Schnitzel, Castles, and Nazis

Our last 3 nights we spent in munich, Germany, and we had a great time. Our first night there we went to a highly recommended restaurant known for having the biggest plate of schnitzel. So we each got a beer and split the turkey schnitzel which was huge and sooo good. When I say beer I should probably mention that emily got some beer mixed with sprite and I got an apple cider...but german beer nonetheless. Our hostel had a pretty nice lounge area but pretty gross rooms--I guess that's what you get for 10 euro a night. It's a 40 bed room on the -1 floor (the basement). It smells like mildew and b.o. And we were pretty much the only girls.

Our first day we took a free walking tour around the city to learn about the history and importance of Munich. It really gave me a deeper appreciation for the city and was fun too. I didn't realize Munich played such a big part in the rise of the Nazi party and hitlers popularity. It was crazy to learn about kristalnacht and other horrible events while we were standing at the site where they took place. We also saw the supposedly most famous beerhall in the world and heard stories about it's historic days. After the tour we had goulash and took a nap in the largest gardens in Europe, the English gardens. For dimmer we really wanted crepes but the stand was closed so we got pizza by the slice instead. Food has been an adventure on this trip...sometimes were pleasantly surprised and other time we wonder what possesed someone to make such horrible combinations. This night was one of the latter described. I ordered the pizza with arugala, tomato, and mozzerella on top- sort of a caprese pizza. Emily got tunafish. What looked like a nice sausage slice turned out to be tuna and onion pizza. Who puts tuna on pizza! We were both revolted by it (emily moreso because she put it in her mouth), so we ran to the trainstation store afterward for some peach gummies.

Back In the room we got ready for bed and I asked myself, "would you rather sleep with your head by the awkward cuddling couple on the bed to the left or by the creepy guy in his 30s to the right. But this seemed so trivial when at 4am I woke up to something very strange indeed. "wake up. Come on man wake up. Do you know what you just did?" I look up, or rather down from the top bunk to see one of the hostel workers shining a light in a sleeping guys face in the bunk to diginal from us. "you just pissed on the floor." sure enough I look at the wood floor and there sits a giant puddle--disgusting. Apparently this guy had had too much to drink, undressed, peed all over the floor and passed out on his bed. Questioning whether this was really happening I climbed down and picked up my backpack and shoes up off the floor away from the danger zone and watched the hostel staff deal with the situation. They mopped the floor and got him to wake up and move out of the soaked bed that wasn't even his then told him to take a shower. We found out in the morning he was fined 60 euro for the mess. Poor emily was freaked out the whole night and barely slept. If we thought the room smelled bad before it was terrible now! Let's just say this beats out our Rome hostel for worst accompdation experience so far! We were scared to use the showers too, especially since the dirty shower curtains sported pictures of "Biff" and "Brad" in speedos at the beach. So weird.

Despite the weird hostel we really enjoyed Munich. We took a day trip to the Neuwenschuine castle which was built in the beautiful alps and was the inspiration for cinderellas castle at Disneyland. It was really fun to see and all around us were snow covered mountains and scenic views. Our last day we also got to visit Dachau, the first concentration camp and model for the others built during the war. It was a very moving experience and it was especially powerful learning about what went on there as we were standing in the specific locations.

Bavaria has beautiful sights and rich culture--we had bratworst and pretzels that were great and savory crepes that weren't so savory. I got the chili and cheese crepe which turned out to be chili POWDER and cheese with tons of crushed black pepper. It almost made me sick. I think I'll stick to the nutella ones! Oh and we both got spinach and tomato quiche for lunch after Dachau and it happened to have salmon inside! We were ready to leave when our three nights in Munich were up and enjoyed the scenery on the train on the way to Salzburg where the hills are alive with the sound of music.