PAUL

We arrived in Munich on July 5 without accommodation. We had arranged another couchsurfing set up, but we hadn't been given the address or contact details of our hosts and so we ended up doing a quick run around to find a hostel with a couple of free beds. As luck would have it we ended up with what were probably the last two hostel beds near the train station that night, and we ended up staying in the same hostel for the rest of the week.

The next day was Sunday and we were able to make the most of the reduced number of people on the streets by taking another tips based walking tour. Our guide of Munich was, as you would expect, a kilt wearing Scotsman who was born in Invercargill, New Zealand. The tour lasted a few hours and was a great introduction to the city and its history, including being the origin of the Nazis. With the rain settling in, we went back to our hostel for the afternoon and took it easy.

On Monday we made use of another tips based tour, this time on bikes. As in Amsterdam, no helmets and stay on the right (wrong :p) side of the road. Our tour guide was an American who had recently moved to Munich and we had a great little group of a Canadian, a couple of Kiwis and half a dozen Aussies. On the tour we had lunch at the ChineseTower beer garden - the second largest in the world, and saw Germans surfing the "wave" created in the Isar river by the naturally fast current running over an artificially created embankment. Once we get the video up of this you'll see what I mean, it was pretty cool. After the tour, our newly formed band of explorers headed for the most famous beer hall in Munich, the Hofbrauhaus where we enjoyed some local beer and the music of the traditional 'umpapa' band. After a successful job interview, our tour guide from earlier in the day joined us for a drink and we all added our names to the many inscribed on the table we were at to mark our visit and maybe to find again some day.

On Tuesday we went to Dachau concentration camp memorial. Dachau was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis and served as a model on which future camps were designed. We spent most of the day there with audio guides providing information on the history of the camp as well as the words of people who had survived imprisonment at Dachau. The day made the history very real for us and certainly had a lasting impact.

That afternoon we returned home and made plans for our final full day in Europe, and realised that the dorm we were moving into for our last two nights were not 14 but 40 bed dorms. Ah well (Oh the joys of hostel living :P).