Sunday, October 16, 2011

If you have 45 minutes in Munich


Typically when you book your travel through discount websites you get stuck with epic layovers.  You convince yourself that 10 hours sitting in a random airport BEFORE your 10+ hour flight home is doable.  You ignore the tiny voice in your head saying just pay the extra couple hundred dollars to re-route and you quickly hit "CHECKOUT".  I mean, you are treating yourself to a 2 week frenzy of European pastries, wandering streets older than your own country and learning how to live the good life with locals who enjoy 2+ months vacation a year. 

So, that's how my sister and I found ourselves in Munich for 6 hours.  I was just getting over the worst case of flu/food/water poisoning and desperately longed to curl up in my own king size bed.  (I love Europe and all, but they need to upgrade from the typical twin beds.)  Determined to add another country to 30 by 30 we quickly made our way to the Info desk (quickest way to find English speaking people) inquired where we could store our bags and the fastest way to get into the city center. 
The subway ride was about 45 minutes each way and we were flying international which meant we had to be back at the airport at least an hour and a half before departure.  That left us with just under an hour in the city.  Yikes!  Luckily, a new American friend I recently met on my honeymoon in Fiji (yes, I went to Fiji, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany in a span of 5 weeks, can you tell I have a problem?) was just telling me about her favorite places in Munich.  She suggested we visit the main square, Marienplatz and gave us her hidden treasure of a "biergarten" but 45 minutes forces you into tourist mode.  We went straight for the big kahuna, Hofbrauhaus and you should too.

Perfection
Beers as big as your head, should there be any other size?
Carbo load for the long trip home
Taking a moment to soak in the sunshine, it was 80* in April!
20 minutes later
30 minutes later.  Cannot waist a drop of that 7 Euro beer
"Glass" lockers for the regulars

Pause for some culture

Sis and I on Day 14, twins right?
AND more carbs . . .
How do you resist these?
One last thing, we didn't find the Germans to be the warmest people we encountered.  Out of the 11 people we met in our few hours in Munich 7 were incredibly rude.  The bakery girl flatly said as she walked away, "I don't speak English" in English, the waitress at the biergarten couldn't be more bothered by our existence and the airport employees were downright dreadful.  Once we realized none of them were warm and fuzzy we toughened up and enjoyed our little stop in Germany. 

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