First up- München!
I arrived at the train station expecting to see Miss Tina. Key word being expecting. She said that one of her friends would be showing us around because she didn’t know Munich at all. It was actually a friend of hers that I had met before in Krakow. Incidentally, he is also the one that spawned the whole idea of naming our couch. One of the first things that he asked me after we met up was “How’s Jim?” Tina, in true form, had missed the train she was planning and therefore didn’t arrive in Munich until a half an hour after I did. As mentioned in
the previous post, I had about 30 minutes from bed to train when I left Hungary so I didn’t have time to eat any breakfast. I bought a muffin on the train but I was starving by the time we arrived. I grabbed a slice of pizza while we were waiting. We started out in Munich by seeing a famous fountain. I don’t know why it’s famous but apparently…it just is. Then, we passed into the main square of Munich. We came at a great time because it was the last day of the Christopher Street Festival, a huge gay pride/drag show event. German drag queens, a sight to behold. Sadly, we couldn’t get close enough to the stage for me to get a decent picture 
of the show and high heel race but that is why there are all of the rainbow flags going on. Joachim took us to the Church of Our Lady which had some really gorgeous Gothic Architecture and stained glass windows. I need to go through and sort all of my pictures with all of the architecture and window shots I have now. Legend tells that the Devil came into this cathedral. He saw that there was no light coming into it so he laughed. As he came in further, he saw the light from the windows along the side and so he got very angry and stamped his foot down and exploded. Don’t you just love folklore? Anyway, because of him stomping his foot, there is a foot print in the marble a few meters in from the entry to the church. We also saw the Munich Opera and the Residenzhaus, the home to the rulers of Bavaria turned museum. Next to the Residenzhaus, there are gardens with fountains and gazebos. So pretty! 
While we were out exploring along there, we came across the Munich Orchestra doing a rehearsal outside for a concert that was selling seats at about 65 € a ticket. They were playing Tchaikovsky’s Brandenburg Concerto. It was so gorgeous! We just sat there with plenty of other lookers on to enjoy such fantastic music. We only had a limited time there so sadly, we could stay and listen to the whole thing. We passed by the University of Munich which was quite pretty. The important thing there was the commemoration of the resistance against the Third Reich that took place there. They did a schlitzkrieg of their own against the Nazis so to remember this, there are papers embedded in the walk up to the 
University. I believe that Tina said the paper in the picture (with Joachim’s feet) listed the punishments and consequences incurred on the people responsible for it. Joachim also told us about this huge statue of a running man that he said was something like 35 meters tall. Turns out, it was only about 15 but that’s still a big bloody statue. Here’s a pic of it. Note Tiny Tina down by his foot. 0
We got dinner at a traditional restaurant. We all got Radlers which is a quite refreshing combination of lemonade and beer. I had a potato soup and Tina and Joachim both got a kind of cream cheese mixed with different things served bread and in Tina’s case, a pretzel. The favorite of the table was the cheese with radish mixed in. Scrumptious! After dinner and a bit more strolling along, we decided getting to Bamberg might be a good idea so we wouldn’t arrive too late at Tina’s friend, Eva’s. We took our time getting to the train station….that was bad idea. Tina and I went to try and get some information when Joachim came running up to us and said you need to go NOW! The train leaves in 2 minutes. Of course, I had all of my stuff from Budapest with me so we put it in a locker while we were walking around. We had to rush to get that and book it to the train. We got there in time but the train was way overcrowded. We had to sit in the corridor next to the WC for most of the time. When you get too many people in too small a space with practically no ventilation, you get hot and sweaty and stinky. Definitely not my most comfortable train ride ever plus I had already been on a train for seven and a half hours that day. It wasn’t so bad. After a large amount of people had disembarked from the train, we were able to move up to the floor in area actually intended for people to stay in. We were still on the floor but there was air conditioning which makes all of the difference in the world. Since we had some more space and still plenty of time to kill, we watched Hairspray on Stan. Finally, we got to Eva’s flat which was so spacious and new and perfect. Sleep in a completely horizontal position was so beyond welcome.
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