I admit that when I first booked my trip to Europe I had an incredibly romanticized idea of backpacking and staying at “hostels”. I was aware of the potential to be not at all ready to start my trip. You’d think after three years of traveling back and forth to the States and South Africa I’d have some clue as to get around unknown territories, but no – I was pretty clueless. I still am.
When I arrived at the Munich airport I pretended as well as I could like I knew what I was doing. In reality, it was at this point that I realized exactly how unprepared I was to do the traveling I’d hoped to do. No city map, no rail map, only an address for my hostel and a general idea of how to get from the airport to the metro. So I just sat for a minute in the departure terminal pretending to be reorganizing my bag (when really I was to befuddled to attempt any course of action). Of course, as I am a particularly proud American, I wanted to avoid at all costs actually asking for directions. Unfortunately after several attempts at using an automated machine to buy a subway pass I gave in and went to the information services – where the rest of the outlanders were lined up looking helpless and confused. The lady looked a bit concerned to be selling me an all-access pass to the Munchen underground – I’d been traveling for a while, by then, and not looking my most responsible – but she did, and off I went into the great unknown: the U Bahn.
Thank the Germans for being organized and put together. Everywhere you looked on the underground was another subway map and points of reference. The problem is, of course, that subway maps are in no ways accurate representations of streets or buildings or even directions. That just meant that by the time I’d left the metro station I circumnavigated that particular city block about 2 times before finally getting my bearings. Finger to the wind.
In the end, of course, I found my hostel, had a shower, change of clothes, breakfast, etc. Did I mention my flight got in at 6am? No one should have to scavenge in a new city that early in the morning.
Munich in a word: sterile. It’s been over 60 years since Munich was practically destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II and yet the Munchkins have held onto as much of their cultural heritage as possible – by rebuilding every single destroyed structure in perfect replicas of what they once looked like. So much of Munich is rebuilt, in fact, that my tour guide made us guess what four structures (not buildings, structures) had withstood the test of time. None of us could. The Germans are awfully good at making new things look old – if they’re so inclined.
Other notable aspects of Munich? Yes, they wear lederhosen; yes they serve pretzels in beergartens; and yes, they were the birthplace of the Nazi movement. Like Disneyland, really, with grumpy nationalists. Possibly the coolest part of Munich – besides the huge BMW museum – were the 1 euro Sunday entries to all national museums. I saw every famous Dutch and Flemish artist ever for 1 euro. I also saw Van Gogh’s sunflowers in person – for one euro. Not a bad way to spend R20. I also managed to eat pizza and watch soccer (a tradition I carried to every city I visited on this journey).
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