A long weekend in Munich

With the “study” part of study abroad being complete, I used the opportunity of being in Europe to do a little traveling. I was lucky to have Liz join me for a week of exploring two new cities! First up: Munich.

 Thursday morning, after the closing reception, we got a bus and were on our way by 7 am. We arrived in Germany and spent the day exploring the city center and shopping. We were lucky to get a hostel that was a quick tram ride from the heart of Munich. This was my first time staying in a hostel and it turned out much better than expected! By dinnertime we were exhausted, running on only 4 hours of sleep, so we went to a traditional beer garden down the street from the hostel. The experience was stressful at first, trying to navigate through the massive outside seating area, but once we were served, the food was amazing! And of course we had the customary liter of beer.

 Friday we woke up ready to venture into the city only to find rain, rain, and more rain. Surprisingly, (and thankfully) it only rained about twice during our month in Prague, with one of those times being at night. But, needless to say, we weren’t too happy about the dreary weather. We decided to use this day to do the German Museum, which turned out to be the perfect inside activity.

 The next day we were able to meet up with three girls from our Prague program who were also traveling. As a group we decided that doing the “hop on hop off” city bus tour would be a nice way to see a lot of the city.

After that we found a little museum that was about beer and Oktoberfest. It was an interesting museum, for sure. From here we went to the English Gardens, a park in the city that is double the size of Central Park in New York. Right at the south entrance there is a Surf Wave, which is a man made wave for surfers in the river that runs through the park.We watched the surfers for a little, finding it mesmerizing. From there we worked our way up to find the Chinese Tower where we decided to grab an early dinner in the beer garden. Later that night we went to Hofbrauhaus, which is probably the most famous beer garden in Munich, holding over 2,000 people. It was quite the experience, and very fun!

Sunday, our last day, was probably my favorite. A friend of a friend who is from Munich was able to meet up with us, and she and her brother gave us a great walking tour of the city. It was fun to hear small tidbits and superstitions of the city that we would otherwise not have known. They took us to a great spot called “Old Peters” for an amazing 360-degree view of the city and a few other spots that we hadn’t been to. It was really interesting to talk to Germans and hear about their culture. It was also great to get some of our questions answered!

 On Monday we were off to London! My thoughts on that to come….

 Safe travels, all :)