But rewind to Sunday, I had a truly memorable day in the Alps! Jörg and his family and I drove to the German side of the Alps, near one of the peaks. I guess they go every so often, once or twice every year, so they know the path pretty well.
So yeah. There we were, hiking up these mountains. The first part was the strenuous part. You elevate about 600 meters, while walking forward just a couple kilometers, so it got steep at points. But it was so worth it in the end. We got some amazing views of the area, and the river that passes through. It's a limestone bed, so it makes the water look really cloudy, but it was beautiful.
Here's some of the views from halfway up.
That's where we had lunch. There's a small restaurant where I had some potato soup. But the really interesting part is what came next.
After we left the restaurant, we started up the cave hike. So we were walking in and out of caves dug in the walls. It was the only way to escape the constant spray from the waterfalls and the dripping of horribly cold water down from the sides of the mountain. But the river and the mountain were just so so amazing and I really liked it and I'm so glad I was able to go.
Also, Jörg's son Birk is like half my height but twice my speed and like 50x better at soccer than I am. And I have long legs... You'd think it'd be easy...
Alrighty, so on Monday morning, I left Landsberg for the last time (although it's very nice so maybe I'll come back some day) and got on my train to Munich. I reached the hostel in time to drop off my backpack and take the walking tour of the city! And as always, I'm so glad I did! It gave me good insight to the city, like the following stories:
This is the St Peter's Church (which you'll hear about a bit later), and it was destroyed in WW2 along with ~70% of the city. Like, completely. There was nothing left. But when they were rebuilding it, the remaining couple bricks were dated back to about 1050. So that's a pretty old church. All the renovation to the whole city was done exactly to code, exactly how it was.
Insert imaginary picture of a church with a giant tower.
This is a maypole, and they have this in most big cities here in Germany.
But I guess people also like to steal these when possible. Because why not, am I right? Like who wouldn't want a maypole? Well, the thieves don't even want it. They only would steal it for the ransom. And what do you ask for in ransom for a maypole in Germany?
Beer, of course. So when they gave it up, they were given thousands of liters of beer. Good for them.
There was another time that the maypole near the airport got stolen (it was smaller than this one) and so when the police started the search for who stole it, they asked everyone near there if they saw it. Eventually, after a few days, the culprit was found: some of the policemen stole it for the ransom. So guess which country's police department had a giant beer party... Germany.
We visited the world-famous Hofbräuhaus, where they only allowed men for about 200 years. Also, if you get squeamish or disgusted, skip to the next paragraph. Since nobody wanted to ever leave their seat because their seat, and their beer, would be all gone by the time they returned from the bathroom, they all started going right under the bar seats. Fun, right?
Also, the Hofbräuhaus is the home to one of the last remaining swastikas in Germany, and it's only still there because it's painted over and very difficult to see. I don't have a picture on here though. Only on the camera. Just know that I wasn't able to even see it, but people insist that it's there.
There is the opera house, which has been built 5 times, exactly the same way. It was built the first time, of course, and then it had to be rebuilt after WW2. So what about the other 3 times? Well, it burned down in winter, so they couldn't use the water storage underneath because it was frozen over. So they got the idea to form a fire brigade. That seems smart, right?
Wrong. They decided since there was no water nearby, they would put out the fire with beer! Smart!
(I mean, it could be worse...) The problem was the help. Every time the bucket of beer would pass by one of the brigaders, he would take a small sip of the bucket. By the time it reached the opera house, the bucket was empty. Every time.
So the opera house burned down three times because Germans love their beer.
That's the last big story. There's an Australian embassy right in town because the Australians like to challenge the Germans to drinking contests, so they always get super wasted, and always end up losing things. Wallets, keys, etc, but mainly passports. The Australians always lose their passports. So they opened an embassy so they could make the passports easier to replace.
That was the main part of my Monday. I mostly just walked around a lot.
Aaaand the same goes for today, with a twist...
So today, my last FULL DAY OF MY TRIP, I ventured into town so I could climb up the St Peter's Church Lookout tower. There's 308 steps up. That's a lot, but it gives an incredible view of the city from up there:
So as I'm walking down, I see one of those 'pressed penny' machines, so I want one as a momento but also because I have a lot of them from around the U.S. So I got a cool one of the view of the city.
After that, I start walking about 1.5km over to the English Gardens, which are supposedly very beautiful. I'm almost there, and I walk through a tunnel. There's a guy playing guitar, so I wanted to tip him some money. So I look in my pockets, and... No coins. Oh well. Maybe I put them in my wallet. But my wallet is also missing. So I have to run in the 90 degree weather, in jeans, 1.5km back to St Peter's Church to see if it's still where I left it. I asked the guy at the ticket booth and he was waiting for me to show up. So luckily that happened.
I can't believe I actually walked back to the English Gardens after that. I had to check my pockets every few minutes, just to make sure...
There was this surfers wave, which was just part of the river that people like to surf on, which is actually pretty cool.
That's actually been the majority. It doesn't seem like much but it's been about 5.5 miles, so a lot of walking. I'm really just tired so I'm resting here in the hostel.
Wow. I'm almost done with day 79/80. That's so weird. In a matter of 31 hours, I'll be back home. (At the time of writing this, that is. 6:08pm here.)
Tonight I'll go out for a bigger dinner. You know, as a celebration as my last supper here. I have to find something completely German. Or maybe something the hostel recommends. Anyway...
My dinner was roasted pork and dumpling, which I'll show you, if the wifi ever decides to work. Maybe I can update at the airport. They might have wifi.
Trying to post this now, and now it's 10:11, so 27 hours.
