München – Trip 1, Part 2 (Aug 2015)

So if you’ve been following my August 2015 adventure around Bayern (Bavaria) then you’ll know so far I’d split my time between München, Dachau and Augsburg.

I slept in a little on the Saturday morning whilst awaiting news from Nicole on our plans for the morning, sadly circumstances meant we didn’t get a chance to meet up again before leaving Germany so I made my way to the train station to head back to München for one night.

I was attempting to buy a ticket at one of the machines when some woman approached me asking if I was going to München – “how closely have you been watching me!?”

I replied that I was and she asked if I’d join her and her mother so we could all save some money. It sounded great but I had no idea if this was a legitimate thing so either had to decline or show a bit of faith, I opted for the latter and handed my money over to some complete stranger.

There was still no sign of this mythical mother at this point which added to my skepticism a little bit but sure enough we found her on the way to the platform. With that said I’d still seen no sight of the tickets so for all I knew I’d kindly paid for her mother’s ticket and then they’d plead ignorance once we were on the train
“I have no idea who he is conductor”.

I was feeling a little anxious as I saw the ticket conductor approaching our seats, fortunately my faith was repaid and although I couldn’t really understand what they were saying they clearly signalled that I was with them! Hurrah!
If you’re traveling in a group you can get discounted regional trains in Bayern, I didn’t know at the time but made good use of it a year later!

With my faith in humanity intact the rest of the journey was a happy one and I was soon arriving in to München’s Hauptbahnhof (main train station).
I’d stayed in a hotel on my four previous nights in Germany but as I was now solo for the first time on the trip I decided I’d stay in a hostel – I did treat myself to a private room though.

I quickly found my hostel, dropped off my things and thought I’d spend the next couple of hours exploring stuff I hadn’t seen already before turning my focus towards evening entertainment. I wanted to see the Englischer Garten before leaving the city, Daniel had mentioned on Thursday night that it was worth a visit and that there were even surfers in the park which was a tad bizarre! It had me intrigued.

My search for it was pretty unsuccessful though. I like walking everywhere, particularly given it was during the summer so rather than use a map I just wandered in a vague direction I thought it was in and sadly didn’t stumble upon it. As the afternoon drifted away I just decided to skip it and save it for my next visit to München – dinner had become a bigger priority.

I do try and eat local delicacies when I travel but I’d already had a few days in Germany to do that so I decided I’d indulge in one of my little travel guilty pleasures – the Hard Rock Café! Anyone following the blog for a while should know by now that I’ve been to a few (19 in total!).
In this instance it “killed two birds with one stone” too but I’ll come back to that shortly.

The Hard Rock Café’s are just a bit of a novelty experience really, the food is fine but certainly isn’t the best you’re ever going to have and it can be a bit pricey too but I like the overall atmosphere of them and they are an exception I’m happy to make when traveling.
In all honesty this wasn’t one of the better times I’ve had visiting HRC, I got stuck next to a rather obnoxious collective of people and it just ruined the mood for me. I spent most of my time just wanting to finish asap and move swiftly onwards.

On the plus side the HRC was in a killer (2 birds, one stone..) location for my next stop of the night. Directly opposite the HRC is München’s famous Hofbrauhaus – a tourist trap but I figure you’ve got to visit at least once on your first trip to München. I don’t think the exterior appearance prepares you for how big this place is, it was huge and yet I was struggling to find the bar to actually order a beer.

Eventually I realised all you need to do is take a seat and the beer will come to you so I plopped myself down at a large table and soon enough flagged down one of the waitresses, wearing traditional Bayern clothing that you’d expect to see in a German beer hall. Soon enough a beer was put down in front of me and to my surprise wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be – it wasn’t that much more expensive than a beer elsewhere in München which made me realise how cynical England has made me.

“They’d have charged an extra pound or two for that in England, a further fiver in London, you’re missing a trick here München”.

