The heart of Bavaria in Munich, Germany

After spending some time in Prague, it was back to Germany to do more of the Southern portion of the country. First stop on the itinerary in that neck of the woods was Munich. I arrived there a night before I expected to because when I was in Prague and went to purchase my bus ticket, they informed me that they did not have buses to Munich that day, only on certain days of the week. Now, after nearly 4 months of travel AND having been in this predicament before, you would think I would learn my lesson and learn to ask those things, but Nooooooo, I still assume that if I ask for times, they will tell me whether or not they are daily or only certain days (which of course they dont cause that is an entirely different question). Luckily the hostel I was booked in for the next following 2 nights was big so it had room for me to be in there a night early.

My first day there, I basically did a walking tour around Munich. I went and saw the old part of town, which had some great old buildings and landmarks. One of them is the Glockenspell, this huge clock attached to the old town hall that does this little show thing everyday at 11 and noon. Immedialtey accross the street from it is a 6 story bookstore with glass windows in the front, so I went in there and watched it from the 5th story. That was pretty neat because I could see everyone down below and I had an excellent view! The whole town was getting ready for Christmas, so there were lots of decorations being put up and the Christmas market was getting set up also. I headed over to the regular outdoor market where I love to walk around and take in all the hustle and buslte of people buying their produce, meat, cheese and other assorted items. It smelled of evergreens there cause all of the florists had tons of wreaths that were fresh and fresh tree clippings for sale. There were some museums there, but at this point, I have been to a ton of museums and they werent ones that really grabbed my attention, so I decided to take a little trip over to the BMW headquarters and tour around that instead. They have a museum that is opening in 2008, but for now, you can walk around in the huge showroom and look at the displays and exhibits on everything having to do with how the cars work and a lot of stuff that I didnt understand. It was pretty incredible though to see how big the plant is and this show room is really state of the art. I was impressed by it!

I had to call it an early day cause I was not feeling well and did not want to come down with something so close to the end of my trip, so I went back to my hostel around 3 that afternoon to sleep it off. The city itself is just pulsating with energy in this new meets old kind of way. It feels very modern, yet it is filled with histroy and it is a little creepy to think that this was the head of Hitlers Third Reich and that the first concentration camp was built just 16 km outside of the city. I choose not to go cause Auschweity was enough for me for now.

The next day, I headed to the cute town of Fussen 2 hours away. I went there to see two famous castles located there. The first was impressive, but not as much as the second. I am not even going to try and spell them, cause as many of you know, I have the spelling skills of about a 7 year old and I would just butcher them. The second one though was quite a sight. It is supposedly "Sleeping Beautys Castle" because the castle at Disneyland was based on this and I can see why. The way it was built was really interesting and even more so when you walk inside. Some of the areas felt like I was walking on a Disney ride. It was comissioned by King Ludwig II in the middle of the 1800s and was under construction for 17 years but was never finished. He was declared insane and work ceased on it when he died. As you walk through it, you really can see his state of mind come out in some of the features.

The room I was in in my hostel was lots of fun too which always makes it nice. It was me, 6 other Aussies, and one french girl. 3 of the Aussies went out for a drink and the other 3 stayed in. I was busy doing some much needed laundry and they were absorbed in a card game of some sort. They got the french girl to play, but she spoke about 6 words of English and they spoke about 6 words of French, so they were explaining the rules through lots of hand gestures and sign language and SHE ended up winning. It was pretty funny to watch!