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!
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