Munchen - August 6-10

Munich, and pretty much everything about it, was crazy. We got in Friday night at around 2300, and of course all the hostels were already full. Seems to be a trend in these European wanderings of mine. However, we were able to get a really cool room anyhow which was only about a block from the Hauptbahnhoff (main train station). The room was huge, with four single beds (for myself and the three other guys I went with), it had a little kitchen, and obviously a bathroom, all for little over 30 euro a night. It even had a balcony.

That night we wandered over to one of the discoteks and checked that out, and yes, they were playing technoized American music. Again.

The next morning we went out to wander in the Alstadt. It was awesome. The buildings there were even better than the ones in Neuremburg. The Glockenspiel (sp?) was huge and awesome, St. Michael's church was under reconstruction (but had a life size tarp over the scaffolding with the front of the church painted on it) but the inside was beautiful and the catacomb containing the past German royalty was very interesting. We also saw the Bavarian Parliament building and many other random, large, beautiful, most likely very expensive buildings and scultpures all throughout the city.

One of those very large and old buildings happened to be the Hoffbrauhaus, which I think is the biggest beer house in Munich. It was in fact very large, with an inner courtyard filled with loud Germans eating, smoking, and drinking themselves silly. We of course had to sit down and enjoy some of their bratwurst and one of their pint glasses of beer (its great because you burn off all the calories you gain from the beer after you've lifted the glass for the fiftieth time).

On Sunday we went to Konigschloss Neuschwanstein (Castle Neuschwanstein). We tried to hook up with a tour at the Hauptbahnhoff, but they were already full, even though they said don't both calling for reservations (frustrating). The tour lady was really nice though and she said we should just follow her and she would try to get us through the line into the castle.

This is when I would say the adventure in Munich really started. By the time we got to Neuschwanstein and had lunch it was already about 1400, and the tour lady said she was unable to get us tickets into the castle. The line being a two hour wait, we decided it would be best just to go up and look at the outside of the castle. It had been a nice, warm, somewhat sunny up until the time we started walking up the mountain, at which pointed it proceeded to pour. And pour. At one point I was standing taking a picture, and looked down to realize a flash flood had occurred around my feet where it had been dry only thirty seconds ago. Anyhow we made it up to the castle, and also up to Marienbrucke (a bridge overlooking the canyon next to the castle as well as the castle itself) and got some really good pictures, even though we were unable to get inside.

We, being the tough army studs that we are, and used to placing pain in front of brain, decided not to buy rain coats or umbrellas, and instead just endure. Of course it stopped raining once we got back down to the bottom of the mountain, but we were already sufficiently soaked.

Odd anecdote: Before we got up to the castle, we had grabbed lunch from a little vendor in the town below. Just after lunch I randomly ran into Matt McCreery, someone who had been a senior in the Gonzaga ROTC program when I was a Freshman. Its odd how small the world really is.

So, soaked and tired from our walk around the mountain, we made it back down to Fussen. We left Fussen at 1700 Sunday afternoon, and made it back to Grafenwoehr at 0600, Monday morning.

The first mishap was when a tree fell across the tracks of the train taking us back to Munich. This caused an hour long delay by itself before they moved us to another train, and then that train had to backtrack to find an interchange to get us back to Munich. We made it to Munich at around 2200 that night. From there we were given a pass on a bullet train to Nurenburg, and a taxi voucher from Nurenburg to Grafenwoehr. We should have gotten back to Graf around 0200 that night.

But we slept through our stop at Nurenburg. We all awoke to the conductor's cheery "Welcome to Wurzburg. The time is now 0100, and this station is the end of the line." So we had to get on the next train back to Nurenburg, which was supposed to show up at 0200 but was an hour late. From there we were able to take the trains and a taxi back to Grafenwoehr, where I immediately changed into my PTs and made it to first formation. I then slept through just about everything I did Monday.

So thats that - hopefully none of my other travels end the way Munich did. Oh and I have conjunctivitis - but I already went to the German optometrist and got eye drops so its doing better. This week should be fairly slow, but we are going to Prague this next weekend for our four day, and then we got to the field Tuesday through Friday of next week - and then I'm done. Saturday the 21st of August I'll be going to Nurenburg to begin my solo adventure from Germany down to Italy for about 9 days. And I'm looking forward to it.

Aufwiedersehen!