Day 6 - May 8th, 2008

München!

Today we went to Munich, Germany, or "München" auf Deutsch. It was about a 45 minute train ride, which was a nice time to look at the German country side and to once again appreciate the mass transit that the Germans have built up.

The first thing we did when we got there was take a bike tour. Now everyone, myself included, did not think this was going to be fun. Man, were we WRONG. First, we met the guy giving us the tour, Steve-o, who was a guy from Ireland who moved here about three years ago, ran out of money, got a job, and stayed. He was one of the funniest people I met, always cracking great jokes on everyone (Germans, FC Chelsea, France), being very witty, and having a great knowledge of the city. We got to see many famous sites in Munich, including the Max Josef statue, Opera House, "lucky lion," one or two cathedrals built by Max Josef/Ludwig/Maximillian, the English Gardens (the biggest park in Europe at over 1000 acres), the biggest beer garden in Europe (holding over 5000 people when full, where we got a delicious lunch of traditional Bavarian foods), the Isar River (which had beautiful blue water from glaciers in the alps), surfers on the Isar, and many sites important to the history of the city. Some great Steve-o quotes:

-"Otto von Bismarck wanted to unite the German states by fighting an easy war. And who do you fight when you want an easy war? That's right: The French."
-"Here is the Glockenspiel, which I rate as the second shittiest tourist attration in Europe." "What's first?" "France."
-"Just don't buy an Chelsea jersey... wankers."
-"Everyone here has mullets... just yell MULLET when we pass the wankers."

After the bike tour we had 3 hours leisure time to roam the city. We really wanted to get some FC Bayern Munich soccer jerseys with our favorite players on the team. Steve and Andrew were able to get Sebastian Schweinsteiger, Jeff was able to get Miroslav Pidolski German National jersey, and I got Luca Toni for FCBM. Luca Toni was my favorite guy in the world cup, and he played on the Itailan National team, so it's the perfect mesh of Italy and Germany, all on one very awesome soccer jersey.

After the 3 hours we ate at the Augustiner, which I doubt future trips will go back to from what I've heard. It was the trip's first time going to this restaurant, and the food wasn't great, plus they were pretty rude to us, telling us to quiet down at the end. But we did manage to have great laughs over a conversation about which things were and were not actually sports, and over childhood TV shows. Who doesn't like a conversation about the Angry Beavers followed by why curling isn't a sport?

After dinner we hopped the train back to Augsburg. It was a fun day with a GREAT purchase (gotta love Luca Toni... just Wiki him). Although, and this is a big although, we are burned to a crisp. First from soccer yesterday where we played shirts on skins (I was sadly skins, but didn't actually get burned yesterday). Today we were outside allll day and got absolutely cooked. Atleast I'll be tan before most others, I guess. We're heading back to Munich Saturday, so it'll be another great day.