Easter weekend: Munich

After arriving back safely in Frankfurt on Thursday after a 3-4 hour trip on the Autobahn, I had dinner at a lovely Thai restaurant down the road with my friend Yannic and then walked home to rush around unpacking/repacking/printing directions&maps&guidebooks for my 6AM Friday departure to Munich/Prague. Friday morning, I met my Swedish au pair friend Louise at the Frankfurt Suedbahnhof, where we took the ICE to Aschaffenberg (the closest city to Frankfurt in Bavaria, the other side of the state border).

Ahh, early morning train travel :)

From here, we were able to buy cheap all-encompassing "state tickets," where we could travel by regional trains anywhere within Bavaria for the day (regional trains meaning slow trains). Our trip went something like this:

- Aschaffenberg --> Wuerzburg: pretty uneventful. There was a several troupes of bikes on the train, and apparently when one troupe got off, they accidentally unloaded one extra bike. The announcement went something like this, "If you are travelling with your bike today, please check and make sure you still have yours on the train. If not, it was unloaded at our previous stop... sorry about that." We sat across from 4 very typical Bavarian men- large, wearing short shorts, and drinking beers at 8:30 in the morning.

- Wuerzburg --> Nurnberg: packed train! Many people were sitting on the floor, and people with strollers were not glanced highly upon. We could barely move through the cars but finally found 2 seats together - albeit, with little to no space for luggage, so we were still fairly crammed. On the trains in Germany, there is occasionally a cart that goes up and down the aisles selling chips, coffee, candy, and beer. On this particular train, it was so crowded that the buggy could barely get through. When he got to our seats, there was a man standing there that stood his ground and would not even try to let the poor German man with the buggy through- to the point that there was yelling from the other passengers... and the man just stood there. Then the yelling evolved into pushing and they pretty much almost duked it out on the train - had there been enough space, they probably would have. In the meantime, the buggy man stayed and chatted with us passengers. I tried getting a photo of the occasion:

 

We all decided that the man must just be Russian and just wanting to fight. Which leads to our next train, 

Wuerzburg --> Munich!! Another packed train - after walking through 4 cars, we finally found 2 empty seats - one with a family of Russians and one next to a large German. After asking the youngest of the Russian family if the seat next to him was free, he responded with a, "For you? Yes." ... so I got the lovely pleasure of sitting between him and the window and across from his parents. After telling them about the last encounter on our train of the near-fight, they looked at me as if still waiting for the punch line. I continued - hello? They were yelling and pushing the whole way here! Right next to me! They shrugged and replied, "Yeah, and? That is completely normal... in Russia, anyway." ... which basically confirmed our beliefs that the fighter on the other train was also a Russian. Anyway, it was a lovely trip, them asking me about "Obama and Donald Trump Land," while I sat there trying to decipher their language of mixed Russian, German, and English. After 2 hours on the train (with a grand total of 6.5 hours of travelling), we finally made it to Munich! It was a BEAUTIFUL day- we "checked in" to our couchsurfer's house and then did some sightseeing: 

Decorated for Easter!

Frauenkirche

Neues Rathaus ("New" City Hall)

Random girls on the street dressed in traditional German garb!

Hofbraeuhaus, woohoo! One of Munich's oldest beer halls and the 2nd largest beer tent at Oktoberfest.

My ONE LITER stein of Starkbier :)

Giant pretzels!

I am mildly skeptical about finishing this... but don't worry...

I did! (Thumbs up)

Then we walked to the Englischer Garten...

Naked man! With a non-naked man! Sunbathing! What the hell!?

Chinaesische Biergarten

More giant pretzels!

My friend Louise and I on a bike taxi :)

The neverending wave in Munich

Such a surfer girl ... 

 

 

 

After having been in Munich two times already, I can still safely say that it is one of my favorite cities: friendly natives, German-speaking, good beer, beautiful landscape, gorgeous architecture - all-encompassingly amazing! I can't wait to be able to visit again. 

And after a great afternoon sightseeing, we went back to our wonderful couchsurfer's apartment and decided that since we had to wake up at 5:15 to catch our bus to Prague, we ordered in a mushroom pizza and a bottle of white wine and called it a day. :) A wonderful start to our Easter weekend... the rest to come tomorrow.