Munich in a flash

I like to think that I am quite accepting of all races and cultures and respectful of the people and places we have been.  Turns out, at this point of the trip, I have very low tolerance for some German behaviour.  Like every other time I have been to a German city, I find the people to be quite cold and robotic.  Gareth gives me a serve about my attitude and now my negative vibes are turned on him instead.

The weather is cooler and the sky is grey.  It very much feels like our holiday finished in Prague, and I think I'm mourning the loss of our incredible trip before I’ve even left europe.  I lead the way to the tram stop and get us turned around in loops, meanwhile the kids and Gareth behind are grappling with a swarm of people around the station who are not concerned about separating a parent and their child if it gets them through to their destination faster (apparently i’m still bitter about Munich when I write this from Tokyo). 

Unable to work out how to get tickets, our impression of Munich sinks even lower.  We get on the tram and Gareth spends most of the ride trying to buy the tickets for us which cost a fortune.  Everywhere else in Europe has been very user friendly, especially if you don’t speak English, and the cost for local transport  - minimal.  But as we come to find out, everything in Munich is super expensive.

We eat the most expensive Pho of our lives here, how can Pho cost $200 NZD??!!!  On the plus side, the best beds and pillows this entire trip are in our Munich hotel.  Despite all sleeping in the same room, we all sleep well.

We get up in the morning and it's raining.  There is a German saying “there is no such thing as bad weather, only wrong clothing”.  And they are right! So the raincoats we have been carrying and not using for the last 3.5 months come out for some use.  

This time around, we don’t muck around with the tram tickets, we download the app and buy online.  We head to the Rathaus-Glockenspiel in the old town and miss the 11am show.  It's now pouring with rain, and it's Sunday, so EVERYTHING around is closed.  We muck around for the 12pm show and I'm glad we did.  It's pretty cool how the clock still does two “shows” a day and takes you back to what entertainment was like hundreds of years ago.  My personal favourite was the knight with his triumph over his adversary.  Interestingly, this open space area has 3 tower clocks, and none of them tell the same time. The Glockenspiel was 5 minutes slower than the others.

Next up is the famous hofbrauhaus for beers and lunch.  Because it was raining, half of the haus wasn’t being used so tables were absolutely rammed.  We looked everywhere and nothing was free.  Ended up going upstairs and finding there were only reservations up there, so feeling a little defeated we made our way down.  Just then a family in the corner were leaving and I raced to secure the table for us.  We then had a German group of friends join our table and ended up 8 to our table.

Gareth didn’t end up ordering the stein, and despite it being only 21 degrees outside, it was extremely hot inside.  The kids enjoyed their giant Kofola orange lemonade, and we ordered the HB house special which was a range of different sausages and sauerkraut.  I remember having an amazing time here, however I was much younger and very drunk.  I”m glad the kids got to experience the beer garden, Gareth after all the hype was pretty “meh” about it.

Still miserable weather, we make our way to the hotel.  It's become our sanctuary with its delicious breakfasts and comfy beds.  Amazing what you become grateful for when you haven’t had it for so long.

Like a well oiled machine, we get up the next morning, bags are packed, check for any issues on our train to the airport and get going.  It's still raining, but only 1.4km in the rain to get to the station, and for us, that’s a quick stroll.  A million dollars later for our train tickets we are on our way to the airport.

We forget that we are in an EU country so passports haven’t really been a requirement until now when we are leaving.  So it felt weird to go through security, then customs, and then finally be asked for our passports.

They have police doing the passport control here.  And she keeps saying stuff to her counterpart while checking our passports.  She then asked when we got to Germany.  We said 2 days ago.  She asks how - by train - do you have your tickets?  Ok this is getting weird as we hand over our tickets.  We ask, is there a problem?  She says - yes, you are over your 90 day Schengen visa - you’ve been here 92 days.  OMG how did I miscalculate that?

Conferring with her colleague, she says as we have only been in Germany 2 days, we haven’t broken the law here and can go through.  I looked up the penalties - 10k - 20k NZD fine or future bans to Europe. Sheesh.  I’m grateful for her colleague who was so blasé and didn’t give a shit and I think told her the same.

Boarding the flight, we tell the kids it's technically an overnight flight and they need to sleep part of the trip.  Do they do that? Nope.  Ok cool, cool, Tokyo day 1 should be interesting.