super cool and people drink at 9:30 in the morning. They're even worse than in France ;]

dancing the Viennese waltz

I've been so bad at updating since I got back to the states but I'm finally going to post about one of my trips: Vienna!

Vienna was in the middle of the whole trip so we'll skip the beginning and end for now and just pretend we dropped right into Vienna.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from Vienna, and there were several times where we thought that perhaps we should have done a touch more research before fumbling our way down there, but we were there and there was no excuse to do stuff.

During my whole two week sejour, the weather was beautifully sunny and at times, far too hot. This made Vienna an interesting place to be. I'd say there are about a hundred gardens in Vienna, and we spent a lot of time lazing around in them. There are also thousands of museums, but seeing as I'm not a big museum fan, it wasn't a big draw for me.

The city of Vienna is an interesting place. The city is rather large and spread out when you get down to it, but the center part is compact and mostly old palaces now converted in museums. The Hapsburgs were apparently a pretty big deal. It seems most of my history classes failed to mention them, though. Although, Marie-Antoinette was from Vienna (French connection! They're everywhere).

Vienna is also home to Austria's favorite composer(s): Strauss and Mozart, although Mozart is really from Salzburg, a story for another day. This basically means that there are statues of them around every corner. Strauss even has two while the original is under construction.

Vienna is also famous for coffee so we had to have a sit down in several cafes to try some. It also happened to be erdbeer season (aka strawberries) so I had this mountain of deliciousness:

Normally, I hate admitting that I'm a tourist, although I've gotten over this slightly in recent years (it's impossible to blend in in China, so you just have to give up), but I still like to draw the line somewhere. That line is usually those bus tours that you seem to find in every overly-touristy city. However, since I was not alone and we really had no idea what was in Vienna, I got talked into going. It was quite fun!

Notice our little foto-bomber driver in the background.

We saw all the major sights including a giant church in the middle of town, the Danube river which is blue but not as blue as the song leads you to believe, and lots of horse-drawn tourist carriages.

Highlights of Vienna:

1. The hot dog with cheese baked into the middle. Yummm.

2. European coca cola. So much better than others. Maybe because it comes in a glass bottle.

3. The crazy guy with a trumpet

4. Waiting five minutes for a segway tour to actually move so we could watch

5. Trying schnitzel finally and deciding it's totally not worth it

In conclusion! Vienna is cool but I think I prefer Munich. Perhaps I'll blog that next.

crazy trumpet guy.

je prends les moules frites, s'il vous plait

My last day in France. It's bittersweet. I want to go home but at the same time, I don't want to leave France. I don't feel like I'm quite ready.

For my last meal in France, I decided to have something that truly belongs to le nord. I had moules frites!

Moules frites are traditionally northern French - mussels and fries. Yum yum deliciousness! I'll be sad to leave this place. I know most people think the nord is just gloomy and wet and boring but I found it to be fun and yeah, a little wet, but the people are nice and the food is good, and I get to practice my French on a daily basis as opposed to someone living in Paris.

Tomorrow it's two more trains and one more plane, and then I'll be in Iceland for a day or two. I will hopefully be actually adding blogs of my past few trips now that I've got the pictures on my computer, so look for those in the coming weeks.

Otherwise, it's finally back home to Oregon to attempt to find me a real job and start a real life. Oh God. Real world, are you ready? I think I should be the one answering that question.