Munich, Germany

The train to Munich was to last three hours and it was so packed that I sat those three hours on one of the steps descending to the door. Not my most comfortable train ride but it actually went by quite quickly thankfully! Here we stayed a bit farther out from the old center of town in a nice hotel called Munich City and had a longer walk into central Munich. We spent the rest of the day and part of the next wandering the streets, entering massive cathedrals like Saint Peters, marveling at the huge main square called Marienplatz and smaller surrounding ones, and going into many more tourist shops and crowded Christmas markets. 

                Our second day in Munich was Christmas Eve and mum had heard that things would be closing in the early afternoon so we picked up some things for dinner and listened to the glockenspiel in Marienplatz before going to our reservation at Hofbräuhaus München for lunch. It was in a large tavern with a rowdy bottom floor and a calmer more elegant upstairs where we ate sauerkraut, potato dumplings and roast chicken, or alpine ox like Jesse ordered! 

                At a little convenient store on the way back to the hotel, Hunter talked my parents into getting some orange colored “wine”. Back in the room we played cards for quite a while and when it was time, I cut up some bread, cheese, sausage and fruit with a new knife Hunter had purchased. I only cut my finger once, which is pretty good I think :p Anyways, the people had told my parents that the alcohol they bought went best with milk, so they went to another shop, and thought they bought some. But after reading the ingredients, smelling it, and eventually tasting it, we found out it was nothing of the sort! It was made of carbonated water, cow yogurt, lemon juice and salt. It was totally gnarly. Hunter got 6euros to chug the bottle though! And he made it all the way through. But the wine was actually flavored vodka and ended up being left at the hotel along with the salty yogurt drink! But something that did go well, I had been in charge of choosing cheeses and at least those were a success! We got raclette (didn’t smell great but was the favorite), emmental, and brie. So for dinner we combined all these ingredients and made little sandwiches and snacked on fruit from the market. It was a lovely dinner!

              The rest of the evening was spent playing poker, using gross candies as poker chips. What a lovely Christmas Eve indeed! 

Don't forget to try a pretzel!