Munich day 1

I am right now in Burger King, the land of free internet in Munich, enjoying my 1 EUR coke zero and free internet which is allowing me to write a brief blog entry about my first day in Munich.

After 3 hours of delays in Paris, we finally took off and landed in Munich. The 3 hour wait was really not that terrible. The first hour of delays was in the gate, so I got to take advantage of the playstation system set up in the terminal. Then, once we got on the plane, there was a problem with a group of Japanese tourists, and even though every flight attendant was fluent in at least 5 languages, none of them spoke a word of Japanese. So I stepped up and decided to help sort them out. Apparently they had gotten confused about how the seating worked, and luckily I hadn't forgotten so much Japanese that I lost comand of my numbers, so I organized the tourists successfully.

On the flight, I got a free German beer, sat back, and napped until we landed in a white Munich! I knew I was in the right place because when I exited the airport to find myself already in the middle of a huge christmas market. Wurst, beer, craft booths, ice skating, everything! I walked through the market on my way to the S-Bahn which took me into the city center and to my hotel.

The hotel is gorgeous -- and to top it off, while I was checking in, the receptionist put out a plate of cookies and told me to "help yourself anytime!" Seriously?!?! I don't know if this is a Christmas tradition or if they do this year round, but I love it!

I settled into my hotel before I got a visit from Al, my australian friend that I met in brussels, who invited me out to tour the city and have some good german food and beer at the haufbrahaus. I wanted to go to this beer hall and figured it would be a good place to kick off my trip. After a quick tour of the city, we toured the Haufbrahaus which deserves a good 15 minute walk around itself. There are 3 levels, a beer garden, lots of good german bands, and women carrying huge glasses of beer in beermaid outfits! When the music gets good, the men start banging their steins on the table and singing along. Amazing!

We ended up finding two seats on a long bench on the first level, which is the most casual/ least formal part of the building. I grabed a liter (the smallest they sell it!) of the Haufbrahaus original (you got to start somewhere) and a plate of german sausages. The beer was so good, but with the huge glass stein, it was so heavy! How do these women cary 8 of these in one hand!?

We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly talking about our travels, what we've been up to since Brussels, and quoting 'Bloodsport' back and forth more and more as the steins got less and less full. When we finally left, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge pile of snow. It was snowing! After a significant amount of snowball fights, we went to grab some more drinks at the local "Australian bar" where I learned that no Australian in his right mind would ever drink fosters. We then headed next door to the Irish bar where karaoke was in full force. Yes folks, I found an Irish pub with Karaoke. It was the mecca of all irish pubs.

After some time there, we went in search of a bar near my hotel, called "the Gap" but we found it closed. So we decided we would go to sleep and see eachother at another time.

I woke up this morning at around 11am and still love munich -- everything is covered in snow! Can't wait for Quincy's arrival!