Volume 2, Days 80-81
The Russians did not create the chaos I had anticipated. In fact, they did their best to whisper and fumble around in the dark when they returned around midnight. In the morning, I went to the small, smelly kitchen on the second floor to make coffee. I was going to sit there to read the news, but the internet did not seem to work. In fact, though I had no problem on my laptop the day before, I had yet to be able to get my phone to connect to the wifi.
I went to the lobby and found a similar situation. I was able to use my laptop, but my phone was consistently rejected by the router. Strange and unfortunate. I worked productively until about 10am and paid witness to the stream of checkouts. Its funny how often I am hanging out by the front desk during the peak checkin/checkout times, as if I am seeking out my own personal Fawlty Towers sketch.
I didn’t have a lot of plans for Munich as I had been there before, and more importantly, do remember visiting. Though, to be honest, I only remember one big museum and Dachau on the outskirts. Being of age now, my priorities were oriented around my stomach and my liver and a bit of research told me that the best, i.e. only, time to get those famous boiled white sausages was before noon. The LP had recommended one place, so I walked the 15 minutes towards the city center.
Along the way, I popped into the insanely elaborate Asamkirche and followed the pedestrian stretch up to the Marienplatz, where sits the Rathaus and a handful of churches. I spotted one place advertising 1 euro per sausage (before noon) and it did seem that every other establishment was a brauhaus of one kind or the other. Taking a closer look at the Rathaus, I spotted a sign with the timings of the glockenspiel show and killed the spare 20 minutes before 11am by taking a loop around to the cathedral. It was just another cathedral. The same could be said for the mechanical whirring of the central clock. It really strains the eyes to be looking into the sky with the sun right there.
After the show I went to track down the recommended brauhaus, but decided it was too expensive for my tastes. There were a couple of more casual eateries in the area around the Viktualienmarkt advertising 2 wurst and a pretzel for 6 euro something, but that was still a little too steep for me. So, I backtracked to find the one place that seemed too good to be true. It wasn’t. I asked for three wurst, but only got two and the small hefeweizen was just the right size for a Bavarian breakfast.
It was a snack and I followed it up by going immediately for another snack at an old bakery making things I had never heard of before. It was a little pricey, but I sat in the garden for close to an hour sipping on my coffee and eating the fried dough that is a schmalznudel.
For my non-gastronomic tourist activity of the day, I figured I should check out the Residenz, since that appeared to be the top number 1 thing to do. Of course, I passed by the Hofbrauhaus on the way and checked out the menu. Since I had all afternoon to kill and a belly full of food, caffeine, and alcohol, I decided to go all in on the Residenz and by the combination ticket including the palace, the treasury, and the Cuvilliestheater. The treasury and the palace included audioguides without headphones, meaning one’s arm got quite a workout holding it up to one’s ear. That also means that the pensioners just crank the volume all the way up and dangle it around their neck.
The treasury was nice and small, just ten rooms, though there was more than 5 hours of audio available describing the provenance of almost every single piece.
The palace was enormous, despite everything saying only portions of it are available to tour on a given morning or afternoon. There were so many chapels and halls and series of rooms and secondary exhibits of bronze sculptures, porcelains, silver, miniatures, etc. that is was quite overwhelming. Of course, a lot of it was destroyed by fires over the years, rebuilt, bombed, rebuilt, so there was an interesting mix of styles and authenticities, but that is to be expected from any of the palaces I’ve seen in Germany (this trip). My number one takeaway from the palace were the beautiful wood inlay floors in one series of rooms.
I had made record time through the palace with a scant 2 hour visit, and poked my head into the theater. The idea that one even has to buy a ticket to look in a insanely baroque theater is insulting. Who cares if it is only 3 euros, it takes 30 seconds to have a look and by that point one really can’t see straight anymore.
I took a small loop around the north side of the palace to pass through its gardens (which lead on to the 50 million mile long English gardens) to kill time and think about dinner. I was debating going to the Hofbrauhaus. Despite the expense, it would seem worth it for the experience. On the way back, I went in, found plenty of available tables, but it didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to be there alone on Saturday night, so I took a chance to head back to the hostel to see what was up.
Nothing was up. Thirsty, I popped over to the supermarket to grab a couple beers, cheese, salamis for a little snack, and spent a while in the common room to get a feel for the vibe, but the hostel was pretty dead. Making lemons out of lemonade, I hung out in my empty dorm room snacking on the vittles obtained from a second (let’s throw the diet out the window) visit to the supermarket.
An interesting anecdote about my two supermarket runs. The first time, I only had 4 cents and the cashier, who was anxious to go on break, just took the four cents and waved me away rather than pull out 94 cents of change. The second time, I went to the same lane he was (still) working and handed him 3.60. He didn’t even think twice but kept the extra cent. So, one could argue, I went out of my way to (partially) pay him back.
The Russian, who had been out, came back around 9pm and promptly went to sleep. I found that odd, and went to bed early myself.
| Weisswurst (inkl. tip) | 8.7 |
| Schmalnudel & Coffee (w/ tip) | 6 |
| Residenz combi ticket | 13 |
| Snacks | 7.06 |
| More snacks | 3.59 |
| Total: | 38.35 EUR (299.1 RMB) (USD 41.78) |
Running Total: 29292.8 RMB (USD 4091.52)
Daily Average: 366.2 RMB (USD 51.14)