So, for those of you paying attention, you will know that this post is a bit late. Quite a bit late. I suppose I got a little ahead of myself when I said "a couple of days." I kept telling myself in the back of my mind "write that blog post" throughout the week, but just never did it. Finally my mom told me firmly via Facebook to get on it, so here I am.
The next day of Becky's visit, we planned on spending a little time in Ulm, mostly to see the Münster. She had only seen the Münster at night and it seemed a little creepy with its Gothic appearance and menacing moon overhead. I wanted her to see the inside of the building and we planned on climbing the steeple. I have climbed it before, but of course I was willing to join her for a second trip to the top. After that, we planned on going to Munich to wander around and go to the Hofbrauhaus.
We did not have a timetable of when we wanted to do what. But we knew we were going to do the Münster first, then go to Munich when we were ready. It was a change of pace from the much more structured day at Füssen.
We took the scenic route into Ulm. We walked along to Donau and Becky took some pictures of the fall foliage and sights along the path. I guess I have traveled that path so many times, I didn't feel like taking many pictures, though it was pretty. When we got to Ulm, we went straight to the Münster. It was fairly early on a Monday (11 AM or so), so there weren't too many people there. When we walked in, Becky seemed absolutely amazed at the beauty of the church. She quickly reached for her camera to start taking pictures. She thought the side area we entered was tall, but was quite surprised when we walked to the middle section and it only got taller. We slowly made our way around the building and I let Becky have all the time she needed for pictures. She commented on how the outside seems so dark and (a little) creepy, but the inside seems so light and peaceful.
Fall on the Donau
When we were done taking pictures of the interior, we began our journey up the steeple. As I said in my earlier post about the Münster and my climb, the spiral staircase is simply too small to photograph. Becky tried and came to the same conclusion. We made sure to stop at every rest area for rest and photos. Luckily, there were not many people on our ascent. We actually climbed at a pretty good speed. It did not seem as grueling as the first time I went up. Maybe I am in better shape or something? No clue. When we stopped at the big rest area before the final staircase to the very, very top, more people started to show up. They did not rest for long for pictures like Becky and me, so they went up. Which stinks because the top section gets VERY crowded. We waited for a couple of people to come down before we went up. Luckily, there was standing room for us, but rotating around the circle is a slow process. We had to wait for people on either side of us to move before we could move. But we got to go around the whole thing and take pictures, so it was nice.
On the descent, Becky and I had a good laugh at the wobbly-knee phenomenon I warned her about. After climbing the 780+ steps to the top, you then have to make the same trip going down. You have gravity on your side, but you also have to be careful in the small stairwells not to trip. We made it to the bottom (following a group of German teens) and high-five'd upon making it back to the lobby.
From there, we decided that drinks and a snack were in order, so we went to Müller, which is like a big version of CVS, I suppose. Very big. It feels like a combination of CVS and Walmart or something. We grabbed some candy (oops) and I bought a big bottle of some sort of fruit juice. Becky bought herself a lot of chocolate to take back to France. Hazelnut chocolate bars or some nonsense. We sat by a small fountain on the busy shopping street and enjoyed our food. As I sat down, I pulled out my box of Skittles (yes, box). As I was unwrapping it, a man came over and asked I had a cigarette and he was willing to pay 20 Euro cents for it. I said no, and he revealed from a distance the Skittles box looked like a cigarette pack. Which I will admit, it kind of did. We had a laugh and he went off. He did not appear to be homeless at all, probably just wanted one cigarette and didn't want to buy a whole pack. Who knows?
Afterwards, Becky and I traveled to the Hbf and got on our train and waited a little bit before departing to Munich. The train ride was fairly uneventful. And unlike Füssen, we did not have to make any changes. Just ride the train until it ends in Munich. Those trains are my favorite. It was still a regional train, so we made frequent stops, but I am used to that journey by now.
We arrived at the large Munich Hbf and went to a bookstore to look for a guide to Munich in English. Alas, we could not find one, so we decided to just enter the city. We were immediately greeted by a casino and bar attached to a fitness center. ...okay, Munich. We seemed pretty lost and just kind of wandering, but quickly saw one of those tour buses that travels to popular sights throughout the day. It stopped at a bus stop and we walked over to it. At the stop was a map with some popular destinations that the bus goes to. We looked at the map and found a high density area near the Hofbrauhaus. We remembered the incredibly complex directions (right here and keep going until you see churches, then go down a little bit) and went on our way.
