After witnessing the sheer anarchy that seemed to evolve from the football game, it was nice to finally settle into a quiet little hostel off a side street about fifteen minutes from the center of town. I have only ever stayed at a hostel once in New York City, so I was curious to see what it would be like in Germany. Fortunately, everything was quite nice, English-friendly, and clean. I admit that I was expecting something a bit more daunting at first!

In fact, it was probably near the time I saw these cute beer garden shirts that I decided everything was going to be just fine! After meeting with a few other students from my study abroad group, we took an impromptu walk around the city that ended hundreds of photos later after a few hours had passed. Needless to say, I was perhaps a little shutter-happy as I fell witness to all of the beautiful old architecture and picturesque views that is so easy to come across in Munich. Here are just a few of my favorite shots:

This is a huge and beautiful fountain that marks the terminice of the main pedestrian road that cuts through the center of Munich. Even if you walk along the circumference of the fountain at a few meters difference, you can feel the mist from the fountain which was a nice relief from the hot, sunny weather.

And we weren't the only tourists in town: here's another large group touring the city, although they are oddly enough being pedaled from behind by the locals! I thought it was pretty interesting, at least.

I've also seen half a dozen people dressed in traditional German outfits, or lederhosen. I decided to creep in on this group to get the tour giver's photo. A few shops along the main road sell lederhosen, which completely mollified me since they were priced somewhere around 200 euros!

There really are a lot of weird little pieces of art and sculpture in every nook and cranny of Germany, it seems like. Here's one of my favorite yet, which happens to be a stone hippopotamus bench. I didn't get a chance to photograph it with a scale figure or anything like that, but this thing was pretty big too.

More solar-paneled roofing, which I still think to be pretty fascinating.

Biking really is prevalent and completely common here. I'd estimate that at least half of the people here use it as their main mode of transportation, which I am not at all opposed too since I cannot wait to rent a bike myself. This also explains why at least half of my photos happen to have bikes in them as well!

My friends saw this bike and said it reminded them of one I would own if I lived here. I have to agree that of all the quirky bikes I have seen, this one with a portable garden easily makes the top three (:

So here's one of my first lunches, which admittedly doesn't look all too exciting. It's a bratwurst and red cabbage, both of which I can't seem to escape as they are on almost every menu I have seen here! German restaurants typically serve many variations of these two foods. 

Here's another popular appetizer dish, whose name I do not remember, but it's basically a cheese and vegetable platter. I know this one well since my friends and I went to a German beer hall the night before, and of course upon seeing an item with "onion rings" in the description, we ordered it as a snack. This platter is what were served, and it took a moment to realize that we had literally ordered onion rings--basically just raw onion. We got a good laugh out of it at least (:

My favorite part of all of Munich is Englischer Garten. I've never been to a park like it. In fact, I'd describe it more like a really peaceful and vast meadow, where you can picnic, sunbathe, or stick your feet in the man-made river that spreads into most parts of the garden. There are willow trees that are good for shading, and I have noticed a lot of little ducks unique to Europe playing in the ponds.

Two ducks started fighting each other in the pond, which I must say was my first time witnessing such an occassion (:

See? Englischer Garten is so pretty that people get married here. 

It's very clearly a very happy place.

Another interesting thing about the park is that there are 'love locks' all over the bridges. I had no idea what these were for, and so it was explained to me that the locks are made by couples in love to symbolize their everlasting love. Each person inscribes his/her name on the lock, locks it somewhere on the bridge, and then they throw the key into the river. There were all sorts of variations of this but that's the gist.

Now in my opinion, one of the best things about the garten was that it is apparently a hotspot for local surfers. I thought this seemed completely ridiculous at first, since Munich is very much inland and far from any ocean. But sure enough, each day I visited the garten there were at least a handful of surfers navigating the steady stream of the fabricated river. It's so bizarre I can't help but find it completely intriguing and just plain cool.

Turns out this was another long post, but we really are doing so much in a day I can't help but post a little bit of everything! I will try to include a video of the surfers in my next post, since the internet here has been unruly the past hour or so and is not allowing me to do so now. Tschüss!

My first day in Munich was consumed by the stirring of preparation for one of the most anticipated games of the European football season: Munich against Chelsea London. Munich was hosting, so naturally the city was engulfed by a drunken sea of red (which are the Munich team colors). Nonetheless, it was entertaining to hear what seemed to be the whole city chant in hearty unison all through town. The main streets, squares, and buses were absolutely packed with impassioned fans determined to see their team to victory, deeming the experience both outrageous all together and ultimately impossible to travel faster than a few paces a minute. After meandering through countless people and a few hours, I had collected a decent collection of photographs of the town and had successfully seen a bit of the touristy sites at Marienplatz. 

This is the central square, Marienplatz, where it was most crowded. It's essentially a large, rectangular, open space that extends into a main street lined with shops and restaurants. The entire space was crammed with fans who were drinking, sinking, face painting, and waving Munich flags. This was taken four or five hours before the game, so I can only imagine what the arena must have been like.

The flags some people carried were huge and easily visible from a block away.

A group of random Munich fans gathered in a pack to have their photo taken. Notice the polizen in green uniforms behind them, who also gathered in clusters in case the crowd became too rowdy.

There was trash everywhere! As soon as I got off the underground train, we walked up and I noticed a lot of crushed glass on the ground from beer bottles that had been dropped.

This is a building also in Marienplatz, complete with a glockenspiel which activates every morning at 11. The building itself is fascinating in its sheer ornamental intricacy, which I am unsurprisingly finding to be the case of many old architectural pieces throughout Munich.

As it cleared up I was able to snag a few archetypical tourist shots without too much red in the background. Apparently there are quite a bit of random statues around Germany, because I've noticed a handful since I've been here.

Fountains are also frequent.

The little ornaments and toys at one of the gift shops were so cute. The stuffed lions wore hats which I noticed some of the football fans wearing as well.

I'm also finding a lot of beautiful doors in Germany. I love taking photos of them although it is proving nearly impossible since there are so many I pass in a day's worth. This is my favorite that I've seen in downtown Munich. 

By dinnertime, I was confident I had marked myself as a blatant tourist in nearly every way, so I had absolutely no problem with eating at a famous beer hall off the main strasse. Here's a sample of the menu, for kicks and giggles.

Brezeln was served en lieu of bread, which we were both pretty excited about until we found out we were later charged for extra euros. Like I said in my first posts, nothing is free in Germany! You live, you learn.

My first legitimate German beer! Neither my dad nor I had ever heard of Radler, so I was naturally curious to try it. It was extremely sweet and hardly tasted like beer, quickly becoming my personal favorite. Now I know that this was because it was mixed with lemonade, which is another curious yet common practice here.  

A typical meal of meat and potatoes: a pork roast and dumpling to be exact, served with sauerkraut on the side (called "sauer" for short by our waiter). The dumpling was not at all what I expected, and I have really nothing similar to compare it to. My best description is a yellow, spongey, gelatin-like ball that doesn't taste much like anything. The texture was too weird for me to get past, but the pork was very good.

I couldn't help but get a photo with it (: As they say in Germany, tschüss!