In Munich

Pictures: 1) the surfers on the river in the gardens, 2) in the Englisher Gartens, 3) Kate, Basti, and the puppy (Kira)

I arrived in Munich and got to my hostel, ate, and got ready for bed.  I felt very bad from my

 cold, so I slept well.  The next morning I sat in the hostel watching some online shows until 2 when I left to walk to the Marienplatz to meet a couch surfer Susanne.  I met her at 2:30 and got cold medicine on the way.  She was so great!!  We had such a lovely day, just walking to the Englisher Gardens and through the city, talking, eating, sitting and talking more!  We were together until 9 pm, but it felt like no time at all!  We had so much in common!  Susanne works in the media organizing events and other PR type roles.  She is 25 and we just talked and I feel so sad that we don’t live in the same city because we were like twin souls!

At 9 she took me to meet my host for thee next 3 nights, Kate, and her boyfriend Sebastian.  We all sat around in Burger King and talked.  

I liked Kate and Basti (as he’s called) so much right off the bat.  As the four of us sat there

 chatting, a crazy drunk old man came up to me, and took my hat off of my suitcase and put it on his head and started speaking German to us and Basti was trying to humor him, but he was really creepy.  Finally, he put the hat on Susanne’s head and fell over me, and I had to push him off, and then he wandered away.  They were all saying “What a welcome to Germany!”  I was

 surprised because Germany seems so much more civil and clean then Greece or Italy and this is the first experience I’ve ever had like this. Lol 

 

I stayed on an air mattress in Kate’s one bedroom apartment, and her little dog, Kitra, is SO sweet and cute and in the middle of the night she came and laid her head on my feet and it was just so adorable.  Kate has so many of the same DVDs that I do and I knew we would be good friends.  Unfortunately she had to work today as well, so I met another CSer named Theresa at 10 am and we went to the Hof Garten which was a very pretty garden and sat and chatted.  She is also in the media and works for a teen tabloid sort of magazine.  She has met the stars of High School Musical, Twilight (I nearly had a coronary when I heard that!), Miley Cirus, and many more.  She said Robert Pattenson from Twilight was very cool and nice but that the girl (I forget her name) was snooty and always rolling her eyes and such.  She said the High School Musical stars were not very smart or very nice either.  It was really interesting to hear about all these stars and what they were like in person.  She said she’d much rather meet people like the Dali Lama and old people with real world experience, and I agreed (though don’t get me wrong, I’d LOVE to meet Robert Pattenson haha).  We also went to this spot in the Englisher Gatens where a sort of natural wave is made and people surf on it and we watched them for a while which was really cool. 

After grabbing lunch at a little restaurant, we went to the Marienplatz again and met with a free tour group at 1 pm.  (Which a CSer was leading and had told me about).  The tour was three hours, and really good!  I learned a lot about what the buildings meant, saw the Hofbrauhaus (home of beer), saw some Hitler headquarters, and many more things.  Theresa had to leave the tour at 3 to go home and get ready to babysit, but she said she too was learning a lot (since she is not originally from Munich).  She hopes to study some in the US, so I really hope she comes.  I told her that UNC has a great journalism program (and that is what she does) so who knows, maybe she’ll end up in Chapel Hill for a semester! 

At the end of the tour I hung out with the guide and some of the others on tour at the Hofbrauhaus and we chatted for a long time.  Specifically I talked to a guy from Atlanta and a girl from Canada until almost 7 pm when I met back up with Kate and Basti.  The guys name was Justin and the girl was Catherine and I told them all about couch surfing and they are planning on joining.  I told them about some of my experiences and then I told Catherine all about Italy and Greece since she was on her way there next.  She was like “thank you so much - I am so excited about Santorini now and couch surfing!” 

Kate, Basti and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner and then Basti drove us back to her apartment.  Now we are both using the computer, and playing with Kira (the puppy) intermittently.  We may watch a dancing movie tonight, but we have to get up early because we’re going on a tour of the Neuschwanstein Castle tomorrow (the famous “Sleeping Beauty” castle that the one in Disney is based on).  My Aunt Coleen raved about this castle, so I am so excited.  It is only 25 euros for students with Eurorail passes, and 35 for adults and you get transportation there and a guided tour and it’s an 8 hour trip all together.  I’m so excited, but we have to be at the train station at 9:15. Ick. 

I have had such a WONDERFUL time in Germany so far, even though I have a cold (though it is getting better!).