We quickly came upon a massive traffic area with confusing pedestrian paths and cars going every which way. We went to where we thought was a crossing and there was a woman looking at traffic waiting for her chance to run across, so we stood behind her. She turned around, said something in very fast German to Becky, laughed at what she said, then started to run across the street. Becky and I looked at each other, laughed, and followed her. When we got to the other side, she realized Becky had no idea what she said (or maybe she heard us talking) and said, "Do you speak English or something?" We said yes and she told us that we weren't technically at a crosswalk, but she was going anyway. We made it to the other side, said goodbye, and parted ways.
Becky and I traveled to a large arch that she noticed. This arch led to quite a busy shopping street. We walked down the road and were quite amazed with the amount of people and stores. We eventually came across a gorgeous building. We took some pictures and while Becky was taking more, I approached the building to look for a sign saying what it was. Turns out, it is Munich's Rathaus (city hall). After we were done with pictures, we kept walking.
The arch Becky noticed leading to the main street
The Munich Rathaus
I noticed a tall facade of a building that looked a bit like a church. It was attached to the buildings around it, so we weren't sure. But it had church-like doors, so that was my first clue. We decided to see if we could go inside, and the doors were open. It was, in fact, a church. It was a large Catholic church with white walls and floor. There was an organist playing some beautiful music and people silently walking about. We began taking some pictures and slowly walking around. There was a place to light a candle like in other churches, but it was a bit too expensive and I didn't have change. And, I'm sorry, I wasn't about to pay 20 Euros to light a candle.
Wasn't sure if it was a church or a government building.
The main hall.
A pretty cool altar.
We left that church and noticed that we had reached the cluster of churches we saw on the map. We went to another large church a little ways down the street. This church was actually fairly plain on the inside, which seems quite strange for these old, German churches. We were only in there for a couple of minutes before everyone was asked to leave because they were starting some sort of service.
After we left, we found a life-size statue of a woman named "Juliet." A few things seemed strange about this woman. The first was that she was partially topless (which, I suppose isn't too strange), but it was a little strange that her exposed breast was a completely different color from having been rubbed so often. Another strange thing was that she was holding a real rose in her hand. As Becky was taking pictures, I went to the plaque on the wall and read that it was actually Juliet from Romeo and Juliet.
We kept walking and our attention was drawn to a large market. We walked over to it and many of the booths were closing (it was around 5 or 6 PM--when everything in Germany closes), but we saw that they were selling all of the typical Bavarian goods. Cheese, meat, wine, and so on. Judging by the booths, it seemed like this market was there everyday.
After wandering the market for a little bit, we began our quest to find the Hofbrauhaus. We knew we were close (based on the map we saw earlier....and the high density of Asians), but we were not sure if it would be on the main street we had be traveling or not. After a little bit of walking with no signs, I stopped to ask a middle-aged woman (they seem to be the most willing to help in Germany) at the bus stop if she knew where the Hofbrauhaus was. She did not speak English (I had asked her in German) and mentioned that she has not been to Munich in a long time, but she was pretty sure it was a couple of blocks "that way" (she pointed, of course) and wished us luck. We followed her direction and quickly saw a sign pointing us to the Hofbrauhaus. As we approached it, the density of people built up. We went to the menu posted outside to check if it was in our price range. It was a bit pricey as we expected, but not unreasonable. It was also Becky's birthday and it was the freaking Hofbrauhaus, so we decided to go in.
I have been mentioning the Hofbrauhaus in this post and realized I might not have said what it is. It is a beer hall that is one of the oldest breweries and beer halls in Germany. It was built in 1589 (yeah, pretty old) and, like most major buildings in most major cities in Germany, was partially destroyed by bombs in WWII. This has become an INCREDIBLY popular tourist destination. This was clear by the fact that the place was packed.
We entered the doors to the sound of people laughing, talking, yelling, and a typical Bavarian band, completely surrounded by tourists, jamming out to some German songs. The way the Hofbrauhaus, like all beer halls, operates is that there is no hostess, you just sit down where you can find a table. So we walked and walked until we found an area that hadn't been filled yet. We sat at a table and there were a few empty tables around us that we figured would get filled. We looked at the menu and it was all in German. The waiter came over, noticed we were speaking English, and brought us English menus. We both got some Weissbier, of course. I had a Bratwurst with Sauerkraut and Becky got some other kind of Wurst (can't remember what it was) with potato salad and a pretzel.
