Fall Asleep in Austria, Wake up in Germany

One of the Town Halls in Munich, this one has the
Glockenspiel

I think the title says it all for this one, doesn't it? I took a train from Austria to Germany and I think I'm now a professional train rider now, pretty much a pro. I loved Austria but it was my time to move on and continue onwards. I started off in Munich which if any of you have been there previously know that it is very BAVARIAN and basically incredibly patriotic. I couch surfed while in Munich and my host was hosting a few other people there as well. One of them was incredibly nice Korean girl and I wish I would have added her on Facebook, I wish I would have added a lot more people than I did ha-ha. We arrived the same day and my host took me to an Aldi which is literally the greatest store ever and I'm waiting for them to get to Tucson! We did a walking tour that night and then I did another one in the morning. I got to see the Glockenspiel which was pretty cool and numerous other places including the ever popular Hofbrauhaus and bought my grandfather a keychain there because that man loves his beer, but I was rather unimpressed with Munich so I won't be on this topic much longer! They have two lions next to a monument, one with it's mouth open towards the king and another with it's mouth closed towards the church and that speaks for itself. Munich was pretty and the food was okay, in the end they call themselves a million person village and I get that vibe but I am clearly quite the outsider. I did go to the zoo though and I got to see sharks and I got followed by a very nosy goat.



Chocolates from the Chocolate
Factory

The sandstone Cologne Cathedral

After two nights in Munich I headed off to Cologne Germany which was highly recommended by a coworker of mine who lived in Cologne and it was a wonderful recommendation. I arrived and after searching around finally found my hostel. I ate some dinner and went on to do a walking tour early the next day, it's not a big city like Munich and it's definitely not as touristy which I loved. My walking tour consisted of a tour guide and about 5 other people compared to the 15+ in other tours I have been in recently. We walked around the city and were shown a variety of things one of which was an opera house that we were standing on and when they play there they cordon off the roof as to not mess with the acoustics. It looks like a regular road at first though! There was a cathedral that had a face with its tongue sticking out at another cathedral across the way, teasing it in it's own architectural way, which is hilarious. We ended our tour with the famous Cologne Cathedral which is beautiful and I had the hardest time getting a good photo of it! A lot of cathedrals in Europe are made of sandstone which overtime turns black due to pollution. I did the chocolate museum the next day and I know what you're thinking, yes it was great! Also I know what else you're thinking and yes cologne originated in Cologne and they have some perfume fountains. When my time in Cologne was up I headed to Berlin next.



Berlin was pretty wonderful. I am a really big history buff. So seeing how Europe especially Germany deals with the aftermath of WWII was really interesting to me in particular. They have gold plaques on the ground in front of places that were or are houses to people who were taken to concentration camps, which is very touching. They have some monuments here and there but the plaques are in the ground and made of dark brass so the more you step on them the more they shine and all of the plaques are incredibly shiny. On another note I got to see the Brandenburg gate of course and Checkpoint Charlie which I think they over glamourize now. My walking tour took us through a lot of remembrance monuments of WWII. There is a cube one to remember all those killed in the camps and then we walked over Hitlers Bunker which is now a parking lot, rightfully so. Berlin was a beautiful city and I look forward to coming back again sometime in the future to see all that I missed.

My favorite quite from the East Side Gallery, The Berlin Wall.

 In case you can't read what it says above in this photo, this is my favorite quote ever. It from the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall and says

 

'Many small people who in many small places do many small things that can alter the face of the world.'

 The thing below is a Maypole! Cities and places in Germany steal them from each other and old them ransom for something in return, usually a party!

The Maypole of a marketplace I was in


Now I am off to a country that split into two recently!