Munich - *hiik* another Stein danke... (lee)

Right - first up I have to apologise.. there has just been so much going on in the last.. 3-4 weeks now that we're back in London that i simply havent had the time to blog. but NOW! luckily i've kept a travel diary and thus am able to get it all down (through the haze of travel memories)..

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Munchen.

We arrive in Munchen, feeling ready for the full Bavarian experience. It is the Thursday night, and it doesn't take us long to find the hostel from the train station (think we're getting the hang of it by this point). We are however, both pretty bloody tired, but we still work up the courage to take a walk through the centre of the town, which is absolutely what is expected from quaint Bavaria. Very old buildings (lots of which have been rebuilt since the war), old people and old beerhalls. We magically find our way to the mighty Hofbrauhaus, which is the most famous beerhall in the world.

The Hofbrauhaus is rather incredible - its as you'd imagine Oktoberfest to be, but all year round.. huge long wooden communal tables, an oompah band, all kinds of folk dressed up in traditional german gear (lederhosen, hats, the whole 9 yards), and everyone drinking huge steins and eating pretzels. Tinks exercises his 'i can order a beer using only subtle sign language from 50 feet away' power, and two massive beers are put infront of us. Lets just say when you're drinking steins, you tend to drink a lot quuuicker than normal. We have a couple then call it a night, heading back to the hostel (after grabbing the soon to be traditional german doner kebab... wonderful things). We head back to the hostel and hit the hay.

Somehow we drag ourselves out of bed relatively early for the walking tour of Munchen, which is absolutely excellent. We see all the major sights and get the full stories from our german host.. the absolute highlight was seeing german guys surfing a standing wave in the river.. unbelievable.

During the walking tour i start chatting with the lovely annalaura, a mexcian model/fashion designer over on holidays also. We hit it off and break off from the tour group to get some lunch at the market (tinks heads back to the hofbrauhaus with a bunch of other guys). At the market we eat olives, try out the Wiessenwurst (a local speciality) and laugh about the fact that we're both in Munich, thousands of kilometres from home.  After the market we decide to check out Augustinahaus, which is a less touristy, more local beer hall, and i have the best beer of my life sitting in the warm german sun, watching the world go by.

We then head back to look for tinks, who we said we'd meet up with. So to the Hofbrauhaus we go, and another few steins are consumed as we're 'waiting for tinks' (ja, sure). Annalaura tells me some insane stories about growing up in Mexico, seriously insane. We're well in the groove, and have been laughing at a table of old dudes one up from us, who are fully dressed in the traditional garb, and are drinking from steins with lids and all. very impressive. We wander over and have a chat with them, take photos and have a drink... which is hilarious fun.

At this point we still havent found tinks, so we head back to the hostel.. somehow (as always seems to happen), tinks happens upon us in the street and he is pretty under the weather. i think this was about 5pm or something.. i remember it being light still.. Tinks is going back to the hofbrauhaus, so anna and i decide to head back to the hostel and relax. i spent a quiet evening, which apparently is exactly the opposite to what tinks decided to do, and general hilarity ensues the next morning (i'm sure he felt rather worse for wear after the whole 'munchen incident'). Classic form from the young lad.

The next morning I see off Annalaura (sadly), she's going to Cairo that day, so we say our goodbyes. At this point there is no way i'm going straight to Prague (which i'd planned to) so i book another night at munich and tinks and i spend the day organising things.

I leave the next morning to head to Prague, having fallen in love with Munich and Germany in general. I have spoken German over the last few days (just buying things, small bits with locals), and a few people have mistaken me for german, so either I speak german with an ok accent, or maybe my german isnt as awful as I initially thought. I leave determined to learn German properly (which i'm doing now as we speak in London - I chat regularly with my Austrian girl Betty online in simple german).

Tinks and I split, he's heading down to the black forest (to eat cake), and i'm heading up to the Czech Republic to see Praha before going over to Berlin.

On to Prague!