A 12 hour bus ride, leaving at 11pm at night is definitely in the category of 'firsts' for me, as is the idea of actually being in Germany! 150 students cramming into two double decker buses with a huge supply of beer was a brilliant beginning to a brilliant (and outrageous) weekend.
The 12 hours on a bus which I thought would slowly kill me, flew by with the help of a party bus atmosphere complete with raging beats (read: YMCA) and some seriously amped up students ready to get their beer on. We had numerous toilet stops in which it got progressively cooler and cleaner (an overwhelming German trait, I quickly found out) and my already shifty language skills became nil, other than 'dunke' and 'bitte' which turns out aren't that helpful when you want to ask where the toilets are or how to pay for the toilets (which in itself is an outrageous concept).
We arrived in Munich at about 10am and were able to spend the day getting acquainted with the pastures of German-land. First impression: Munich was nothing like I thought it would be. I expected traditional German style houses and rich architecture so was surprised to find a very modern city with wide streets, extremely flash cars (either everyone is rich or these people sleep in their vehicles) and an interesting dress sense. Everyone was wearing Bavarian style costumes, but instead of heading to Oktoberfest they were actually just going about their normal daily activities, going to work, buying groceries etc. However it was refreshingly clean without the putrid smells of Paris (which I actually missed, say what?) and the lack of homeless people.
We admired the sights, checked out their massive fountain, stared at the amazing gothic town hall and were in general awe at how clean and orderly everything was.
That night we headed off to a group organised drink at a biergarten (albeit with weary eyes) and after much deliberation in finding it (the wrong place had been circled on the map, how french), we arrived to a beautifully lit up garden area with wooden slate tables perched on cobblestone terraces. We ordered peculiar beers and a dinner of traditional German sausages (lets just say I chose to ignore thinking about what was actually in them and tried to focus solely on the taste. To this day I have no idea what animal, or animal parts, I ate).
We sat next to a group of older men who were just the entertainment we needed. Between doing shots together, skulling beer jugs, sniffing a mysterious white substance in plain view, flirting with the Bavarian dressed waitresses or throwing knives at each other across the garden, it made for brilliant comedy. We stayed awhile before leaving for bar hopping (after we had been abused by a German waitress who spoke no English and instead proceeded to yell 'reservated' at us when we sat down at a reserved table. We would have argued and told her we knew it was reserved, we were the people it was reserved for but something about the combination of her lack of English and the fact that she was closer to the size of Hagrid than a slight German woman meant we scampered pretty fast.)
We managed to navigate the shifty map directions and spend the night checking out a few bars before making the long trek home and collapsing into bed, utterly exhausted, and falling asleep in seconds (but not before noticing that the moon in Munich seems unusually close and mere metres from land.)
Our heads hit the pillows beneath the close, bright orange moon, a day of havoc awaiting us.
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