Whilst the beer was cheaper than I’d anticipated it met my hopes in terms of taste. I didn’t plan to stay for long. One beer, two at the most but again it was another novelty experience to have had a beer in one of the most famous drinking spots in the world.

Maybe everybody’s just happier when beer is involved but despite being a tourist trap the atmosphere was great. The typical oompah band was playing to entertain the tourists and everybody seemed to be in cheery mood and you could see new friendships developing throughout the room. I can’t imagine you meet too many locals here but if you want to meet people generally it’s a pretty good place to get chatting over a beer. They do food too if you’re feeling peckish but obviously I’d just eaten.

True to my intention I did only have one beer. I figured I’d go back to the hostel for the evening and perhaps make new acquaintances there, I’d been given a free drinks voucher upon check-in so it seemed rude not to make use of it at the hostel bar.

Soon enough I was at a table with 5 other guys. Four British youngsters enjoying a summer Eurotrip together and then a solo Aussie. Conversation was flowing and the drinks were flowing just as quickly. The Aussie decided to get in a round of shots and I don’t enjoy being “in debt” when it comes to drinking so I had to follow it up with a round of my own.
If you’ve had the pleasure (or mispleasure?) of joining me on a night out you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I switched my round to Jagerbombs which was a decision the Aussie was particularly fond of.

After a few drinks we decided to move on from the hostel and off to find a bar in the city somewhere. The drinks were beginning to have an effect, soon after arriving I found myself dancing with one of the Brits on this tiny stage. I don’t know if we’d embarrassed the rest of the party but they’d disappeared and found themselves an outside table and were soon mixing with new friends and fellow travelers.

We soon caught up with them but we’d missed the introductions. I found myself sat next to some pretty Italian woman that I was instantly smitten with. I’m not a “pick up a girl at a bar” type and I’m not 100% sure how accurate my memory of the evening is but I felt like she was flirting with me. The alcohol seemed to have given me a little more confidence so I went with it. It wasn’t going to lead anywhere and was only a bit of harmless fun.

I’d missed the initial introductions so about 10-15 minutes in I finally realised that the guy sat opposite me was the Italian’s boyfriend. On the plus side it now made sense why he’d been giving me the death stare – “my bad!!”

We seemed to leave shortly after that as we’d all had a few too many drinks. I can’t really recall much of the walk back – I don’t know if that’s just because it was a short walk or whether it was just an uneventful walk back to our hostel but soon enough we’d all gone our separate ways.

My next memory was being awakened by housekeeping the next day. I’d completely slept through check-out, it’s the only time I can ever recall doing this which isn’t really that impressive keeping in mind a lot of places let you check out around midday.
That alone should have been embarrassing enough but oh no. The weather in München had been 30-35c all week so I must have seemingly made the decision that on this night I’d sleep naked.

So as if it wasn’t enough of a surprise for this poor woman finding someone in what was supposed to be an empty room, this idiotic Brit was also fully exposed. I don’t know how much she saw before the panic kicked in and I’d covered myself up, it all happened pretty quickly so I’d like to think not much and I was rather grateful that I’d slept with my back facing the door. I figure a rear view is slightly better than catching the frontal view although I’m sure she wasn’t appreciative of either.

I quickly dragged my disgraced self out of the room and faced the walk of shame to the reception desk to complete my late check out, accompanied with the hangover from hell which was perhaps some form of karma. I began the night drunken dancing with some British guy in an Irish bar. I swiftly moved on to flirt with some Italian woman in front of her boyfriend before ending my trip with a naked surprise for the hostel staff. It was a night with an interesting story but perhaps not my finest evening or proudest moment.

After checking out, the rest of my afternoon was left to recover and reflect in my self-disappointment. I made my way to the airport, ordinarily an airport beer-garden would have been a blessing but I couldn’t face another beer before catching my flight home from München. I’d had a cracking trip with lots of memories but it was time for me to go home.

A year later I was heading back to Bayern and you’ll be pleased (or maybe you won’t?) to hear that it was a much tamer affair. You’ll have to wait for that story though.

Next up: a trip to Belgium!