New Testingstan

Per Phant's request this thread will be about my vacation in Munich. (Bear with me; this will happen over the course of several days, I'll start posting some pictures later.)

So, first day in Munich, i.e. the day I landed, was Monday Sept. 10th. I had gone to the Texans opener on Sunday and left from the stadium to head straight to the airport. My plan had been to the sleep on the plane and be relatively rested when I landed and could go look around Munich city center to get my bearings.

This did not happen.

I barely slept on the plane, mostly dozed, and by the time I got to my hotel room and got unpacked I was shaking. I had been going on less than four interrupted hours of sleep in 28. I ended up passing out, sleeping for maybe five hours, at which point it was after dark. So I went to the hotel's fitness center and spent some time on the treadmill so that I could go back to sleep.

Consequently my first real day was Tuesday the 11th. I got up and went out walking past the Deutsches Museum and to the Marienplatz. Then I deliberately got lost so that I would have to find my way back. I did that several times so that I would get my bearings and not have to worry about getting lost later.

I have to say that Munich, at least the parts I spent time in, is just beautiful. The architecture was an odd mix that I found really appealing, there are parks that are easily accessible (even surfing if that's your thing) and the climate is much more tolerable than the heat and humidity I'm used to.

Oh, and for my first real German meal I had oxtail soup and käsespätzle with a dunkel lager Tuesday night.

Side note: If you speak a little German (like me...) be prepared to apologize a lot and admit that you don't speak much because as soon as you say something in German you will inevitably get a question or response back that assumes you're more or less fluent. One that you will not understand.

For example, I had no idea that you normally get sparkling mineral water if you ask for water. Now, on the plane they'll give you the option. I had a connecting flight from Frankfurt to Munich and I was dehydrated, so when they came around with drinks service I tried to do the polite thing and use their language to ask for water. "Wasser, bitte."

I got a wave of German I didn't understand that basically amounted to, "Still water or sparkling, sir?" It was the next day that I learned that I should have said, "Stilles wasser bitte."

Something similar happened when I was wandering around getting my bearings. I went into a bakery and asked for a chocolate croissant and a bottle of orange juice. The lady running the place said something and when I went through the whole "I'm sorry my German isn't very good, do you speak English?" she explained she was asking if I wanted it for their or for take away.

Lesson learned? Do a better job learning German for next time. I managed to get through level 1 of Rosetta stone, which isn't bad, but not great either. New plan? Try to get through at least level 3 before I go back. Completing the course would be even better.

Edit: Do you speak English. Not so you speak.

It's always interesting to me to see the little details that a native wouldn't think to tell you about, like the sparkling water thing.

Okay, so my second day in Munich I actually did stuff. I had a tour set up to go to Schloss Linderhof and Neuschwannstein Castle so, not surprisingly, that's what I did.

Both were built for Ludwig II, often known as the Fairytale King. Linderhof was not what I would think of as palatial. It was luxurious and a mansion to be sure, but not especially huge. I wasn't able to get any pictures of the interior because photography was prohibited, unfortunately. The grounds were gorgeous, though I'd not want the responsibility of caring for them because, even if I didn't have the polar opposite of a green thumb, they looked like a giant mowing/trimming headache.

We stopped in a town called Oberamergau so that the tour could get some shopping in. There's nothing particularly notable about my stop there. All I did was buy a couple souvenirs (a stein and a Bavarian flag) and a gift for my mom (a tapestry of Neuschwannstein), plus just take some time to just admire the scenery. Bavaria is beautiful...

Anyways the next stop was the town at the foot of the mountain that Neuschwannstein sits on. I grabbed something to eat which became my favorite meal of the trip: a trio of sausages (about the size of long skinny hot dogs, but tasting more like really great bratwursts) served on top of sauerkraut and mashed potatoes with a sort of brown gravy. Drank it down with a wheat beer. Really great, I only wish I'd gotten a picture.

It gave me the energy to make the climb, too. See, you have the option of taking the local tour bus up to the castle, squeezing onto a horse-drawn carriage or walking. I chose to walk. It wasn't arduous, but I hadn't eaten and it was just steep and long enough to require some energy. We had a tour of the interior (again, no pictures allowed) and then had about 45 minutes until we needed to be back at the tour bus.

This is where it got fun (not sarcasm, I actually enjoyed this part). See, in theory, I either had time to stroll back down to the bus or to go round and get the classic shot of the rear of the castle, but not both. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! So I alternated jogging and speed walking to climb up and around to the back of the castle where there's a small footbridge and you can get the shots. Then I did the same thing to get back to the bus (I had already been late that day by mistiming the trip back to the bus from Linderhof).

Made it with time to spare.

I'll post up the pictures later. I'm too lazy to resize them all right now.

Going back to my previous post, here's the pics:

The facade of Linderhof:


A better view of the grounds:


Neuschwannstein, kinda from the front:


THE shot. The one that I raced around to get:

My Third Day in Munich!

