München - this is where my blog starts to be difficult to load

We didn't really spend that much time in München, to be honest, and much of that time was trying to recover from exhaustion. It was a very pretty European city, replete with older buildings and newer ones, narrow streets in places, and such.

Eventually, without dying, we touched down at the München airport. We took the S-Bahn (a rapid subway train) to the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station. Our hostel was located conveniently nearby, and as soon as we found it, we actually agreed it was convenient. We couldn’t check in for a few hours, but we left our suitcases in a tiny luggage closet and went for a walk around München.

Our S-Bahn pass was good for the day, so we took a quick train down to Marionplatz to get a good look at the Frauenkirche. Marionplatz, named for the Virgin Mary, the Frauenkirche meaning Church of our Lady. München's Frauenkirche was built during the 15th Century and renovated since WWII damaged the structure. The façade was under a little bit of construction, but we got photos of the inside and the good part of the outside. We went to H&M, a giant department store, and I bought a replacement messenger bag. It’s a dark gray, with leather details that make it look a little like it’s staring at you.



Eventually we went back to our hostel and checked in. Our room was a cute little 8 or 10 bed dorm, but each person got their own wooden locker, and the beds were comfortable.



The next order of business was to head down to the Munich HBF (Hauptbahnhof, central train station) to make reservations for trains we were worried about. The ticket guy we were talking to was not the most skilled in English, but was extremely serious about getting us the right trains, and making sure we had the times we definitely liked best. It took us about an hour and a half to arrange eight days worth of trains in a satisfactory way, and by the time we stumbled home, we were exhausted.



Intending to take a nap, we woke up eleven hours later at about 4 in the morning local time. American time zones tend to make American travelers stay up late and have problems getting up in the morning, but with maybe four hours of restless sleep at Mary Grace’s house, restless napping in an airplane, and nothing else, we accidentally set ourselves to something more like Russian time or Australian time. We got on the hostel computers for twenty minutes or so, just enough time to send Mom and Dad and Kari emails about the seat belt, and about a German man who mistook me for another German and kept trying to ask me directions.



This hostel had a good free breakfast, so we filled up with fruit salad, coffee, juice, rolls, honey, salami, cereal, yogurt, and/or cheese at 7.00, and went for a walk through gardens and town squares. We got back around 10.00, and filled up on fruit salad, coffee, juice, rolls, honey, salami, cereal, yogurt, and/or cheese, and wrapped up a couple rolls to go before heading off to Frankfurt.



Click here for the whole photo album.