Munich, you are too good to us

This morning we started out at the Deutsches Museum which we happened to come on a day with free admittance without even knowing it! Lucky. The Museum is for science and technology and was seriously so cool.

Katherine, I got so excited for you when I saw the optics. There was nothing to do with optometry, just microscopes. Sorry bout it.

Lots of sweet pianos

Caroline, we even found some flutes for you

Special exhibit on technology in the 1950s.

Dad, I think you should have had one of these

In the pharmaceutics section there was a giant replica of a cell magnified some amount of times that I don't remember but was a lot. Obviously, considering I am the same size as the golgi apparatus. Too bad we didn't see this in biology. It might have made the class a whole lot more interesting.

The lights in the pharmaceutics section were test tubes. So cool.

On the way back we saw a ton of school children in the metro. I don't have any desire to take a bunch of elementary aged children on the enormous Munich metro system.

But they were precious and had buddies.

Then we went to Allianz Arena. They play football (don't call it soccer or they get mad...) here. We took a fun tour!

FC Bayern's locker room.

We had a lot of people from the middle east on the tour. Perfect example of the enormous quantities of pictures they took of nothing.

Tunnel for the players, the entrance lifts out of the ground in 12 seconds.

On the field

Picture of middle easterners on our tour taking pictures. They all got solo pics in front of the audi car. The car was nothing special but the whole tour had to wait for them to take their pictures. Gave us a good laugh.

The outside is plastic. ANNND they can light up the outside red, white, or blue. Red for FC Bayern and blue for 1860. But I just think its patriotic for America.

After lunch and the tour at the Allianz Arena we headed to a beer garden called Lowenbrau Keller which was smaller than the others we have been to (only seated 1000) but it was still relaxing and nice. Then we headed to Marienplatz to stroll around and kill some time before dinner.

People in Munich actually wear the traditional bavarian dresses and overalls, we have seen people casually walking down the street. They have whole sections in department stores devoted to them. Someone please enlighten me as to what occasion you would wear these. We found one for 700 euros....

We ate dinner right near the Marienplatz, headed back to rest at the hotel, then went out for our last big night in Munich at the Hofbrauhaus.

Munich, you have treated us well.

I'm slightly obsessed

WE LOVE MUNICH!!! Seriously such a cool city with tons to do and so much history. You can get everywhere on the subway but tons of people ride bikes everywhere. Also, there are parks everywhere so you see people walking, running, and biking. I love it.

Monday morning we started the day out in the Marienplatz for the Glockenspiel which is a 10 minute performance (its basically a music box that the town hall chimes 4 different songs while little figurines move around). Apparently its rated as the #2 overrated European tourist activity but whatever I thought it was cool. After the Glockenspiel we went to Peterskirche and went up in the tower that gave us a really pretty view of the center of Munich.

Marienplatz

Then we went to the big market where there was fresh produce everywhere, flowers, and cheese. YUM. We got blueberries for our midmorning snack.

We continued around the old part of town and went to Frauenkirche which is the oldest church in Munich. It's the church that you often seen in the Munich skyline with the two towers with the onion domed tops. Inside there is a footprint that is said that is where the devil stood when he attempted to destroy the church.

devil's footprint

After the main square we headed out to Olympic Park which was built for the summer olympics in Munich in 1972. The hills were built on WWII rubble. 

View from the Olympic Tower.

Olympic Park is huge and beautiful and we happened upon a festival. Tollwood. 

Munich is one of the candidate cities for the 2018 winter olympics. There are ads everywhere because they are deciding next week where the olympics will be!

Olympic Tower

Lunch at Tollwood. My first bratwurst in Germany. Delicious. 

After lunch we headed to Hirschgarten which is Munich's largest beer garden. It has 8,000 seats! I thought the beer garden would be idiot proof, point to the beer your want, easy. No. I pointed to something, assuming it was beer. It came out kind of fizzy whatever. It wasn't until I was paying that the guy looked at me and said "you know you ordered apple juice right?" It was fizzy apple juice. Oops. Maybe that is my que I should start learning German, or at least try a little harder. Besides the drink mistake we really enjoyed the beer garden. It was in a big park so there were people walking, running, laying out, and reading in the grass nearby.

Then we went to a chocolate store called Elly Seial. It was all locals in there with us which was awesome. It was mostly truffles and other delicious chocolate so we got to pick the size box we wanted and then put whatever types we wanted in it. The lady was awesome and helped us pick all the best ones.

Seriously so good. I need to go back before I leave Munich.

After going back to the hotel for a little while we went to dinner at Pauliner Im Tal which was really good and they brew their own beer.

Beer with lemonade in it. So good.

Weiner Schnitzel

Mom, are you proud?? It's just like the Bavarian Inn.

