What the hell happened to my beer?!

I’ll do what I did a couple weekends ago and split my weekend into two blogs. This covers Friday.

We had to leave for the airport pretty early because our flight to Germany left around 9:30. We flew into a small town called Memmingen about an hour and a half outside of Munich. When we landed I think we all had the same obvious realization- ‘F! We don’t speak their language!’ Luckily enough people at the airport spoke English that we were able to find out the best way to Munich was a train and somehow me managed to get to the train station and get a ticket to Munich.

Amy showing off her German coke on the train from the Memmingen Airport (which has a whole four terminals!) to Munich.

We were actually pretty excited because what we thought would be a thirty euro round-trip bus ticket turned into a fifteen euro round-trip train ticket! So we figured the trip was already off to a pretty good start!

Our good start went downhill, however, after we arrived in Munich and it was pouring rain. And I’m not just talking rain here; I’m talking crazy loud thunder and huge streaks of lightening with torrential downpour rain. Luckily we found another English speaking person and found our way to the tram that would get us to our hotel.

Amy, Kelsie, and Lindsay as we head to the center of Munich for our first night out.

(After some of the girls at a bad hostel experience in London we decided to splurge and stay in a Holiday Inn instead- when split between the four of us it actually turned out to be cheaper than a hostel!!) We thought were doing dandy (yes, I just used the word dandy) until a nice young lady informed us we were going the wrong way on the tram. So we had to get off, in the torrential downpour mind you, to get back on the tram going the opposite way.

Finally we made it to our hotel and our first order of business was dinner! We ate at the hotel’s restaurant where we all ordered pizza. Yes, we flew thousands of miles to Germany to eat pizza- but it happened to be the menus cheapest and also sounded the yummiest! For dessert though we got Bavarian apple strudel, which was a.m.a.z.i.n.g. It made me laugh because whenever we go to the German restaurant in Disney World about the only ‘German food’ I like is their apple strudel! This actually turned out to be the only ‘German’ food I ate during the trip, not counting their soft-baked pretzels that seem to be very popular (though I’m not sure that actually counts as ‘German’ food, but yummy all the same!)

Where should we go next?!

Given that we were not in the beer capital of the world it only seemed right to go out for the night and grab some drinks.

Amy and Me on the way into the Munich city centre for our first night out.

While we still had a couple hours of daylight we decided to walk around the city. Oh my gosh- it. was. beautiful! I basically fell in love with it instantly and we had such a fun time walking around. We stopped at their City Hall,

Munich's town hall.

which was freaking beautiful. And also went to the Residential Palace and Museum (though we didn’t go inside either since they were probably closed for the night).

In the gardens of the Residential Palace area.

After walking around for a bit we ended up at Hofbräuhaus- a huge beer garden in the center of Munich.

At the Hofbräuhaus in Munich!

We got huge pints of beer (I think these are double pints actually) and had a great time just sitting around and talking for a couple hours. I should add that it took me ten minutes to finish my beer… it took the other girls about an hour and ten minutes.

I'm on the right ten minutes after getting my beer, Kelsie is on the left!

What can I say? I know how to drink my beer! And it definitely was some yummy beer! We also got one of their huge soft-baked pretzels to split between us!

What happened to my beer?! I just got it ten minutes ago!

After we finished our beer (though I had been done for quite some time) we decided to head back to the hotel because we had to be up early for a tour we were taking in the morning. On our way out two guys called us over to have a drink with them. We sort of ignored them since we figured there would be a language barrier but I stopped to ask if they spoke English. The one said he did a little and it turned out so did the other. The other girls weren’t sure what to do so finally I just made the executive decision that we were only in Munich for a couple days and should take advantage and we went and sat down with them. (I also knew the bar was closing so we couldn’t get another drink, which was good because I didn’t want one. Hehe, I know, I’m sneaky.)

It turned out they were from Austria and I forgot their names once they said them since I couldn’t even begin to pronounce them! We had a good time talking to them especially once we stopped being frustrated by them having their side conversations in German. We realized we were basically doing the same with our English since they couldn’t understand us when we talked fast to one another. It was amusing though because every once in a while we’d be talking and they’d have to stop and say, “Wait, how do you say [insert German word here> in English?” as they were trying to explain something to us.

One of the streets in Munich.

In Germany they say Munich differently than we do- they spell it München and pronounce it completely different. That whole day we had been trying to figure out how they pronounce it. So I asked one of the guys how they pronounce ‘Munich’ and he looked at me and said, “What’s Munich?” I laughed and responded, “The city we’re in!” And he looked at me very confused.

At a fountain in Munich.

So finally I asked him what city we were in and he said “Oh! München!” and pronounced it the German way. “Okay, well we pronounce it Munich!” He got a big kick out of that and it was a pretty funny conversation all the way around!

After the beer garden closed the guys wanted to go out for aonther drink, which Kelsie and I were completely up for.

Outside the Residential Museum (I think, hehe).

Unforunatley Lindsay and Amy were tired and wanted to head back to the hotel. Since we knew we had to be up early the next morning anyway Kelsie and I decided that was probably for the best and we all headed back together. We knew Saturday was going to be a long day…

What the hell happened to my beer?!

Munich, Germany