Muenchen

Day numero uno in Munich has thus far been a success. Unfortunately, it costs about 24 Euros for 24 hours of internet connectivity, and quite frankly I’m not really all that interested in partaking in that unnecessary expense. (Ryan just informed me that he’d be happy to share his internet with me and I told him I didn’t have a flash drive to transfer my wordage from my computer to his and he said “Oh, I’ve got plenty.” And I said “Plenty of flash drives?” … because, honestly, I usually carry two in my purse, which is weird, but I don’t even really consider that as plenty, so I’m thinking he has like seven or so just hanging out in his pocket. And he says, “Well, I have one. And that’s plenty for this situation.” Hmm.)

So, I’m working off of about two hours of sleep, but I’m feeling unexpectedly amazing. My flight was great and I sat by a nice gentleman from Munich who had been doing business in South Carolina. He was probably the most normal and pleasant person I could have possibly been seated next to, and I like to think that he maybe felt the same. I mean, really, when do you ever get to sit next to someone regular when you are utilizing any form of public transportation. He has a nine month old son named Alexander and he works for BMW and comes to the states four times a year and stocks up on jeans because they are $32 there and 90 Euros here. True story. I unsuccessfully tried to sleep on multiple occasions and passed on eating dinner because the suffocating smell of everyone else’s gross airplane food made me want to vomit. So I hid under my scarf.

When I landed, Ryan was waiting for me and we fetched a chai tea latte and took the train back to the hotel. The train is awesome and I wish we had such a good thing going for us in Charlotte. On the train, a little girl was singing songs in German – ones that were to the tune of English versions like “London Bridge is Falling Down” – and it was maybe the sweetest thing ever. We passed by lots of buildings and I didn’t really feel like I was in another country at all. It maybe hasn’t even hit me yet. Also, as we were passing a stretch of vacant land, I spotted my first German wolf. When I saw him, I said “Look! A wolf!” Ryan pointed out that my wolf was actually a black dog with a red collar on … he has to ruin all my fun. We made an itinerary based off of a map that he had grabbed from the hotel, and he wrote everything down on a big blue index card that I had. I have a whole stack of them with me. All different colors. Just in case. Ryan asked me if he should be worried that I carry around extra large colorful index cards. I’m not sure what that means. Is that a sign of crazy?

We had a hard time finding out hotel when we got off the train and we must have looked really lost because a sweet old lady came up and tried to help us find our way. She didn’t speak a lick of English, and Ryan only knows how to say “thank you” and “good morning” in German and I only know how to say “goodbye”, so she ended up walking us to our destination, speaking to us in German the entire time. Our hotel is AMAZING. Our room is two levels: the first level has a little potty, an entertainment station, a chair, a sofa, and a desk – the second level has a huge walk-in closet, the bed, and the big potty with a shower. I think I could live here. There’s even a cappuccino machine! We probably got back to the hotel around 10 in the morning, and I showered, got ready, and had two presents waiting for me on the bed when I was done. I didn’t know I’d get presents for coming to Europe! I guess Ryan likes me a lot and was proud of me for making the big trip across the ocean all by myself. With the help of his friend’s fiancé, Korri, Ryan brought me a purse and a string of pearls from the market in China! I love them!

Once I was all bundled up and had my face on, we headed to Starbucks in the train station to meet up with a tour guide, Jared, who was leading a 3 hour walking tour of Munich. It’s cold here! There is snow on the ground which is quickly turning to slush, which means that even in waterproof boots your toes feel like they are turning black and are only hours away from falling off. I think there were probably about 14 people who began the tour with us, but the number quickly dwindled away as frost bite set in. There were many times that we wanted to give up – we weren’t very pleased with all of this history that was involved – I guess we were hoping it’d be more of a “this is where this is, and here is that place, so now you know if you want to further explore later”. Instead there was a lot of standing and jumping up and down to keep warm and tears coming out of the corners of our eyes because it was -2 degrees! (Okay, that’s -2 degrees Celsius, but it was really windy too!) Here are some of the highlights of our tour:

1) We got to see a lot more wolves, and we declared “Wolf!” at each sighting.
2) A guy had a pet goose that he rode around in a basket on the back of his bike. (That sounds like he actually rode the goose – like how you ride a horse. But, he put the goose in a basket attached to his bike, and then rode. You knew what I meant.) The goose was dirty, but I was pleased with the overall situation.
3) Jared, a 27 year old, in shape, nice looking American tour guide, wears an orange winter cap. It appears he has a head full of dark brown hair under this cap. Jared takes of his cap. And he is … completely balding. Like balding in a bad, totally surprising, wow, you should probably just shave your head, I really didn’t expect that kind of way. Ryan and I couldn’t get over it. I’m still in shock.
4) After 2 hours of the tour, we get to take a break to go potty in Starbucks. And I get another chai tea latte. It warms my soul, and the next 30 minutes seem not so painful.
5) Ryan and I successfully navigated our way back to our hotel by ourselves – no old German ladies necessary.

So here we are, typing away on our laptops – Ryan doing work, me doing play. That sounds about right. It’s almost 6 in the evening now, and though my eyes are craving a tiger snooze, I’m very proud of both of us for our energy levels and non-complaints today. I imagine we will get some dinner and then crash pretty early. Our feet our aching, but we have a whole bag of peanut M&Ms and eight bottles of 5 Hour Energy to get us through the rest of our adventure.

Tomorrow we are thinking about visiting the Neuschwanstein Castle and then participating in a “Beer Challenge” where we go to four different beer halls in four hours. We’re in the self proclaimed beer capital of the world, so I don’t really feel like the challenge is optional. Wish us luck!