Ein Masse, Prost!

As nearly two weeks in Germany winds down, I'll try recap what's been happening...

Munich

Crossing from Austria into Germany wasn't much of a change - both countries speak German and I don't understand a drop... Except "scheizen". München (or the land of the monks) is the capital of Bavaria and overall a pretty ideal place to be if you like beer and you like meat. Alex and I had pretty much hit the jackpot. Biergartens are everywhere, and the famous beerhalls are dotted round the place. There is an epic fresh produce market, where u can pick up ur fruit and vege, but also, you can grab some awesome freshly prepared food and perch up in the biergarten with ein masse (a stein) of beer.

First night in Munich (much like many places so far), we hit up a pub crawl. The actual crawl itself was lame, but we got to visit the famous Hofbäuhaus. Slow start the next day, our first activity was a bike tour at 4pm... It was worth the "wait", gave us a good summary of the history of Munich, saw some sweet buildings and statues, but even better was the swim in the river that runs through the English Gardens and the visit to the 2nd biggest biergarten in the world. Further up from where we swam was the famous free standing wave, where surfers can jump in and ride. The biergarten was just as good tho. I got beaten by a plate of ribs... Well more like two racks of ribs. One rack was enough, but two is ridiculous. These German really know how to do meat. Even after offloading a couple to Asty, I couldn't finish them!

Third day in Munich was a pretty eye opening experience. Dachau, one of the longest operating concentration camps used by the Nazis, was a half hour train NW of Munich. So much wrong doing went down there (and even more so at other camps). We got a guided tour round the grounds, which was LONG (3+ hours) but worth the €3 we paid. Our guide didn't hold back on his opinions of international government and politics, so by then end I was a bit over his preaching. After getting back to munich, we needed some beers to unwind from the day. We ended up at the Augustina beer hall and luckily for us they showed the Euro final, where Spain destroy Italy 4-0.

We ended up locked an extra night in the hostel so we could train up and see the Neuschwanstein castle. This castle is the one Walt Disney based the Disney castle on. Crazy King Ludwig II blew a shitload of tax payers money to build this castle for no real purpose.It took an hour and a half to get up there, but it was worth it. The whole area is picturesque - there's actually another smaller castle and a wicked lake. The Neuschwanstein castle is awesome. You get a free tour included in your ticket, but you can only go at specific times. We got there round 2:45pm and out tour wasn't til 5:20pm. It's was sweet tho, gave us heaps of time to check out the lake, the other castle and time to hike up the mountain to the Neuschwanstein. We didn't end up getting back to Munich until after 10:30pm. It turned out the the German twins were in Munich as well, so we caught up with them (just Lena, as Sarah was busy) the next morning before our train up to Stuttgart.

Stuttgart

The first thing on the train you notice when you get near Stuttgart is the HUGE Mercedes-Benz Arena just south of the town. A direct quote from Lonely Planet's description of Stuttgart: "For tourists, come for the car museums and then leave." I have to somewhat agree with their description, all that's to offer there is the car museums.

Our first full day in Stuttgart, we spent an hour frantically wandering the streets tryna find a place that would air the State of Origin league game 3 decider... Nowhere showed it! The deceptive "SKY" sport signs don't actually mean that the bar will show sky sports! We ended up having to stream it at the hostel. Intense match, but NSW went down for the 7th year in a row... Pretty gutting that... After that devastating loss, we headed out to the Mercedes-Benz museum. This is definitely worth stopping in Stuttgart for - even if you're not big into cars. The museum doesn't just give you a run down f the company (or companies as we found out), you a bit of a run down of German history. Definitely good value - especially on a half price student ticket! It took us just over 2 1/2 hours to get thru it, which was lucky cos they were about to close when we left. There was still the Porsche museum to check out the next morning before we headed to Frankfurt.

Frankfurt (... Or Frankfurt-am-Main as the locals call it).

We arrived in Frankfurt a little delayed... 20 mins, first time that we experienced Germany INefficiency. There was a free pub crawl that night. Bang on! The pub crawl left at 10, so we had plenty of time to smash a feed and a couple beers before it. There was a pretty big crew, I guess there always is if it's free. The leader stopped us outside a convenience store so we could pick up a roadie, as the first pub was 20mins away. The 20 min walk turned into 45+mins... So everyone was pretty much sober by the time we hit the first pub. We ended up hitting only 3 pubs. Still a decent night out, but the 45 min return trip was death...

The next day, we wandered round Frankfurt and checked the sights - not that we knew what we were
looking at. Later that night, there was a free night walk, so we joined (why not? It was free!). There's this shopping mall that up you can go up to the roof for free and has a swt view of the Frankfurt skyline. Most of the other sites, we'd already covered during the day. Next day, we saved some euros and took a 3 hour local train to Cologne (or Köln, as the locals say). As we were packing up, there was a bit of commotion outside on the street. Bit of a scuffle between two groups. Words exchanged, bottles thrown. One dude was wearing red from some cuts on hit chest. The police rolled up 5 mins too late, but some good excitement for the morning. I guess that's what you gotta expect when you crash in the red light district!

Cologne (Köln)

We arrived in Köln late afternoon. Afta a small battle to locate the hostel, we were asked by the hostel owner if we were in town for the summer jam music festival. We weren't. He then paused and asked if we
were here for the other festival. We had no idea what he was on about, then he was like "the big gay pride festival." ...Apparently, one of the world's largest gay pride festivals was on on Köln this wknd... We weren't here for that, but it was definitely gonna make our visit to Köln a whole lot more interesting. We headed into town to check out the Cathedral (one of the largest in Germany) and for a couple beers and a feed, nothing too large, as we had to catch the last train back to the hostel before 11:30pm. After being dominated by a pork knuckle for dinner, we had a wander through the town/drinking area of town. There were gays everywhere. I'm not a homophobic person, but even this many of them weirded me out a bit.

The next day was the parade for the gay festival. We found out that the name of it was "Christopher Street Parade." this lead to a bit of stick from Alex... The parade was mental. So many people around... After  backing up the pork knuckle with two racks of ribs, we had a quick look at the parade and then tried to find a pub to watch the Wimbledon mens final. After many failures, we found a swt american themed bar and perched there and watched Federer take it out. Pretty satisfied, as we were going for Federer. The rest of the night was pretty chilled. Grabbed a feed at Früh (a local joint that sells pretty decent food) - I went easy with a schnitzel. Alex on the other hand, locked in another pork knuckle... 

Köln was our last stop in Germany. Just over a week before we're back in London... 

Next stop: Brussels. Time for some mussels and frites!!

P.S. Happy B'day to my Bro for the 5th! Hope you had a good one!