We got in on a Friday night and then we went to the infamous Hofbrauhaus, one of the most famous German beer halls. Beer halls lend themselves to meeting people as everyone crowds into the tables. We first sat with 2 Irish guys, Eamonn and Dez, who were hilarious but then they had to leave to go have dinner with Dez' wife. Then as they got up, a German family with 2 teenagers, The Schneiders, sat down as well as another 2 German guys, Andres and Til. We had such a good time with all of them. Liz even proclaimed this as one of her top 10 nights of all time.
This was also the night that Elizabeth became a carnivore after 3 long years of being a vegan/vegetarian. One of the German boys was eating sausage and had it on a toothpick and went straight for Elizabeth's mouth and said "try this." In the seconds before it reached her mouth, she had no idea how to explain to a German that she was a vegetarian and before she knew it, she was chewing. That is when she realized how delicious meat is.
Sunday afternoon I ordered a hot dog which I thought was a sausage and the waitress accidental brought us 2. Elizabeth dug right in and then couldn't stop raving about it. In reality, it wasn't very good.
On Saturday we went to the Dachau concentration camp (I wrote another post about that). It was about an hour outside of Munich and we spent much of the day there. We got back into Munich early Saturday evening and decided to drown our sorrows at another beer hall. This time we went to Augustiner Brauhaus. This was a much less touristy beer hall and we predominantly met Germans. We first sat down with 2 German couples in their late thirties. We loved them! We were a little disappointed, though, that they didn't invite us over to their house for Easter Sunday. After they left, 3 Swiss boys sat down next to us. One of them lived in Munich and had his 2 friends from grade school in town. They were a lot of fun. Actually too much fun, because they started ordering schnapps left and right and Elizabeth and I are not schnapps kind of girls. Aka we had to dispose of them over our shoulders.
Sunday was supposed to be our Munich sightseeing day, but it was Easter so it kind of put a damper on outings. We did get to the Deutsch museum which was really neat. It was basically a "how is this made" kind of museum. There were aviation, astronautical, mechanics, power, boating, ceramic, glass, science (my favorite!) and all sorts of different exhibits. We could have spent years in there, but we didn't. Our next stop was to go by the Hofs gardens and then into the Englisch Gardens. In the summer, many people hang out in the beer halls in the Englisch Garden and bring in their own food, but it happens to be snowing here in Munich so it wasn't very crowded (aka at all.) We did get to see a lot of adorable dogs (with their owners) in the park and I even saw my first Vizsla! My boyfriend, Marshall, has a vizsla, a dog originally from Hungary. Needless to say, I cannot wait to get to Budapest and ogle over the vizslas! The dogs here in Germany walk off their leashes a lot. I first realized this when one of leash-less dogs came up to us, Liz started petting it and I screamed "it's a homeless dog." Then we saw its' owner and I realized it was a rather clean, well-fed, homeless dog.
For dinner, we went to a very meaty restaurant. Elizabeth got sausage and sauerkraut and I got a pork knuckle with red cabbage. The pork knuckle was to die for. I even ate the crispy fatty skin and cut off 20 years of my life. Elizabeth also enjoyed some of my pork knuckle.The red cabbage, however, was not our favorite. We will be sticking to potato dumplings and kraut from now on. Liz also might have overdosed on meat, because this am she said something along those lines.
Right now we are on a 2 hour train to Fussen where the Neuschwanstein castle lives. This is the castle from the sleeping beauty and what DIsneyland's castle was modeled after. We heard you can either walk to the castle once we get into town, or we can take a horse-drawn carriage. We aren't sure if we should go all out or not, but I'll keep you updated.
1.The Schneider family 2.Liz and I with Andres and Til in Hofbrauhaus 3. Liz and I in the Englisch garden 4. At Haxnbauer eating my pork knuckle 5. Pork knuckle roasting
So much meat to eat, so little time!
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