We rejoin our intrepid travelers on the train from Interlaken, Switzerland to Munich, Germany. The journey takes a little more than seven hours, so we did not have very much daylight left by the time we got to Munich. The long train ride enabled us to eat in the dining car, where we had a cheese plate and tomato soup. Yes, soup on the train. We are adventurous gals! I also never wanted to be a troublemaker and never asked for ice in my drinks, but Coke really is not that good in a glass without ice.
Once we got to Munich, we trudged around with our luggage trying to find our hotel: the Hotel Deutsches Theater. This should have been easy, except that there are two. I am sure they have slightly different names, or something, that do not translate well to English. I don’t know. Naturally we went to the wrong place first. This, as you might imagine, caused some angst. Disaster was averted as we were directed to the right place, and we checked in and dropped our luggage and admired the proper shower, which, let me tell you, was beautiful after our experiences in Freiburg and then the hostel in Interlaken.
Then it was off to explore Munich, and, since we had limited time, we decided the best way to do this was by bus tour. We saw the Onion Towers. If we’d had more time, I wanted to see Olympic Park, but we didn’t so … next time. After the bus tour, we went to the Christmas Market and then the Hofbräuhaus. This was not the first Hofbräuhaus we had visited, no; the first was the one centrally located in Newport, Kentucky (the first authentic Hofbräuhaus in America!). We went there with a TV guy after the Astros played in Cincinnati in May of that same year, when I had driven up from Memphis to meet Lisa. I recall doing my Redbirds gamenotes from Lisa’s hotel room. Oh, those were the days.
So anyway, we had to go to the real German Hofbräuhaus, and also, my brother had been there, and you know how I am about him one-upping me on things. Continuing our “wandering around Munich” theme, we couldn’t quite find the Hofbräuhaus right away. This was irritating, you know, because my brother had obviously found it. It didn’t take us too long before we, too, were successful. At first we had a table to ourselves to enjoy out frothy beverages. Well, only I enjoyed a frothy beverage – Lisa doesn’t like beer – and it was actually not all that strong, it was like half beer and half Seven-Up (or something generic and similar). I’m not sure, but it was pretty good. Towards the end of our meal, some overzealous Australian backpackers joined the table. We chatted for a moment, but I don’t think we lived up to their adventurous spirit, and they moved on.