Soon after our food arrived, a few people took an empty table behind us. They were speaking English with an Irish accent and mentioned more people coming. Eventually more people started to show up at the tables they claimed. And more people. By the time we left, their party had grown to about 20, spanning 3 tables. Becky and I noticed not all of them spoke with Irish accents, though. Many of them were American. One of them (an Irishman) was a bit drunk (of course) and was being loud and silly. Him walking off to demonstrate something prompted the people sitting behind Becky to turn around to look at him and I said something to one of them and we had a laugh. Then a little later, one of them turned around to talk to us. He had an American accent and introduced himself. We introduced ourselves and said we were from Indiana and he was amazed to find other Americans (although it is the Hofbrauhaus) and he was from California.
He told us that he was here with this group and his job is to set up the lights and sound. We were a little confused and he forgot to mention that he, and everyone he was with, works for Celtic Women. Celtic Women is an Irish music group consisting of three female singers and a band. Needless to say, we were rather shocked. The Celtic Women themselves were not there (probably because the loud atmosphere and beer would damage their voices?) but everyone there was either in the band or on the crew. Becky mentioned that she went to a show of theirs in Indy a couple of years back. This man then introduced us to the person sitting directly behind Becky. This man was the bass player who has been with the band since it was first started. Him and Becky talked for a little bit and got a picture.
At the end of our meal, we said goodbye to everyone and began to walk out. After we got a little ways out, a woman from the group approached us and said, "My boss wants to offer you tickets to the show if you will be in the area tomorrow night." Which is totally awesome. Unfortunately, we had to say no. The train ride is 2 hours one way and the show would go so late that the trains would have stopped going back to Ulm. We thanked her for the generous offer and made our way back to the Munich Hbf.
Our beers. Not too bad, I guess. We both finished them, though.
Birthday Girl with her beer. You can see the empty tables that soon became occupied.
My food and beer. I ate some of the Sauerkraut. Not my favorite food, I learned...
And then it became busy. The woman there was walking around selling MASSIVE pretzels.
Hofbrauhaus selfie. Not sorry.
A not-so-great picture of the band I took while walking past.
As we were sitting in the Hbf waiting for our train, Becky laughed at the situation. The fact that she was sitting in a train station in Munich with me on her birthday and we had just met the band of Celtic Women and were offered tickets to their show. We got on the train back to Ulm and crashed when we got back to the house.
The next day, Becky was planning on going to Dachau to see the memorial. Since I had there a week before, I decided not to go. I helped Becky plan her trip on how to get there and sent her on her way. My day was a normal au pair day for the most part. Becky and I did make plans, however, to get dinner with a friend she met while studying abroad in Peru who, oddly enough, now lives in Ulm as of two days prior. So when the time came, I met Becky at the Ulm Hbf in the evening where we were also meeting her friend. He took us to a place called Nudelbar in Ulm. I had never heard of it, but it was quite good. You pay 10 Euros for all-you-can-eat from an Italian, pizza, and Mexican menu. There were plenty of options and I think I more than got my 10 Euros worth of food. We had a nice meal and talk. Nothing too eventful happened. After that, we walked back to the house and went to bed a little bit later.
The next morning, we woke up rather early to take Becky to the Hbf. I got to show off my stick-driving abilities as I drove her to the Hbf. I wasn't completely sure where I could park, but I improvised. I parked the car, gave her a hug and thanked her for coming. We parted ways and I drove back to the house and fell back asleep because I was pretty tired.
It was incredibly fun having Becky here and going on the adventures that we did. And I am glad I got to help her celebrate her birthday in a very interesting way. Needless to say, I am excited for my trip to Paris at the end of November. I will post more about that as the time approaches. You can check out Becky's blog post with vastly superior pictures about her trip to Munich (and probably Dachau later) on her blog here:
http://beckygoesabroad.wordpress.com/
I will not make any promises about my next blog post. I have been taking it easy since Becky's visit because we did so much traveling. I am not sure where I will be going to next...
As always, here are a couple of quotes! This time, the first quote isn't from Becky, but it is from the Irish folk we heard at the Hofbrauhaus.
"It's quiet over here. It won't be once the Irish get here." - Random member from the Celtic Women band
"I liked Germany; I'm not into Berlin, it's to huge and empty and imposing, but Munich was good." - Graham Coxon
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