A long driving day was what awaited us, with a lovely scenic route through Austria.
The Alps looked both colossal and just beautiful. We made a stop in Austria at a service station, (casual wild bean cafe in the middle of Austria) just to say we stopped there. Got a quick photo with the Alps in the background and we were off again.
We arrived in Munchen/Munich mid afternoon and had a couple of hours to explore the city. It was a beautiful sunny day and we just wandered through the streets aimlessly. Quite a few of the shops were closed as it was Good Friday but the odd place was open. We walked into a gorgeous church that was in the middle of a service, but we could not understand a single word. We stumbled across several typical biergardens, German dress shops and encountered some friendly locals who pointed us in the right direction.
We met the group in the Marienplatz and headed to the hotel. We freshened up and got ready for the Bavarian Beerhall dinner that was to follow. Garai dressed up for the event.
On the busride to the beerhall we learnt some key German phrases and the beer chant that everyone has to participate in; "Prost" (only word I can remember distinctly). It was significantly more difficult learning German than say, the French or Italian words we had learnt, but we all got the jist of it and got into the spirit.
The Beerhall was everything you picture it to be. Rather large hall that could seat a few hundred people, a band on a little stage, long dining tables and giant glass beersteins filled to the brim with a litre of beer. Dinner was heavy, but memorable. A huge pork knuckle glared at me on my plate. Could have easily fed a small country. It was just ridiculous, but wow, best piece of pork I ever had.
Before long, after we had demolished our plates and our beer, we were all in that overly happy mood.
A few jager shots later we were good to go. We were told off a number of times for dancing which was rather odd but maybe a cultural thing? Not sure. But we were quickly becoming a handful for the band that still attempted to play over our loud singing and chanting. Fun times. (That's what you get when you put a whole lot of Australians, a Mexican, a couple of Americans and a few kiwis in a room)
We got back to the hotel and a few of us had the munchies and ran over to the gas station. Angela and Julia embraced the 'gotta have a pretzel in Germany' vibe while I just craved icecream. Badly.
A bunch of underage kids stood outside and ushered me over. They gave me money to buy them a bottle of vodka after asking if I was over 19. I said I would on the one condition; that they buy me an icecream sandwich.....
...Best free icecream sandwich I ever had. As you can tell by my stupid childish grin... Ugh
We made our way to the bar downstairs in the hotel and danced the night away quite literally. In a matter of minutes there were a stupid amount of underage boys (the same ones I had bought alky for unfortunately plus several more) on the dance floor. Was a bit annoying but hey, we didn't care, we just kept on partying. Before we knew it, it was 3am and the bar was closing. Another unforgettable night with the contiki crew.
This pretty much sums up Munich:
garai is just the best!
ReplyDeleteI had him on my tour, Euro Horizons.
He is so amazing, he is so funny and really looks after you.
I will never forget his little dances as well as his morning song, which was 'No tomorrow' by Orson. What was your tour song??