Guten Tag aus Munchen!

Im in Germany now after spending 5 days in Switzerland. Having a great time in Munich which is probably one of the great tourist cities in the world! We arrived here early afternoon yesterday German time and proceeded on a walk round Munich to see some of the well known churches and Marienplatz. It was freezing cold yesterday so we didn't stay outside for long! For a bit of warmth we decided to retire to the Hoftbrauhaus (the most famous Munich beer hall). Little did we know that we would stay there till 11pm! Tim, Dave and I proceeded to drink quite a bit of the beer (I drank at least a pite) with Tim getting considerably drunk! We ended up chatting with some nice German people, playing coin rugby with the coasters, and ended up chatting with some Japanese tourists!. Tim was a favourite with the tourists in his broken Japanese, and had a blast seeing he was on his 3rd Stein, and quite merry! The atmosphere was great with the Bavarian brass band playing, and everybody quite friendly! We returned home at around 11pm, dragging Tim behind us since he couldnt walk straight. Multiple Hakas were performed by Tim on the way home, much to our embarrassment, and the astonishment of the locals!

 

The previous few days in Zurich and Lucerne had been uneventful. Lucerne is a really beautiful city, but we stayed at a crap hostel quite far out of town so we didn't get to check it out so well. Zurich was also really beautiful, but somewhat lacking in Tourist attraction apart from Modern art museums. In our first day there we wandered round town and the shopping street Bahnhofstrasse, but found nothing to see. We ended up going back to the hostel quite early, cooking huge pasta meals, and going out for drinks. and getting a little tipsy. The bar we went to, the 'Pur Pur Bar' was a cozy lounge like bar, and had quite a cool ambience (and bartender girl). Dave splashed out on drinks, shouting us all 3 Tequila shots! At the end of the night it was cocktails all around, and quite a bit of redness on my part!

 

Our second day in Zurich we got up late after our night out, but since Zurich is a bore for tourists, it didn't really matter. We wandered the shopping district, with David finally buying black wash Jeans he had been searching for for 5 weeks. We followed that up with more wandering, some Chocolate shopping, and a hot chocolate at a well known Swiss tea room. Tim wasn't feeling his best after some roasted chestnuts, so we retired back to the hostel. In the evening Dave and I headed out for some Swiss Fondue, which was delicious, and extremely filling, followed by a quiet night in watching America's Next Top Model on Dave's Laptop!

 

Today has been a cool day. Dave left for Berlin to head to Poland early in the morning so Tim and I got up late after last nights antics: We headed out around 10:30 to the Residenz, the royal palace of the ?Wittenbach? Dukes and Kings. The place is massive, and awesomely beautiful, but tiring and cold inside. It was snowing hardcore here today, so we were chilly even inside! After we heated up with a nice coffee, and then headed to the Deutsches Museum, a huge science, technology and music museum in Munich. Spent the late afternoon just wandering round and enjoying the exhibits, trying to remember the physics we had learnt at school! After the museum closed we wandered back to Marienplatz and the Virktulienmarkt for some food and traditional German food (Pretzels for me, Rost Pork Sandwiches for Tim). We wandered around the awesome Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Markets) in Marienplatz after before heading back to the hostel for a break. At around 8, we decided we had to try what is regarded the Champagne of beers, Augustiner, so we headed to the Augustiner Beer hall for half a litre of awesome beverage. All in all, a great day.

 

Hope all the Christmas preparations are going well at home, and if I don't blog before then, have a merry Xmas!