Munich, (Munchin) Germany

25th - 31st July

So we arrived back in munich a little sad as we knew our journey was nearing its end, but at the same time excited at what Munich had in store for us a secound time round...

On our trip we had thought about trying to find work in Munich, and later that night we bumped into the irish guy we met the first time round and he tipped us off about a job in the english garden working in one of the beer gardens. The next day we went to enquire about the job, after spending ages trying to find the guy we had to ask about the job, he made us wait while he had a break.... Half hour later we had a chat and he offered us both a job, Liam doing what only the men do... cleaning tables and Cobi doing what only women do.... Making salad in the cold kitchen. He told us to come back in a couple of days once we had got all the paper work sorted.

The very next day: We set off to get the paper work we needed in order to work in munich. On route we had a chat about if this is really what we wanted to do... Both of us were unsure so we got off at one of the fountains and thought about it in more depth. After weighing up the pro's and con's whether to work in the english garden or to come home. We still wer'nt sure as we had the same amout of pro's and con's for each... Finally we had made our mind up, we decided not to work in Munich, the decider was that we could get crappy jobs in Munich and not know anyone, or we could get the same sort of crappy jobs in England were we would be able to see family & friends. Happy with our decision we head back to camp to sort out what we were going to do the rest of the time we were in Munich.

We were lucky we booked our beds a month in advanced other wise we would have had to swap camp sites half way through our stay as the place we were staying was fully booked for one night, this was due to them having a big party celebrating the 40th year "The Tent" has been opened. This was a nice surprise as we had no idea about this when we booked.

The Party: It all started about 6pm with music and home made food (Yum) there was a local band playing traditional music and a DJ to play all the favourite tunes. We both had meatballs and potato salad, the meatballs were more like thick burgers than your traditional small round balls but they tasted amazing. The potato salad was fruity with cucumber in, Cobi not liking cucumber she was a little disapointed at first until she tryed it that is... It also was very tasty! We decided we would have a few drinks that night, after all it was a party and we were in the beer drinking capital of the world! We started with a halbe mass (small beer) this is just short of a normal pint back in the UK. We joined two Canadians, Jeff & Renee who were traveling europe following different festivals around. It wasn't long until we moved onto a mass (Large beer) this is a litre of beer in a massive glass. We spent hours talking and drinking until we were a little drunken, the party was drawing to a close so we felt it was time to hit the hay.

So Bavarian beer gives you less of a hang over than other beer, we both never had head aches or felt ill we just felt drained all day. We had a lazy day, we went to subway for food and got an ice cream, this was the most we had eaten for lunch in about a month but it was worth it. We jumped off the tram at one of the fountains so Cobi could paddle her toes and we could eat our subway. After this we head back to camp for a lie down to refresh ourselves, ready for the evening as we had planned to go to the free and easy festival that was near by with Jeff and Renee. Sadly we slept from about 2pm until 7ish… Opps!!! We were meant to meet Jeff and Renee at 5pm so we had definantly missed them. Having missed the festival we head to Lidl quickly to get there before it closed at 8pm, so we could get some food for dinner. We head to bed after dinner for even more sleep.

The following day we decided to go on a free walking tour so we could learn a little about Munich and see anything we missed on our own treks of Munich. It didn't start great as they had closed the main subway so we had to go the long way round, the day didn't get much better as when we arrived it was raining and after waiting a couple of minutes in the rain we learnt that the guide was running half hour late… Great! Once the tour finally started it was actually really good, very relaxed and funny but at the same time informative. That night at dinner we were joined by a street performer who spent his days working as a living statue, as you can guess we had lots of questions, one of which was 'Do you make a lot in a day?' He said he has good and bad days, but even though it was raining most of the day and being a Sunday (only some restaurants are open and nothing else) he still made over 300 Euro in a little over six hours! Not sure about you but we're in the wrong line of work.

Now at the end of our stay in Munich we used our last day to relax and thought we would go for a walk down to Lidl but take the scenic route. After getting lost and attempting to ask for directions, we finally made it about a hour and a half later, we decided to get the 15 minute tram ride home instead of walking. After eating we joined two Americans who we spoke to a little earlier in the day and had invited us to join them later for a beer. After a couple of beers, talking and laughing the night away sadly it was time to say goodnight and goodbye to Munich.

Off to Uelzen in the morning via Berlin and Braunschwieg. Woop!