Monday 6.9.2010
Went to a place that the awesome Austrian old guy at Andechs recommended for Weißwürstel. It was okay. I don’t think the waiter much liked me though. He seemed mad I didn’t eat any pretzels, but I think if I had he would have charged extra, so whatever.
Walked around Munich a bit. Went to the Englischer Garten, then headed to the Glockenspiel for the famous noon performance. Not that stimulating, really. The Glockenspiel didn’t start until a few minutes after noon, in fact, because at noon all the churches ring their bells, so you wouldn’t have been able to hear it. Clever. The Glockenspiel is in the new, beautiful, huge neo-Gothic (or perhaps actually Gothic) Rathaus, by the way. Anyway the Glockenspiel plays this slow, kitsch kind of music, and these little rotating figures of people in traditional Bavarian garb spin around for your delight. At one point these two armoured knights on horseback joust; they’re rotating in opposite directions and pass one another. I think one of them kind of falls back as though he’d been hit. Anyway it’s a rather lengthy thing, and at the end this golden rooster on top crows three times. I believe their was also crowing involved at the Olomouc and Prague astronomical clocks to signal the end?
After the Glockenspiel I trekked through the Englischer Garten for a while to find a beer garden. The one I wanted was kind of far away, but it was on a lake. It turned out to be worth it though. There was a nice lake and I got sausage and Pommes Frites (French fries) and Weißbier.
Started walking back to the hostel, but realised I wouldn’t catch my train in time, so I ambled around waiting for the next one. Got the train to Innsbruck. At Innsbruck, got a map at the train station (it cost a Euro; in Vienna it was free and in Munich it was 40 cents). Walked around asking after the bus I needed to take to get to my hostel. Finally found it and realised I’d rather just walk because it would be faster and cheaper. Walked to my hostel and had to cross the river Inn and pass the church of St. Nikolaus, which were both nice. The hostel lady was friendly but it turned out to be rather sketchy. The room was in a separate building and I had to walk through this kind of dark alley that had some sort of construction going on. Then there was no lock on the room door. There was really not enough space for both the people and their luggage there. There was no age limit, so in my room were a couple older European guys who were staying there because it was the cheapest place in Innsbruck. They smelled heavily of cheap tobacco and sat around in their underwear (briefs!) which was extra gross because they were old and overweight. They probably harboured lecherous thoughts of the young girls there. Anyway I met some nice people in my room though. The girl on the bunk below mine was an American from . . . I want to say . . . Washington state. She went to that one university near the Canadian border. Western Washington University maybe. I could look it up if I had the Internet, but I’m typing this on a train from Vienna to Salzburg. Anyway she was working on an organic farm near Salzburg, through some program that puts kids on organic farms everywhere. She had free room and board I guess, and she’d studied some German (I think her grandmother was Austrian?) and wanted to practice. Anyway, she’d also just finished her freshman year. She was pretty nice. She was staying in Innsbruck for about a week, and had gone hiking that day. We also met this other couple that came in. I think he was Canadian (from Toronto?) and she was from New Zealand. She was really cute and had an accent to match. Anyway they were nice. He let me look through his guidebook thing, and the talked to us for a while and were friendly.
But in any case the hostel sucked, so I bought some Internet time (I hate it when hostels make you pay for Internet use) and looked up another hostel in Innsbruck, this one farther from downtown and part of Hostelling International.
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