While we were sitting at dinner a guy sitting at the table behind us turns around and asks if we are from Alabama. We were surprised he knew and so we quickly became friends with Brian and his girlfriend Brianna who are from Conneticut. They were in Romania for a conference he had and are now traveling for a few weeks. He went to bomb school in Huntsville and Brianna said as soon as we ordered he told her we were from Alabama! We chatted for a while and when they found out we were going to Hofbrauhaus they invited us to go with them.

Hofbrauhaus is the most famous beer hall in Munich and it is the site where Hitler gave a lot of speeches and rallied the nazis. The beer hall is huge and so much fun, especially with the band playing German music all night. We all ordered the classic Hofbrau beer and when Beth and I pulled out our money to pay, Brian paid for us because he said we were poor college kids!! Ahh made me so happy (especially since these are about $10 beers). Another highlight to the beer hall was that we saw some drunk Asians which let me tell you is a sight to see and is completely hilarious. One of them got up and was marching and dancing in front of the band. It makes me sad I don't have video...We had so much fun with Brian and Brianna and when we left, they walked us back to the metro station because Brian is a dad with two young kids so he wanted to make sure we weren't walking around Munich my ourselves. Seriously so nice, so fun, best night!!

Tuesday, we woke up and took the metro to Dachau which was the first concentration camp and was one of the only ones to last the entire nazi reign. When you get off the suburban train you either have to walk or take a bus and we found 2 families that one of the dads had a kentucky hat so we joined in with them and ended up walking with them to the camp. It was a good ways but was really interesting because you see how the camp is literally in the middle of a neighborhood. I always think of concentration camps as in the middle of nowhere but thats not really true. Also, there is a main road right next to the fence and watch towers at Dachau so there are tons of people that live in the neighborhood and drive by this concentration camp every day of their life. Crazy. The concentration camp was really sad but it is amazing how the camp is still there since you would think Germany would have wanted to tear it down to move on. (In Germany, most Germans don't talk about Hitler, the concentration camps, or WWII and they don't want to parade around important sights to do with Hitler and the nazis).

On our way back from Dachau we saw this man. Sorry the picture is dark, it does not do it justice, but he was wearing a see through shirt, crazy pants, and platform high heeled boots. Yes, he was male.

Also while we were waiting for the train back in to the main part of Munich, we saw a family that the boys had on UGA hats. We had a good representation of the SEC today. So far in Europe we have seen Auburn, Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Vandy, and Kentucky.

Then we went to the university district where we saw tons of college kids which was fun and this awesome sculpture. We don't know his significance but we think he's cool.

After walking around the university district and eating lunch, we went and walked around the English Garden which is enormous. After being there for a while we went to Augustiner-Keller which is a large beer garden in Munich.

Currywurst for dinner at Augustiner-Keller

The beer gardens are so fun. Yesterday we saw guys going homework, you see locals that bring an entire picnic for their dinner with a tablecloth and everything. I am convinced Auburn must get a beer garden. I don't know why this hasn't caught on in the states but it is AWESOME!! Its really chill and relaxed and you can hang out with friends, eat, people watch, etc.

Old people with their picnic.

In Augustiner-Keller the locals have their own decorated round table

After the beer garden we headed over to the Munich Film Festival which is going on right now because we thought that would be a really cool tshirt from Munich. False. No tshirts. They thought we were weird and absurd for even asking if they had any. Then we went to the hotel before going back out to try some more beer halls. We went to Augustiners. They have Germany's most popular beer, but when we went it was pretty quiet and didn't seem to be much going on. Not enough fun for us. So we decided to head back to Hofbrauhaus which we love and listed to music with our beers. The funny thing about Europe, and especially Germany is that we attract guys attention like we are the best thing they have ever seen. European guys LOVE American girls, especially Southern girls. 

So tonight these two guys from Norway, who say they were 19, but im convinced they couldn't have been older than 16 or 17 strike up a conversation and sit down at our booth with us. The guy tells me he knows a lot about Alabama because he read The Help. Beth and I haven't read the book, but we were under the impression it is set in Mississippi but whatever. We eventually escaped from them and went to the roof which was really nice before heading home for the night.

Basically today's lesson is that if we want to get married, because as Beth's dad puts it we are just too picky, we need to move to Europe because they love American girls.

This is the most fun, coolest city ever. Come visit.

I prefer hip hop

Today we took the train to Interlaken for the day. It took less than an hour so once we got there we walked around town. We thought that since it is a small town it would be idiot proof as to where the panoramic views and best places to go were, but this is not the case. When we got to town everyone scattered in different directions so we wandered around and looked in a bunch of cute shops. It took us a while to figure out, but we ended up taking a bus to the other side of town to one of the lakes.

Interlaken is a town in between two lakes at the bottom of the Alps so the views are really pretty. There was a strange mix of people in the town. A good bit of young people for all the rafting, hang gliding, and sky diving as well as tons of old people. When we were on the train it was pretty much filled with old people that had on hiking boots and hiking poles. We decided to eat by the lake at a restaurant that was really good but literally we were the only young people there. We looked like we were eating lunch at a retirement home. But the food was really good, I had some sort of fried fish that is from the area.

