Guten morgen! We’re in Germany now!

By this point we had perfected the coffee-and-breakfast-at-the-airport routine, and we were treated with some great views from the plane.

Unfortunately, we landed in Munich feeling like doo-doo. Our jet lag had officially worn off, and we were officially Not Morning People Anymore.

Our hotel didn’t allow check-in until 4pm though, so we had a long day ahead of us.

After dropping off our bags, our first stop was the church down the block. Very pretty, and a great way to find our way home!

Sean was determined to see the daily glockenspiel performance at the Marienplatz, so we had to rush a bit to make it there by 11.

As we rounded the corner into the square, we could hear the music, but I was confused as to why everyone was ignoring the performance and instead staring and pointing their cameras up at the town hall.

Turns out, the glockenspiels are not played by humans, but rather, by the mechanical instrument in the giant clock tower.

The music was super discordant, and not entirely pleasant. Very much not what we were expecting, but I was thoroughly entertained. We also noticed some of the gargoyles on the building were creepy AF.

Sean basically wanted to get the heck out of there, but he let me stay and take lots of pictures of the pretty building. Afterwards, we continued around the corner to the market in search of sustenance.

Sean ordered his first bratwurst, and I made the mistake of not getting one myself. Sorry, darling!

He was reluctant but graciously allowed me a few bites. My high school lunch crew did not call me Moochey for nothing.

When he was ordering it, the lady asked if he wanted all beef, or (what I thought was) horse meat. Then Sean smiled and nodded, opting for the “house meat.” In my head, I was like, “You dummy! You just ordered horse meat and misunderstood her accent!”

But in the end, I was the dummy, and he heard correctly. Bahahaha. The house meat was delicious.

Sean had some blisters on his pinky toes from all of our sweaty hiking over the past few days, so we were taking it easy. I learned my lesson when I brought my friend Kristina to Barcelona and she got ELEVEN blisters on her feet. I was super annoying and whiney about going slow until she counted, and when I got the tiniest blister ever a couple weeks later and could barely stand the pain of walking, I felt like the hugest jerk alive.

Never again! You must respect the blister pain!

We rested in a very pretty church for a while.

And then I convinced Sean to embark on what was quite possibly one of the worst and most stressful tower experiences of my life.

First, we had to wait in a line that was not moving for about ten minutes. Turns out they let people up in groups, but they weren’t communicating that, so it was kind of awkward and confusing.

Then we got to the top, and the pathway around the tower was quite narrow. Sean and I were immediately separated and cordoned off by strangers. Honestly, there was room for me to squeeze by people if I really wanted to, but everybody was super serious about holding their ground for some reason. The result was so frustrating and claustrophobic. We basically had to stand for multiple minutes in one spot before the line of people would shift about 5-10 feet, and then it would freeze again. I can’t imagine anybody wanted to be up there as long as we were up there!

I did get some nice views, but I was overwhelmed by the frustration and could simply not enjoy it. Huge bummer!

When we got to the bottom, Sean simply said, “I’m not doing that again.” Don’t blame him! And he was having a way better time than I was! The running joke for the rest of the trip was for me to point out the staircase in every other tower and suggest we climb it. (Spoiler – we never did.)

We explored the buildings around the square a little more and admired some street performers. There was a guy doing very impressive juggling tricks with a soccer ball, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether he was any good at actual soccer. Sean was most impressed that he never repeated a trick.

As we were leaving the square, a barrage of bachelor and bachelorette parties appeared and began taking very loud and chaotic group photos. They were clearly not associated with each other, but they just somehow all ended up in the same place. One group of guys were all dressed as surgeons. Sean thought they might be real doctors, but the one dressed as a sexy nurse kind of gave it away. He must have been the groom.

Pretty fancy to go to Munich for a bach party!

Honestly, after the relative calm and slow pace of Cinque Terre, I found Munich to be super overwhelming in general. The people! The big buildings! The loud music! I usually like the big cities, and I thought if anyone would be nonplussed, it would be Sean. Not sure what’s happening to me! #IdentityCrisis

We did learn something fun in a nearby palace – Munich has lots of sister cities, including Cincinnati, Ohio! I’ve only been to one of these cities – can you guess which??

We wandered out of the busy part of town to another large, pretty church that had some really gorgeous stained glass windows.

We enjoyed some street art.

And admired the National Theater.

