Munich

Munich far surpassed any of my expectations. Jamie, you were right, the Hofbrau Biergarten was awesome. So I shall start from the beginning. I arrived around noon and went to the main square (Marien Platz) for a free 3 hour walking tour of the city. Our guide was from Munich but lived in Canada and just got back to Munich. She was cool but I met 2 other canadians on the tour who were just a little off. I'm not sure what it is about canadians but they can be really freaking weird! anyway, I learned a whole bunch about Munich and how Hitler started all his stuff there. On the tour, I met a woman from just outside Cape Town (near the Robertson Vineyard) and we landed up walking around more of Munich for another 4 hours. We then decided to go back to the our respective hostels before meeting up again to go to the Hofbrau House. Whilst in my 40 bed dorm room, I met 2 girls who were american and invited them to come along with us. The four of us had great beer. I also ordered a sausage which I didn't know what it was because the entire menu was in german. Turns out, it was a white sausage that came in a pot of hot water with a pretzel on top and served with sweet mustard. Kinda strange but good. We met this big german who was wearing the traditional clothing. He loved Obama and told me I was most welcome in Bavaria. He was very touchy but the reason was because he had drank 15 liters of beer! I have great pictures of this but I won't be able to post them until May. The next day, I went to Dachau concentration camp and did a tour there. It was an excellent tour and I learned a lot but it was also very heavy. Probably the toughest part was when I walked into the gas chamber. It felt really creepy so I walked out pretty quick. They claim that it was never used. Dachau was a concentration (work) camp whereas Auschwitz, where I am going in just over a week, was an extermination camp. After the tour, the 2 american girls, and this Aussie guy I met in salzburg and I went to the Augustiner-Keller BierGarten. It was ok but nothing like the Hofbrau so we went back there. We started drinking around 4 and didn't stop until midnight. I drank I think around 5 or 6 liters. I also took a Liter Glass which I probably shouldn't have but it's a good souvenir. Around 10pm, 2 more americans sat down at our table. They were older than us and were there for work. They live in LA and work in the movie business. We all got drunk and then when it came time for us to pay, one of them picked up the entire tab. We all offered him money but he was a really nice guy so I got completely hammered for free. Like I mentioned in Seville, I HIGHLY recommend this form of travel! Today I took a train to visit a friend in Dresden, Germany. It is the city that got completely destroyed by the Allies during WW2. He's going to take me around the city and then I m off to Berlin tomorrow to start the 11 day Contiki tour where I go to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow and Warsaw. I do have some great pictures but I won' be able to post them until may 6th when I get back to england. Sorry but such is the case. Keep it real homies.