So... firstly, forgive me for not blogging for a while. Over the next few days I'll bring you up to date with my adventures.
Secondly, spent a few more days in Berlin. Drove to Frankfurt Oder on the border of Poland and had lunch. Then drove into Poland - because I could. It was dark and crappy, so didn't stay long before we headed back to Berlin. I did manage to get a couple of cool stamps in my passport. The next day, picked up the Australian girls again and this time we headed north and drove through a bunch of little towns. It snowed all day! Yes - After almost 29 years on this planet, I have finally seen snow! Got back to Berlin and proceeded to get more than a little drunk on cocktails.
Next stop, as the title of this entry would suggest - Munich.
Drove all the way from Berlin (6 hours) on the Autobahn (cool) and stopped for lunch in Leipzig. Pretty boring place. Arrived in Munich around 7pm and checked into hostel and slept. So tired. The next day I slept in, so I missed a tour I wanted to do, but ended up walking around town all day. Interesting place. Had an early night (determined to get up early) as tomorrow was New Years Eve.
Caught the walking tour and ran into 2 guys (Charlie and Chris) from Adelaide (they are still good people despite this fact) and also met a Tasmania couple (Stewie and Cat). The walking tour was pretty crap. There is this company called 'Sandmans New Tours'. I took their New Amsterdam Tour, New Berlin Tour, Sachsenhausen Tour and they were all excellent. This tour fell down because, well, how do I put this nicely... The guide SUCKED.
Afther the tour the 6 of us headed to the Hopfbrauhaus for a late lunch/early dinner. Wow. Okay - first thing you gotta know is that they bring you beer in Steins (see below). This is a Litre of beer! Really good beer, too. Pretty impressive thing to see is the waiting staff bring out 12 of these things at a time using only their hands. As for the food... don't go their if you don't like pork (in fact - just don't go to Germany or Austria at all if you don't like pork). I had half a pig on my plate and it was expectional.
The six of us then decided to head out to Tollwood, the huge park grounds where they hold Oktoberfest. Sadly, Oktoberfest doesn't run in December (who'd of thought?). Happily, there is an enormous NYE party held here. We ended up in a Marquee tent with an all-girl rock band and a lead singer with a voice like gravel belting out 80s rock classics. She did a fair impersonation of Bon Scott too...
As bad as the music was (and it was pretty terrible) we had so much fun. The Germans know how to have a good time and they are completely unashamed of showing it. People of all ages, dancing, singing drinking and generally having a great time. It is really quite contagious and ended up dancing away until the very early hours.
All except one German lady. The Marquee tent was packed and everyone was a little drunk, so it stands to reason that drinks are going to get spilt. Stewie accidentlly split like 3 drops of beer on this cranky lady's jacket and she went off her brain. We (attempted) to calm her down and eventually her muttering died away to nothing, until... Charlie spilt a tiny bit of beer on her jeans (I mean, one drop only!). Well. She went completely psychotic. She stands up, yelling her head off and pushing and shoving at our group, cursing and causing all sorts of problems. Her friends (or at least, the people with her) were all a little embarrassed by her episode. All in all, a big German lady in a rage... priceless.
As you can imagine, nothing happened on New Years Day. Everyone was ridiculously hung over and not in the mood to talk.
Next day, Stewie, Cat, Anth and I headed out to the town of Fussen, where we visited the famous Neuschwanstein castle. This is the one that the Disney copied for their famous catle logo (see below).
Secondly, spent a few more days in Berlin. Drove to Frankfurt Oder on the border of Poland and had lunch. Then drove into Poland - because I could. It was dark and crappy, so didn't stay long before we headed back to Berlin. I did manage to get a couple of cool stamps in my passport. The next day, picked up the Australian girls again and this time we headed north and drove through a bunch of little towns. It snowed all day! Yes - After almost 29 years on this planet, I have finally seen snow! Got back to Berlin and proceeded to get more than a little drunk on cocktails.
Next stop, as the title of this entry would suggest - Munich.
Drove all the way from Berlin (6 hours) on the Autobahn (cool) and stopped for lunch in Leipzig. Pretty boring place. Arrived in Munich around 7pm and checked into hostel and slept. So tired. The next day I slept in, so I missed a tour I wanted to do, but ended up walking around town all day. Interesting place. Had an early night (determined to get up early) as tomorrow was New Years Eve.
Caught the walking tour and ran into 2 guys (Charlie and Chris) from Adelaide (they are still good people despite this fact) and also met a Tasmania couple (Stewie and Cat). The walking tour was pretty crap. There is this company called 'Sandmans New Tours'. I took their New Amsterdam Tour, New Berlin Tour, Sachsenhausen Tour and they were all excellent. This tour fell down because, well, how do I put this nicely... The guide SUCKED.
Afther the tour the 6 of us headed to the Hopfbrauhaus for a late lunch/early dinner. Wow. Okay - first thing you gotta know is that they bring you beer in Steins (see below). This is a Litre of beer! Really good beer, too. Pretty impressive thing to see is the waiting staff bring out 12 of these things at a time using only their hands. As for the food... don't go their if you don't like pork (in fact - just don't go to Germany or Austria at all if you don't like pork). I had half a pig on my plate and it was expectional.
The six of us then decided to head out to Tollwood, the huge park grounds where they hold Oktoberfest. Sadly, Oktoberfest doesn't run in December (who'd of thought?). Happily, there is an enormous NYE party held here. We ended up in a Marquee tent with an all-girl rock band and a lead singer with a voice like gravel belting out 80s rock classics. She did a fair impersonation of Bon Scott too...
As bad as the music was (and it was pretty terrible) we had so much fun. The Germans know how to have a good time and they are completely unashamed of showing it. People of all ages, dancing, singing drinking and generally having a great time. It is really quite contagious and ended up dancing away until the very early hours.
All except one German lady. The Marquee tent was packed and everyone was a little drunk, so it stands to reason that drinks are going to get spilt. Stewie accidentlly split like 3 drops of beer on this cranky lady's jacket and she went off her brain. We (attempted) to calm her down and eventually her muttering died away to nothing, until... Charlie spilt a tiny bit of beer on her jeans (I mean, one drop only!). Well. She went completely psychotic. She stands up, yelling her head off and pushing and shoving at our group, cursing and causing all sorts of problems. Her friends (or at least, the people with her) were all a little embarrassed by her episode. All in all, a big German lady in a rage... priceless.
As you can imagine, nothing happened on New Years Day. Everyone was ridiculously hung over and not in the mood to talk.
Next day, Stewie, Cat, Anth and I headed out to the town of Fussen, where we visited the famous Neuschwanstein castle. This is the one that the Disney copied for their famous catle logo (see below).
For only the second time in my life, it snowed! Infact, it snowed all day. Awesome. And thanks to Stewie, I also had my first ever snow ball fight!
Spent another night in Munich before heading off to another country. Try to update you on that one tomorrow.
