Thursday December 18th 2008

Headed off on the free walking tour of Munich with half a dozen others. Excellent tour, guide was brilliant. Had us in hysterics for the most of it. 800 years BC the Bavarian Monks worked out they could overcome the 7 week fasting rules by brewing and drinking liquid food, i.e. beer. So after 15 litres of the stuff a day and them rolling around like fools, the Pope sent for a sample of what it was they were drinking. It had to go over the alps in summer, so by the time it got to the Pope it had gone off, so he decided that it was so foul, that was punishment enough, so declared they could keep being pisspots!  The church here, they needed help to build in a short time period, so called on the devil. He said he'd only help on the proviso that they built it without windows (he figured if there were no windows, people wouldn't go in, so he could lure them to the bad side more easily). So they took his help, built it, and stuck windows in. The poor devil wondered why he couldn't lure people, and why they kept going in to the church, so he went in to check it out. As he walked in, he reached a point whereby he could see that to the left and right there were WINDOWS! He got so mad, he stomped his foot up and down and left a footprint. Funniest thing to that is that his footprint is TINY! Not that much bigger than mine!

Oh, and Wednesday evening when I went up to bed I looked out the window to see that it was snowing! I was stoked to see it, actually SNOWING! Then during the tour Thursday, it snowed on us, only light, but hey - and the guide said it hadn't snowed in Munich city the two previous winters, so we were pretty lucky to see it.

All very humourous and interesting. After the tour, a few of us headed off in the direction of the English Garden. I wanted to see the Chinese Tower. Found that, along with a smattering of other hilarious happenings - i.e. dogs playing in the stream, happily dashing here there and everywhere! Through, back in, swish around, up and down, out, in. Chinese Tower looked just like it did in the pictures I'd seen, shock horror! Slowly meandered back to the entrance, then on to the markets and brewery. At the brewery I did it, I (quoting Jana here) conquered beer. I drank a full litre of the stuff. Can you believe it!?? To make matters worse, I ordered a half, then had a second. Yes, I consciously ordered a second. Yick! Had crispy roasted pork with potato, good hearty German fare for my dinner. A real Bavarian night out.

Friday December 19th 2008

Have a cold in full force and it was raining pretty consistently, so I took the opportunity to write some postcards, have something to eat and drink, and give Mum and Dad a call. From there I thought I'd go to check out the markets atthe Oktoberfest grounds. They say that it's much more of a festival or carnival than just Christmas markets like those at Marienplaty or in the Residenz. They were a bit different and they did have some stuff that was a lot different. They also had a big tent set up called the Bazzar which had HEAPS inside it! I spent hours there. So much to see, so much to entertain. Good fun. Return to put some washing on, then ended up meeting the "early to bed" dorm mates - not early to bed last night after we all met. Happy hour at the bar, then it finished, then we discovered at midnight that it restarts! Even with the conversion from euro to dollar, the cocktails were cheap as!