Melissa: Munchen musing

Our reunion at the beergarten where we got our first schnitzel


at a metro stop, snails with our homes on our backs, waiting to meet our host


Alex's car pulled off of the road to take a moment to capture the lovely Bavarian countryside


A glimpse of the beautiful (but slimy)lake we took a dip in.

Writing from our newest hostel in Vienna and hoping to catch up with this blog before time gets away from me. You would be surprised how much one can do in a mere three days. In retrospect, Munich was a nice city. But sort of nice in that way that girls say "he is so nice" but we really know what that means. We actually got a more well rounded experience of the city because we came at it from two different angles- one from a corporate feeling hostel near the train station and the other from a small apartment in a Munich suburb while couchsurfing. Although it might be debatable which experience sounds more worthwhile or fun in the least, the latter was hands down more rewarding. Actually we have one person in particular to thank about us even having a place to stay the second night. Without the very high recommendation that he gave elisa on the couch surfing website we would not have been accepted by our host (who told us later that the high praise elisa received was why he took a chance on taking 4 people into his small place for two nights). Thank you Bocefus, wherever you are.

Anyway, rain caused us to remain in our Wombats hostel with the other backpackers who were too wimpy or unmotivated to go out in the rain. Elisa and I had just been reunited with Jesse and Cal so we had enough catching up to do to provide a worthy excuse of falling into this categorz. But hanging around travelers who are all 20 something and all intoxicated, listening to American music, and trying to create some new form of interaction is not always that stimulating. We were in bed by 12:30:)

The next night proved to be a lot more exciting. Alex, our awesome host who is a parttime freelance editor for technology pieces and also a partime DJ, had invited us to the club he was working at that night. So after a day of palace touring and cake eating we went with him to a local Bavarian restaurant and tried potato and bread dumplings as well as this sweet sauerkraut that was actually quite good and then we worked our way to the venue. After some espresso drinking and efforts to rouse up some energy, we made it to the riverside complex that was starting to be speckled with real live German locals. Most of the ones that stood outside of the club, that was sponsored by a local clothing company, looked young and I think I had one of my first experiences where I felt old at a club. Hmmm...didnt care for it much. But we got in and Alex hooked us up with free beer for the night (and even smuggled in some gin and tonic we had mixed earlier for us- such a nice guy) in between his DJing. The rest of the night was a haze of really good songs and much needed dancing time. We really knew most of the songs- as most of them were in English and largely American- but it was cute to hear a German song come on and then see all the locals start singing. German hipsters are strange. We taxied home happy campers.

Well I have 6 more minutes on this computer before my time is up and I need to get to bed so Elisa and Jesse and I can have enough energy to go out and start seeing Vienna tomorrow. Looking through our LonelyPlanet on the way here stressed how much there is to do in Vienna- coffee, wine, Freud, Klimt, Sacher torte, the Governator. We have much more in store for us.