Saket Vora

The train-ride to Munich went just fine, except that it was 15-20 minutes late leaving the station at Zurich. We were in a suite of four seats with one of them being reserved for a hop later on the train, but this person never showed up. We had two bottles of juice and some croissants/bread that we bought before boarding. I ate the bread while the sisters had mostly the croissants. Those things have so much butter! Not terribly healthy. Regular bread is better I think. There was so much snow on the ground in the area outside Zurich, and it would continue to be a winter-wonder land all the way to Munich. All the fields were white, and the evergreen trees were heavily dusted with powdery snow. It was really great. I feel asleep while listening to my mp3 player (not the iPod nano my parents gave me for my birthday…my $50 sandisk player), and got a really good two hours of sleep. Luckily also today the sun was winning its battle against the fog and the clouds. We finally got into Munich station at around 11:45pm. We disembarked and tried checking train times for the Olympic Park but couldn’t see anything familiar. We made our way to the tourist office (it can be tricky, cause ‘Reiseburo’ (trip bureau’ in English) is really about the train or transportation travel office, not the information for the city. It turned out to be a short walk along the block after exiting the station. While there we picked up some pamphlets and a map. I asked the lady whether our Eurailpasses were good for the S-bahn and Underground, but expectedly she didn’t know. We needed to get rid of our bags, so we found our hotel (which was much closer than I thought it would be) and our first impressions of the hotel was good. The baggage room was jam-packed (I think a huge Korean tour group got in that morning but none of their rooms were ready yet) but we somehow managed. I carried around my full backpack. We headed back to the train station stopping at this Golden Dragon-esque Chinese fast food place and ordered some tofu vegetables. It wasn’t bad at all for the money we paid for it, and felt better eating something warm rather than a cold tomato-mozzarella baguette or something. I went over to the adjacent asian grocery store to buy a soda (there was an open passage inside between the two places) mostly cause the drink cabinet in the restaurant was blocked by six people with two strollers. I got my drink then came back to the table where the girls were finishing up. Suddenly one of the restaurant staff comes up and asks me with a troubled look where I bought that soda. I pointed at the store next door and she looked sort of worried. She asked for the receipt (all in German, by the way) and of course it was in the last pocket I checked. She grabbed the soda and receipt and went over to the store’s counter, got the money back for the drink, then went over the restaurant’s register and ‘re-bought’ the soda, this time charging 10 cents less ‘lebensmittel’ tax, then handed me the soda. I was completely bewildered by the entire thing. We left rather quickly (the sisters were finished) after that. I think it must be something where if you buy bottled soda at a restaurant there is less of a tax involved than if you purchase a drink separately at a normal store. In any case, it was a different of 10 cents. Whew.

We walked east from the Hauptbahnhof towards Marienplatz, which the idea of turning northward and swinging by the Residenz and Operahaus. That didn’t quite happen cause we kept watching eastward along this really nice and wide shopping street. We saw this really great deal on fleeces and I bought one for 9 euros. We continued to walk (the sun was going down fast, and it was very cold) and I bought some mandel nusse (roasted brazilian nuts) which were just delicious. We were looking for a café but this proved moretable where the girls were finishing up. Suddenly one of the restaurant staff comes up and asks me with a troubled look where I bought that soda. I pointed at the store next door and she looked sort of worried. She asked for the receipt (all in German, by the way) and of course it was in the last pocket I checked. She grabbed the soda and receipt and went over to the store’s counter, got the money back for the drink, then went over the restaurant’s register and ‘re-bought’ the soda, this time charging 10 cents less ‘lebensmittel’ tax, then handed me the soda. I was completely bewildered by the entire thing. We left rather quickly (the sisters were finished) after that. I think it must be something where if you buy bottled soda at a restaurant there is less of a tax involved than if you purchase a drink separately at a normal store. In any case, it was a different of 10 cents. Whew.

We walked east from the Hauptbahnhof towards Marienplatz, which the idea of turning northward and swinging by the Residenz and Operahaus. That didn’t quite happen cause we kept watching eastward along this really nice and wide shopping street. We saw this really great deal on fleeces and I bought one for 9 euros. We continued to walk (the sun was going down fast, and it was very cold) and I bought some mandel nusse (roasted brazilian nuts) which were just delicious. We were looking for a café but this proved more difficult than expected. There were some souvenir shops so looked around a bit to comparison shop. I think I can get my Bayern pin for 3.55 euros. The cuckoo clock we want to get for the O’Connors might be something like 25 euros, pretty steep. The stein’s aren’t any cheaper either. We actually made it to Marienplatz and it reminded me a bit of the square in Brussels or Bruges. We turned a bit north from here and ultimately made it to the Residenz and Opera house before we realized it, and found this interesting café place were I got a coffee, Sachi got a hot chocolate, and Sapana a panini. Neat place. We find Maximilian strasse, but here I think Frommers has it completely wrong cause it didn’t seem like a shopping street at ALL. I said screw it and we started heading back to the nice street that we came in on. Suddenly Sapana points out the Dallmayr store. I had mentioned this place to them on the train from what Frieder and Christian told me and she had found it. We went in and explored the place a bit – fine foods from chocolates and jams and teas and coffees to even meats and such. I bought some whole coffee beans and Sachi bought some Weihnachten Schokoladen. I decided later to give them to Christian as a gift, so tomorrow we will come by here and buy more coffee and chocolate, this time for home. We continued onward and went by the mini Christmas market they had setup with an ice-skating rink. We looked at the skaters a bit (it was due for a Zamboni session that’s for sure) and then spent time on the Kaufhof. This is a huge department store that puts the ones we have in the malls to shame. We finally located the thermoses and did some comparisons. We’ll probably buy it tomorrow with Christian showing us Viktualien platz. We walked back to the hotel and decided to have dinner at this Italian restaurant just at the beginning of Senefelder strasse. The prices were pretty good, but the food was ok. The waiter didn’t seem to mind us much either I think. Tourists. :\ We got back to the hotel and went upstairs. I came down a bit later with Sachi to use the internet terminals and to try a beer, but we discovered that they had FREE Wi-Fi access in the lounge. We brought back down the laptop and tried to log-in, unsuccessfully at first cause the lady at the desk told me a log-in of ‘EuroYouth’ when it was ‘euroyouth’. We logged in and checked email, the weather, ACC basketball schedule, our credit card statements, and some other random stuff. I composed a long letter to mom and dad, but not sure if it finally went through at the end. Sachi and I came back upstairs, I transferred pictures to the laptop and worked on this journal until falling asleep.

Tomorrow will be busy but fruitful – Marienplatz, lunch and touring with Christian, the Deutsches Museum des Wissenschaft und Technologie, and the Hofbrauhaus.  Gotta get some sleep; gute Nacht.