After lunch, we went to the edge of the lake to take some pictures where we were approached by a young guy who offered to take our picture. He ended up talking to us for a while and he is from Switzerland and was at the lake for the day. It was only in the 70s today but they thought that was hot! We had to ask him about the yodelers and why we couldn't find any. He told us he much preferred hip hop to yodeling. We did find out in Interlaken that there is a yodeling festival but that it was last week. We were a week late! So if I ever come back to Switzerland I guess I will have to come back for that.

After lunch we took the bus back to the main part of town and walked around some more where I got a Swiss army knife! Yes, it is much cooler to have a swiss army knife that actually came from Switzerland.   Early afternoon we took the train back to Bern to get ready to leave Switzerland. We went and got our bags and headed to the train station to get snacks because apparently the only grocery store open on Sundays in Bern is in the train station. It was pretty much mass chaos in there but we were able to spend our last few Swiss Francs on some snacks for the train. After that we took the train to Munich where we encountered 2 shrieking toddlers on our train. We are not sure why on every plane, ferry, and train we always manage to get on one with a screaming baby, but we have awesome luck in that department. After a long train ride we were glad to have rested and seen some pretty sites in Switzerland and are excited to be in Munich, Germany!

Wait so there aren't any yodelers??

Today Beth and I decided to sleep in a little since we needed some rest, then we got ready and headed out to explore Bern. Our hostel is really nice so that is a definite plus. We got brunch and then went to the train station to check on times to leave for Munich tomorrow night. First of all, everything in Switzerland is crazy expensive. So most of the day we spent wandering around seeing sights, for free.

There are fountains everywhere. They are awesome especially because they pour out free, clean, cold, delicious water. This is the Anna fountain.

Clock Tower aka Zytglogge

Another fountain with the clock tower behind it

We went to Einstein's apartment where he lived when he was in Bern with his family for about 7 or 8 years. It was pretty cool and we learned a lot about Einstein. Did you know that he and his wife had an illegitimate child before they were married?? No one knows what happened to her....sketchy. 

Swiss flags

The water runs all around the main part of the city. It's really pretty.

Bern's official mascot is a bear. The Bern flag has a bear on it and they actually have real bears. They live right by the water so we walked over to say hello to them.

Bern bear

All the cars in Bern are super nice....because they all have sketchy Swiss bank accounts. Duu.

Cathedral

We made it to the Cathedral just in time for the wedding reception.

When we got to the Cathedral there was a wedding finishing up that was about to start a reception under tents right outside. Right next to the reception people were about to start a performance of Les Mis. 

Half Les Mis performance, half wedding reception. Strange.

After seeing the Cathedral, we had been walking most of the day and since it was our usual gelato time we needed a snack. So since there was no gelato we went to a big chocolate shop and got some Swiss chocolate. It was delicious. Afterwards we headed over to the Kultursprung (cultural festival) that was going on today to hang out. We thought the cultural festival would be the jackpot on finding some yodelers but sadly when we asked one of the girls working if there would be any yodelers she said it was more for other cultures, nothing "swissy" as she put it. But on the subject of yodelers this was not our first asking about the yodelers. We asked in our hostel and at the information desk by the bears and everyone looked at us strange and couldn't seem to find anywhere for us to see any. Sad day. We decided to enjoy the culture festival anyways and ended up having a great time when we met some locals that were really fun to talk to. They told us all about Switzerland and Bern, and gave us tips on places to eat, nightlight, and things to do. Of course, we had to ask about the yodelers and why we couldn't find any. The man's response was "Well if I come to the south could I actually find some cowboys?" Why yes, you could. 

After Kultursprug we went by the river to have drinks before dinner. I decided to save some money and just enjoy the scenery and the waiter got Beth's drink order wrong and gave her some alcohol free concoction of orange juice. At least the scenery was pretty!

Then we walked back and went to dinner because we really wanted to have cheese fondue. It was really good even though all it was was a fondue pot of cheese and bread (I ordered some potatoes). 

Ogre fountain

This is as close as we got to yodelers all day.

Town Hall

We walked around for a while after dinner and saw another church, town hall, and some more fountains. We decided to head in early and catch up on email and go to bed early. We have pretty much seen all there is to see in Bern so we are taking a day trip to Interlaken tomorrow before heading to Munich tomorrow night. There isn't tons to see and do in Bern but it is a nice resting spot. It is a really pretty town and has been fun to get away from all the tourists. Seriously I feel like I'm with all the locals. The only other tourists we have seen for the most part, except for a few here and there, we some big groups of Asians we saw taking picture of the bears and the river. It has been a good and relaxing day here in Switzerland!