This was Thursday the 13th and I left it a "free" day so I could take tours. I had a free tour around Munich's historic city center where a guide takes you around telling you about some of the history of Munich: how it was founded, how the new city hall (with its famous glockenspiel) is old and the old city hall is new, how the city was 90% flattened during WWII, they point out the cannon ball in the windowsill of a church that had been lodged there during the Renaissance(?) by the Swedish army and put back there after WWII when the church was damaged (but left standing since it was a navigation marker) because Hitler actually did something relatively good and had the citizens store old building plans and pictures so Munich could be rebuilt and he also spoke of the courage shown by the German resistance during the Nazi regime (White Rose in particular).

Very worth it, but if you go, remember to have some cash because the guide works on tips since it's an otherwise free tour.

On my downtime I watched The Blues Brothers and had jungschweinbraten with a beer caraway sauce and potato dumplings and a warm, Bavarian cabbage salad.

That night, I used the same tour company that I used for the free tour to take THE BEER CHALLENGE! It wasn't actually a challenge, it was just a pub crawl, but I really enjoyed it and had a ton of fun. It started at the Hauptbahnhof where we met and then we all went outside to sort of get acquainted and have our first beer (a Munich Helles lager) at the kebab stand outside. We moved to the Marienplatz where the tour guide gave us his rendition of the glockenspiel by having a pair of the tour members act it out complete with balloon hats that were added to (and made more ridiculous) throughout the night. We gave our empty bottles to a homeless guy and then moved onto Pauliner am Tal where we could order pretty much what we wanted (I had a delicious dunkelweizen). Next stop: Hofbräuhaus.

I have to admit I found it a little touristy, but, hey, I'm a tourist and, frankly, as tourist traps go this was pretty good. I had the best roast chicken I've ever eaten along side a delicious potato salad (which I don't usually like) and a Maß of dunkel lager. Right across the street was an Augustiner pub where I got a half-Maß of the Pope's favorite beer (largely out of curiosity). It's called Edel Stoff.

Last stop of the night was the bar in a youth hostel where at least half the members of the tour seemed to be staying, including the tour guide I think... I had another beer, a small shot of jaegermeister (along with everyone else) and then made my excuses since I did have to get up in the morning.

Like last time, I'll post pictures later and try to get a video of the guide's glockenspiel recreation up as well.

This is excellent

Okay, I've been putting off updating this thread because posting the pics has been a pain in the ass what with them being the wrong size for the board, etc.

So, I'll go ahead and post about the vacation and then come back later and put pics up.

Friday! My fourth day in Munich.

I woke up hungover... that's the result of having gone on the beer challenge. BUT, I had a trip to Kehlsteinhaus, a.k.a. The Eagle's Nest so I had to head to the bus pickup point with nothing to eat. It was a process to get up there, which I won't bore you with, but once I was up there I loved it, crowd notwithstanding. I got to walk all over the little Austrian corporal's lawn. I also hiked through the snow (yes, snow!) behind the house to get some beautiful views and pictures. Like I said earlier, Bavaria is just beautiful. (This you want to see the pictures of. When I get around to it I'll post several of them.)

After we came back down from there I had some time and I broke my promise to myself. I had sworn that I was only going to eat German food while I was there, but I needed to eat something "real", i.e. not a candy bar or some other such nonsense, but I needed something I felt I could trust so I ordered spaghetti bolognese at the restaurant at the base of the mountain. I made up for it by having boiled ox breast with apple horseradish sauce, spinach and roast potatoes for dinner along with a weissbier. Watched Star Wars while I ate.

That was all I really did that day since I was still kind of hungover and wanted to take it easy and not spend half my vacation hungover.

Saturday in Munich (the 15th of September). I had an easy morning that day, woke up watched a movie and then went to the hotel restaurant for a breakfast buffet. I started out with stuff that was closer to what I might eat here in America, but then moved onto a cold, German breakfast of deli meat and cheese with bread. I also had a couple of weisswurst with sweet mustard and a small pretzel. If I'm honest, I overate, but, well, I was hungry...

I had a tour around noon, to Dachau. It's strange going there. On the one hand, it was a horrible place when it was active, but neither was it an outright extermination camp even if it wasn't a place where the welfare of the inmates was a particularly high priority and even if murder was a fact of life there.

When I first got there it was just a collection of old (or, for a couple of them, reconstructed) buildings with pictures and artifacts housed inside, some in displays. Plus memorials. But as I stayed there I became more and more depressed. Particularly after going to the corner of the camp where they had a small gas chamber and crematorium. I'm not superstitious but it's almost like there were something in the air that I couldn't sense except as a growing heaviness on my shoulders.

We stopped at Schloss Scheisheim on the way back, just for about five minutes or so to see something that wasn't horrible. Both to clear our heads (I think) and (mostly) to remind us that there are things in Dachau that aren't horrible.

I took the rest of the night off, watched a movie, spent some time on the treadmill and had dinner. I just needed to clear my head.

Not sure what I had for dinner was especially German: crispy char on a pretzel dumpling and roast duck breast with a caramalized cherry sauce, plus a weissbier. Either way it was pretty good.