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Rain in München
Jun. 7th, 2002 04:36 pmI went and opened my big mouth about how I had had such beautiful weather up to this point, and guess what? Today it's raining! Well, drizzling more like it, on and off. It only rained really hard when I was indoors.
Yesterday, I left Cesky Krumlov with Mike and Scott a bit after two. They're a pretty funny pair: Scott looks like Woody Allen with a rebel streak and Mike has a shaved head and a tattoo and looks almost like a stereotyped redneck wrestling fan, but he's actually the complete opposite, smart and well-read (likes the same authors and music as I do, to boot!)
Oh, and over lunch they started laughing at me because they claimed I really *did* say aboot instead of about. To their ears, perhaps.
The drive to Salzburg took about three hours, during which time I sang out loud for the first time in weeks, because they put a Liz Phair CD on. o/~When they do the double-dutch, that's them dancing...o/~
Once in Salzburg, a charming place, we wandered around for a while, ducking into churches and admiring cemeteries. There are some pretty nifty little family shrines/crypts/plots, there; many of them are decorated with little skulls and bones and other happy things.
At 8:30, they saw me off at the train station. I continue to be impressed with the Austrian rail system. Their trains are great! Clean and comfortable, and this one even had complimentary magazines in the 2nd class wagons! In German, to be sure, but still!
I arrived in München (sounds like Munchkin, or munching!) at 10:20 (another thing about Austrian trains, they're always right on time) and decided that I didn't feel like calling up hostels at this hour, hoping they had available beds. So I did the logical thing and struck off west from the train station, looking for a hotel. I found a little place that cost me 50E, but I had a double bed, my own bathroom and a television. I watched some guy sing "We Didn't Start the Fire" in German on the Harold Schmidt Show, which I guess is Germany's Leno or Letterman and this morning, Fort Boyard in German.
Breakfast was included in the price of the room, which is always nice. It was plentiful and good, though I had trouble getting the shell off mz hard-boiled egg. Then I thought of "How to cook a hard-boiled egg!" and disolved into giggles, all alone in the breakfast room. I had honey and jam to spread on my bread, as well as salami-flavoured cheese. I'm serious! It was a little wedge, like the Swiss Knight cheeses, and the sticker said "Salami". At first I thought, "This can't be right, salami doesn't come in little wedges!", then I saw the tiny "mit 3%" over "Salami". Ah, that explained it.
After breakfast I went back to the train station to reserve a couchette for tonight's overnight train to Amsterdam (no more compartments with noisy families!) and put my bag in a locker. Since then, I've been wandering around, eating schnitzel sandwiches and keeping out of the rain.
One of my cunning plans to avoid the rain was to visit the Residenz, which is awesomely impressive. The Bavarian princes, unlike the Habsburgs who seemed to favour pretty paintings, liked things to be bright and shiny, preferably made of gold and silver and studded with gems. The treasury is full of ridiculously over-jeweled pokals. If someone could do some research and tell me what a pokal is, I'd be very grateful, because I spent an hour looking at pokals and there are so many different types that I'm still not sure what they would be called in English or in French.
After the treasury I did the tour of the palace, which is also full of bright shiny things. Even the walls and ceilings are golden, or at least have gold highlights. Some of the rooms have the walls covered in velvet or brocade, and there are paintings in huge gilt frames all over the place. I wonder how it will hold up to Versailles, once I get there!
My train leaves at a quarter to eleven this evening, so I still have a lot of time to kill. It's really unfortunate about the weather, because I wanted to stroll through the Englischer Gardens, but I think I'll just stick around the Marienplatz where all the shopping is. I broke down and bought a bright green sweater, which was on sale. One thing I really like about Europe is that tax is included on the pricetag. Why can't we do that in Canada?!
This is the first day of my last week abroad. How sad!
Tomorrow, I'll be smoking pot in Amsterdam. At least, I'll be in Amsterdam. ^_^
Yesterday, I left Cesky Krumlov with Mike and Scott a bit after two. They're a pretty funny pair: Scott looks like Woody Allen with a rebel streak and Mike has a shaved head and a tattoo and looks almost like a stereotyped redneck wrestling fan, but he's actually the complete opposite, smart and well-read (likes the same authors and music as I do, to boot!)
Oh, and over lunch they started laughing at me because they claimed I really *did* say aboot instead of about. To their ears, perhaps.
The drive to Salzburg took about three hours, during which time I sang out loud for the first time in weeks, because they put a Liz Phair CD on. o/~When they do the double-dutch, that's them dancing...o/~
Once in Salzburg, a charming place, we wandered around for a while, ducking into churches and admiring cemeteries. There are some pretty nifty little family shrines/crypts/plots, there; many of them are decorated with little skulls and bones and other happy things.
At 8:30, they saw me off at the train station. I continue to be impressed with the Austrian rail system. Their trains are great! Clean and comfortable, and this one even had complimentary magazines in the 2nd class wagons! In German, to be sure, but still!
I arrived in München (sounds like Munchkin, or munching!) at 10:20 (another thing about Austrian trains, they're always right on time) and decided that I didn't feel like calling up hostels at this hour, hoping they had available beds. So I did the logical thing and struck off west from the train station, looking for a hotel. I found a little place that cost me 50E, but I had a double bed, my own bathroom and a television. I watched some guy sing "We Didn't Start the Fire" in German on the Harold Schmidt Show, which I guess is Germany's Leno or Letterman and this morning, Fort Boyard in German.
Breakfast was included in the price of the room, which is always nice. It was plentiful and good, though I had trouble getting the shell off mz hard-boiled egg. Then I thought of "How to cook a hard-boiled egg!" and disolved into giggles, all alone in the breakfast room. I had honey and jam to spread on my bread, as well as salami-flavoured cheese. I'm serious! It was a little wedge, like the Swiss Knight cheeses, and the sticker said "Salami". At first I thought, "This can't be right, salami doesn't come in little wedges!", then I saw the tiny "mit 3%" over "Salami". Ah, that explained it.
After breakfast I went back to the train station to reserve a couchette for tonight's overnight train to Amsterdam (no more compartments with noisy families!) and put my bag in a locker. Since then, I've been wandering around, eating schnitzel sandwiches and keeping out of the rain.
One of my cunning plans to avoid the rain was to visit the Residenz, which is awesomely impressive. The Bavarian princes, unlike the Habsburgs who seemed to favour pretty paintings, liked things to be bright and shiny, preferably made of gold and silver and studded with gems. The treasury is full of ridiculously over-jeweled pokals. If someone could do some research and tell me what a pokal is, I'd be very grateful, because I spent an hour looking at pokals and there are so many different types that I'm still not sure what they would be called in English or in French.
After the treasury I did the tour of the palace, which is also full of bright shiny things. Even the walls and ceilings are golden, or at least have gold highlights. Some of the rooms have the walls covered in velvet or brocade, and there are paintings in huge gilt frames all over the place. I wonder how it will hold up to Versailles, once I get there!
My train leaves at a quarter to eleven this evening, so I still have a lot of time to kill. It's really unfortunate about the weather, because I wanted to stroll through the Englischer Gardens, but I think I'll just stick around the Marienplatz where all the shopping is. I broke down and bought a bright green sweater, which was on sale. One thing I really like about Europe is that tax is included on the pricetag. Why can't we do that in Canada?!
This is the first day of my last week abroad. How sad!
Tomorrow, I'll be smoking pot in Amsterdam. At least, I'll be in Amsterdam. ^_^