And then we popped down for some real lunch! I definitely don’t think “yum” when I think of German food, but we actually had pretty great luck on this trip.

Two people at the next table over were eating some sort of crispy roasted pork with super fluffy, bulbous potato dumplings, and it smelled divine. We opted to share, and Sean got his first German beer. Everybody around us was drinking giant half liters, but he decided to start with moderation.

I tried to order some rhubarb juice, and the waiter did not understand what I was asking. I finally showed him the menu, and he said, “Oh! Ra-ba-ba. Ja, ja,” and then it all made sense to him. “Ra-ba-ba” instantly became a new favorite word. Bahahaha.

The pork came with a side of cabbage, and it was all soooo yummy. Sean was particularly obsessed with the potato dumplings. We’ll have to see if we can recreate them at home. It was the perfect meal!

We did find it hard to get the waiter’s attention, and that would become another theme of the trip. Unclear what the etiquette is! We spent so long between sitting, ordering, eating, and paying. I think we either need to be more aggressive or more relaxed…

After lunch, we wandered some more through town and ended up at Odeonsplatz.

The square was filled with rows of chairs, and they were performing sound checks in a big temple-like building. The acoustics were crazy! Apparently they were performing a big concert that night, but we were heartbroken to learn that tickets were sold out already.

We stayed for the sound check, though, and my favorite part was hearing the opening of Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter. We heard it as we sat inside the church next door, and it was quite ethereal sounding!

Next door was the Hofgarten, the royal gardens in front of an old palace.

We stumbled upon what was quite the bocce ball gathering! Dozens of games were happening, and it all seemed quite serious! Old people, young people, nerdy people, tough guys. Everyone seemed to be involved in a game. It was quite the sight!

The flowers lining the lawns were beautiful, and under a little gazebo, a man was playing a Ukrainian harp-like instrument.

Again, the acoustics were crazy! Sean and I found a seat and enjoyed several classical songs and several covers of modern songs. Shallows from A Star is Born, and Wicked Game by Chris Isaak were a couple we remember. It was a nice little consolation concert for us. Interestingly, people clapped and tipped way more when he played classical songs!

Next, we walked across the street to the English Gardens, a city park larger than Central Park. My favorite part was the wild flowers.

We barely scraped the surface of the park before calling it quits. My one regret is that we didn’t walk over to the manmade river where people surf in the giant artificial wave! At the time, the twenty minute walked seemed insurmountable, and we assumed we would return a different day. No cigar, though!

We made our way back to our hotel via some snazzy revamped subways, and I was delighted to find the hotel was every bit as adorable as the photos promised.

Then commenced a three-hour rest. 2016 Lizzy would be aghast at our daily rest sessions, but I’m just not as young as I used to be!

We did haul ourselves out of bed for a nice dinner, yet another success! Sean had a beer and I had a wild lillet berry spritz. I’m still unclear what a lillet berry is, but it was the perfect amount of sweet!

So far, we’d had good luck asking waiters for their suggestions, but this one gave us a hard time. I ordered the goulash (yum), and Sean said, “I’m trying to decide between three things.”

The waiter shook his head and said, “Jesus Christ,” and then he said something about us being indecisive. It was super funny and unexpected because he had been a perfect little gentleman up until that point. He did recommend the dish I wanted to try most, though, so I was pleased! It was like a little taster platter – meatloaf, sausage, pork, sauerkraut, and Sean’s new favorite potato dumpling. He was very possessive of his potato dumpling, but luckily I had two, so I could share. Another great meal!

We spent the rest of the night fighting with the washing machine. We were officially at our halfway point, and we were officially running low on clean clothes. Initially, we were thrilled that the hotel had free laundry, but they were the silly washer-dryer combos that never work very well.

The first wash-dry cycle (2 hours, 34 minutes) was started before we went to dinner, but when I went to check on it afterwards, it was still showing a run time of 2 hours, 32 minutes. It was also spinning super fast and spraying soapy water on the clothes, and after five minutes of staring, the time was still stuck on 2:32.

Exhausted and exasperated, I canceled it and ran a quick wash-and-dry (50 minutes). When I returned 50 minutes later, though, the clothes were still wet.

Then commenced an all night and all morning fight to get our clothes dry. We really should have just hung them up immediately. Gah.

Stay tuned for more on the laundry saga.

Auf wiedersehen!

-Lizzy-wa