Munich!

As I mentioned in my last entry, I’m currently in Germany. This morning, at the unearthly hour of midnight, Carrie and I got on a coach for Gatwick. Once we arrived, we settled down for a few comfortable hours to nap on the frigid stone floor of the airport terminal. I love some of the adventures that travelling brings. After this attempt at redeeming a night of lost sleep, we scurried through security and boarded our EasyJet flight. I fell asleep before we took off.

When we landed, about two hours later, Carrie and I burst into the German sunshine grinning. One of the crazy, wonderful miracles about travelling happens when you are completely exhausted, but you can’t stop smiling because the person next to you is speaking in a different language and just about everything familiar has long since been left behind. After an improvised attempt to freshen up in one of the airport toilets, we ordered blueberry muffins through much pointing and nodding. I need to pick up some useful German phrases. At the moment, I only know “thank you,” “good day,” “no,” “I don’t speak German,” “ninety-nine red hot-air balloons” and an expletive. Very practical, of course.

Once we met up with Sarah, who joined us from a stay in Poland, we checked in at our hostel. I was surprised; the place is actually not too bad! Not the Ritz, but definitely not without its comforts. We wandered around central Munich for much of the afternoon, ordered paninis (which are actually more like hot dogs than the grilled flatbread sandwiches we call paninis, except that a German panini makes you want to never return to their half-breed American frankfurter counterparts) and generally marvelled at the snippets of culture we encountered. Some sort of sports event was going on and the three of us kept seeing Germans wearing red and white scarves and sports jerseys, while Italians chanted and wore scarves of blue with “Milano” written on them. At one point, we sat down in a square to rest our feet, then I lay my head down and dozed off. Sarah woke me fifteen minutes later, both amused and regretful. A cup of instant coffee back in our room and I was ready for round two with Germany.

This evening, we ate at a traditional German restaurant. I had sauerkraut and sausage, and had the unfortunate surprise to learn that my water with dinner cost me 3 Euros. Darn you, hidden costs! The shower in the hostel, too, was a bit of a disappointment; according to Sarah, it functions like a military shower. You have to keep pushing the dial in, if you want continuous water flow, but this just make showering a little more like a game. Quick! Lather on the soap, before the water runs out!

The TV in my room is playing The Simpsons, in German.