Beertastic!

Hola! It's me again. Thanks for reading if you are!

So, my feet hurt (I guess that was to be expected). I'm a little sore (again, expected). I'm still coughing and my voice is not back to normal(unexpected). But powering through, let me tell you about my adventures these past two days.

We left Prague early Tuesday morning for Munich(or Munchen as the locals call it). Charu started us off while I napped ( seems to happen a lot with me) for the first half. I clocked a 165kmph on the Autobahn. The plan was to go faster but that would have given my friends a heart attack. So stuck to my modest speed limits. As we got closer to the city we ran into a traffic jam; slow moving traffic, fairly annoying but fortunately lasting about 20-25 mins. Turns out, traffic in Munich is a clusterfuck! The drivers were either aggressive or just hated me. Either way, I realized that I had to drive like a San Franciscan to keep up. So my city driving skills kicked in so to speak. Our first stop was the BMW museum by Olympiapark.

For those of you who don't know, one of the things in my bucket list is to own a brand new Bimmer before I hit 35. Also BMWs are gorgeous ( I think most guys would prolly agree with me). I figured it would be fun to scope out the previous models, learn a bit about the history/ design and all that jazz. And good thing I did, cos it was amazeballs( I wish I could come up with a better word). We ran into an old dude from Kansas (a mechanical engineer in his time). Charu and Lindsey geeked out with him. You see, I drive my car like a toy and the mechanics behind it were an unknown to me. But now I know abt them "zylinders" as the Germans would call it. We also got a quick explanation of how they design those babies from one of the German dudes on duty. They have an internal design competition where you pitch your design and the winning design gets made. How sweet is that? The design involves clay and some motor parts to get as close to the model as possible. Pretty neat stuff! Sidenote: When we tried to book hotels in munich it was a nightmare because most nice places were booked thanks to an event going on in the city(No I'm not talking about Oktoberfest). So we found out from one of the tourists that there was a cardiology conference in town with 30,000 doctors!! I'm not sure if this is a good thing per se. I know, good story, 10 dollars, yada yada. 

Museum done, we were making our way to the hotel to check in. Now remember what I said about my city driving skills? The exact road we needed to be on was blocked on one side and so multiple round abouts had to be taken to get to it. Once we located the hotel, Charu got off to check in. While that was happening I pulled over and parked by a Turkish kebab place( the road we were on had a whole lot of those and seemed to be inhabited by a lot of Turks). On Lindsey's request I locked the car while we waited:) Charu came back in a bit explaining how we need to use the key card to open the Garage. So she went back in to checkin etc. Lindsey and I were tasked with getting the car back. So one of the first things we did? Turn into an Einbahn in the wrong direction. An old lady on a bicycle kept signaling to us that it was a one way which we realized as soon as we turned onto the road. Since I couldn't magically make my car disappear (I did try), I had to endure the mild discomfort that goes with being stared at when you are in the wrong. Sigh. Anyhoo, we got to the garage and the keycard worked (always a good sign). The garage opens ... Da da dan..

It's a two car garage! It took a lot of maneuvering to get it into the spot. The concierge dude comes out to deliver the good news that we can't park there. Turns out this garage opens into an elevator that you drive your car into and that takes you to the basement, where clearly all the cars were having a car party! I was excited to say the least. But it was short lived when I saw the super tiny ramp spot aka a ramp with railings to the side and little stop blocks at the bottom to stop the car from rolling. So with Lindsey and Charu's directions I parked ( wasn't too bad really, still so unnecessary). After squeezing myself out of the car, we got our bags and checked into what was a nice but small(by American standards) room. 

Next order of business: Go to Englischer Garten and get a brewski. There we were at the train station on the UBahn, when we realized that the train was going back to the station we came from. Now, you prolly won't be able to guess why or what happened! But if you wanted to guess I'll give you a few...

Nope? Here's the deal: they found a bomb dated back to the second world war near the Biergarten! True story! The specialists were working on diffusing the bomb and so no trains were going in that direction. Remember the NY shootings? And now a bomb discovery. Is it us? We can't possibly be bringing bad luck now can we? Anyhoo, we decided going to the Garten may not be the best of ideas and so we decided to just get dinner and call it a day. 

Very traditional food: traditional pork, potato dumplings and, wait for it.... Beer! We tried the Hacker Pshcorr Weisse and it was Perfect! No bitter after taste, light and just so good! So maybe not all beer is bad after all! 

I know I promised more, but this post has run long enough. Stay tuned for more Munich and potentially more beer:)

Much love

Sonali