Ah, finally slept in. I was sure tired. I tend to not fall asleep until after 2 hours of lying there. I guess my body has not fully adapted to Germany. At least my mind loves it! Had a wonderful relaxing morning and watched How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days. It is so wonderful to have host sisters, because we get to watch chick flicks! Except I watched this by myself. Well, at least I wasn't bored!
For lunch was a very traditional Bavarian meal - a special soup. Florian told me that you can find it everywhere here, but no where else! I thought that was pretty grand, and not only is it famous, it is delicious and simple! Just a sweet broth with a huge chunk of meatball, only one per bowl that is cut up with a spoon and eaten with the broth. It is not quite like chicken soup but it has a nice little sting. Very salty, but that was part of the meal.
Off to Munich!!! Me and Svenja took a train there. First we did some shopping! We were at the center - in the middle of so many old buildings - strangely made because they are from a different time, and there were some large stores! First I really wanted some German sunglasses but I went to a large collection and there just weren't any seriously calling to me. So we moved on and went to a mostly clothing store. Nothing popped out at me until I saw the sunglasses there! I found a fantastic pair - and they are purple! I have gotten so many purple things here in Germany - I love it. They are big and gorgeous. Then we went to another store - H & M. It is supposed to be an American store, but I have never heard of it. At first I didn't see anything too neat until I came across something someone left where it shouldn't have been and I really liked it. Then I found another place in the store with different kinds of them and I got one that was purple. Then I found a really cute top but I decided it was too low cut. Then I found something even better and it is white with orange and pink flowers with green stems. I love it. Then Svenja went to an upper level of the store and they had some really nice underwear! I did not get any, but I am noticing that the quality is a bit nicer there. They weren't all that expensive either, and it was good underwear. Just an observation but maybe there is just better quality stuff for good prices in Europe! The bathing suits are also quite cheap. At least cheaper than I've ever found.
Next we visited many churches and old buildings. It was so grand. The first church we went to was enormous. The doors were so large I felt like 5 of me could stand on top of each other and still not reach the top. There was a neat little legend that Satan had come to the church and could not see the windows and was proclaiming how pathetic it was, but really he was standing in a position where you cannot see any of the side windows and he ended up feeling much shame and anger. There is a footprint of where he supposedly stood and I stepped there and saw that you cannot see the side windows there! The windows were beautiful stained glass with lovely pictures on them. There were candles and tourists everywhere! I liked the ceiling mostly because I just love the architecture. It is so different and nicer looking, and I think it will stay for hundreds of years to come.
After seeing more buildings we came across a large pole holding these flags of dancing people and such. I found out that there is something like this in every little city like in Germering where we are staying (I saw this the next day). There was also a huge group of people there this day because there was a special pro-gay festival type thing going on. There were men in dresses and angel wings everywhere! I thought it was real neat. I also enjoyed the singing by them too on a big stage, it was culturally intriguing although it wasn't quite traditional German. Next to the stage was a large theater with lion heads around the stairs and it is probably the biggest theater I have ever seen. I love these buildings - they are so precious and amazing. Thinking of how such grand places were built by hand reminds me of the huge pyramids, and these thoughts are just overwhelming.
It started to rain on us shortly after Florian called and told us it would and we should probably find somewhere to hide, but we were not quite finished sight seeing. We went to this huge building that we had to walk up many many stairs to get to the top. (the picture above is part of the view we had after we finally reached the top) It was so fantastic because I could just feel how old it was under my feet. At some places it was so small only one person could be on a stair so people coming up and down had to take turns getting up there. It was a good climb and took a good amount of time, but when we got to the top it was like nothing else. I could see everything! We were so high up, the people looked like ants. I could see all the lovely churches we went to, the museum, the Olympic stadium I visited several days before, and so many houses and buildings. It was really beautiful. I did not want to go back downstairs because it was so fantastic to be there. What I did not like about it was all the graffiti everywhere where people wrote down their names and such for no good reason. It is such a beautiful and old building this made me a little sad. On the way down we saw these bells as they were ringing through a little window!! This was magnificent and I loved every moment of it. I took some pictures of the bells moving, they were not so great but it was so neat to see these old but huge bells ringing a beautiful song.
It was raining more and more so we ran on down to the Hofgarten, which is a famous little building and it was a lovely dome type thing with big bushes all around it and streets leading to it and big trees surrounding it, so it was a big garden basically. On these streets there were many different people playing this game with one little blue ball and many large silver ones. I found out that it is tradition to be playing this game on these streets for many many years and the goal of the game is to get the larger silver balls the closest to the small blue one after it is thrown onto the ground. It is something like shuffle board I could explain it as.
Soon it started to really pour rain and although we had an umbrella it was not protecting us much. We ran under the comfort of a large building - a museum. It was not open but it has surrounding platforms on the top reaching out and protecting everyone from the rain. We walked along this and it went in a big circle until we reached a Star Bucks. The building though was so fantastic and lovely, so big and amazing. I wish there were such charming buildings in America. Well, Star Bucks was delicious. We ordered some sandwiches - a salami bagel for me and a tomato sandwich type thing for Svenja and a raspberry cheesecake to share with 2 frappachinos for ourselves. It was absolutely scrumptious.
Now we both needed to use the restroom. There was supposedly one at Star Bucks and we went down the stairs past a cute sign pointing in the right direction, but to our disappointment it was locked. We then decided to make our way home but we got a little stuck because the way we got there was now closed and we had to find another exit. We went outside and we needed to get past the block of a large building but we had to walk in circles a few minutes before we found the elevator that some officers directed us to. Munich is such a safe city and there are always officers around, keeping the place clean and protected.
We made our way to a subway and rode it only one stop and then hopped on the train to get home. Once we arrived at our stop however it was raining cats and dogs. There is a different expression the Germans use but it has slipped my mind. We would have ridden our bikes home but we would have gotten so wet and it would not have been pleasant. We had to take shelter for a few minutes because we heard a loud clap of thunder but a group of some younger boys also came down in that area and we decided there were too many of them so we went. It was raining so much but we did make it out of there alive, but my back and shoulders were pretty wet.
You can never run out of things to do here, it is so fantastic!! I love Germany.
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