Munich Part V - Last Day

Now that I'm back home, here's the rest of the Munich trip. With pictures!

We got up a little later on the last day and didn’t get out the door until nearly 10am. After I had breakfast at the hostel, I waited around the lobby for Jingwen to finish checking her email and overheard some other people talking about traveling. This one guy was trying to decide whether to go to Prague or Amsterdam and was chatting with another guy and girl about it.

Girl: Amsterdam’s more fun. Prague’s more… scenic.
Guy: I’m tired of scenic. Amsterdam’s more fun?
Girl: Yeah, I thought so.
Guy 2: Yeah, Amsterdam’s definitely a lot of fun.

All three of them looked like college kids. Definitely won’t get a conversation like this at a hotel. You meet people at youth hostels that have been everywhere, are planning to go everywhere, and people who just like traveling around. People come in and out with big backpacks, on their way across Europe. It’s so cool.

After we checked out of the hostel, we went to the English Gardens, walked around a bit, and found the Chinese Pagoda. On the way there, I asked why Jingwen wanted to see this pagoda so much, given that she had just gotten back from China.

Jingwen: Because it’s funny.
Me: Funny?
Jingwen: Yeah, I saw a picture of it and in my eyes it looks nothing like Chinese. It’s like they tried to imitate a Chinese pagoda and failed.
Me: So you want to see this because it’s funny?
Jingwen: Yeah. And it’s in the middle of Munich. If it was in Beijing, it’d be like whatever.

I was confused. I don’t think anything is worth seeing just because it’s somehow supposed to be funny. Not with swollen feet anyhow. After getting to Munich, Jingwen’s feet started swelling pretty badly. It got worse everyday. It was especially bad today but she managed to take us through the gardens, detoured to see a lake, and then walk to the pagoda. So I didn’t think much of her complaints about her feet since she seemed to be doing just fine. But after we got back to Berlin, you can actually see her feet were really swollen. The next day she said that she had a hard time putting shoes on for work.

Anyhow, we went back to the city center and ate at a restaurant that my guidebook recommended. It wasn’t cheap at all. Our dishes were like 17 Euros and 3 Euros for beer. The food and beer were really, really good. I got pork knuckles which is a Bavarian specialty along with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. I actually didn’t think sauerkraut was as bad as Jingwen made it out to be. I would’ve finished mine except that there was no way for me to finish the whole meal. The waitress gave us 0.5 liters of beer each even though we asked for 0.3 L. It was really good beer though. I felt a little dizzy afterwards.

The train going back was not fun at all. We got our stuff from the hostel and I left for the train station 10 minutes before my train was scheduled to leave. I managed to get a ticket and hop on the train with plenty of time to spare. That’s what I like about trains. No checking in, lines, etc. It was a nice ICE this time but I wish it wasn’t. Because it turned out to be one of the new ones that actually leans over when it goes around a corner. Most people didn’t notice but since I was so tired, had a headache, and gets motion sickness so easily, I noticed. Kim had told me about these trains and I wanted to avoid them. But since I only had 10 minutes before it left, I hopped on without looking at the numbers. I think these trains run only between Berlin and Munich and are the ones designated 1605 or 1604. Well, at first, I was sleeping so well that the ticket checker guy had to tap me on the shoulder. I didn’t even hear him. But after that, I felt nauseated for a lot of the trip. I managed to not throw up and slept a lot. The scenery wasn’t great either. We were taking a different route than the one I took going to Munich. Just a bunch of farm land. Didn’t go through the forest at all.