We have now spent two weekends in Germany. We spent our first weekend in Ulm, but ventured farther for our second weekend: Bavaria.

We got out of class at 1pm on Friday. We had packed our bags ahead of time and brought them to class so we could go straight to the bus station, but Allyn foolishly forgot to pack his Eurail pass. So we got out of class, ate lunch at the mensa, got Allyn's pass, and got on the 3pm train or so. We took the train to Munich. It's about an hour away. It was the others' first time riding a train in Europe. We got to Munich around 4:30 and went to the "Euro Youth Hotel" which is a couple blocks from the station. None of us had stayed in a hostel before. We made it to the hostel, but they were full for the night. Fortunately, they gave us a list of other hostels in town, so we went to "4you" which was the next one of the list, I believe. Fortunately, they had room for us, and booked the four of us in a 6-person room. We paid around $20 each. The room wasn't too bad; it had 3 bunk beds, a table and a chair, and lockers for each of us. Each bed had a light too. Just down the hall was another group of Kettering students.... We knew they were going to Munich, but we had no idea we'd be in the same place. We're all dorks, by the way. We took a picture before we got on the train. And we took pictures of us inside the hostel.

So after we got settled in the hostel, we walked around Munich. We didn't have a big plan, and most things in Germany seem to close at either 6pm or 8pm. Allyn and I have guide books for Germany, and Allyn brought his along. We used the map inside to walk around to various things marked on the map. Unfortunately, we didn't really know what many of them were, and signs around them were in German. But we got some pictures. We ended up around Marienplatz, which is a big pedestrian plaza in town. We ate at a restaurant that had everything for 6.95 euros. Munich is the capital of Bavaria (if you didn't know that), and the restaurant definitely had a Bavarian theme. I'm not sure what I got, but it was really fat meat (blech) and potato salad (blech) and this weird donut hole-type thing. It wasn't my favorite, but the others liked what they got. The had a guy playing accordian there. After the restaurant, we walked around some more. It was kinda cold out by this point (7pm or so), so we went inside a store. It was a bookstore. Too bad we don't know German. I looked at books in the automotive section to see if I could find an inexpensive picture book that David Rothermel might like, but I didn't see any. However, I did end up getting something: playing cards. They playing cards have a castle theme: each card has a different German castle on the face. It's kinda annoying that the Jacks have "B" instead of "J" on them. The Queens have "D" instead of "Q". (If I remember correctly.) After the bookstore, we rode the subway back to the hostel. Eric stayed at the hostel, but the rest of us went back out. We went to Marienplatz and watched the belltower on the Alterathaus at 9pm. Apparently the belltower has displays at certain hours of the day. At 9pm, there are little statue-things that move around and go to bed while the bells are playing a lullabye. I think you have to watch all the displays during the day to get the whole story. If I remember right, there are displays at 10am, 11am, and 9pm, and each is a different part of the story. It was cool, but kinda disappointing.... it would probably be better to one of the earlier displays. Munich is a somwhat unique German city..... most major cities like Munich were desimated (sp?) as a result of WWII. To rebuild, most of the cities decided to tear down the remains and build new stuff. Munich, however, decided to rebuild all of the old buildings. Therefore, Munich has a bunch of "old buildings" that are really only 50 years old or so. After watching the clock, we went to the Hofbrauhaus. It's a semi-famous tourist stop.... basically it's a gigantic beer hall. The other Kettering students had told us there were going there, and we met them as soon as we walked in. The place definitely has, um, atmosphere. The have a live German band with tuba, drum set, trumpet, keyboard, etc. It's a gigantic room with table after table of inebriated Germans and tourists. When you stand outside, you can see a fog of cigarette smoke inside. Sometimes people would sing along or dance with the music. We stayed there until 11:30 or so. We went to take the subway back to the hostel, but none of our trains were scheduled for the next hour, so we just walked home. We were lucky, and walked straight back to the hostel, despite not having followed that route before. When we got back, I took a shower and went to bed. The others did similarly.