Day 13: Munich /Freising

Wednesday morning, our last full day in Germany. I woke up and was hungry, a little bit hungover and Leighann was much more hungover than I. I realized that we had next to no cash and I got up and walked out the door to grab us some breakfast and coffee. I walked about a block to the only bank machine within visible distance and that machine was out of order. I spent the next hour wandering the streets of Munich before I finally found an ING bank machine. I took out enough cash to last us the next day or so and grabbed coffee, gatorade, croissants and juice.

I walked back to our hotel room and we packed up and checked out of our hotel room. We had hoped to see more of downtown Munich but realized our hotel for the last night was in Freising about 45 minutes north of the city. When we first planned our trip we really had no concept as to how far away the airport and downtown Munich were nor did we really have any concept as to how easy it was to get from downtown Munich to the airport. So on the suggestion of a friend, we decided our last night in Munich we'd spend very close to the airport so the next morning we did not have to wake up super early in order to get to the airport. In hindsight we would have most definitely been better off staying 2 nights at the English Garden Marriott as I'm a bit distrusting of bus station lockers, the continuity of having the same hotel room in the same city for mulitple days is huge for a traveller. We had debated checking into our hotel in Freising and then coming back down to Munich but knowing we wanted to get to the Airport for 8:30 AM the next day and we'd want to get up for 6AM we thought by the time we got back downtown it'd be close to 4 PM so we instead decided to check in, grab some lunch in the village and then wander around do some souvenir shopping before coming back to the hotel for a nice final evening meal. We had also decided that our hotel was about a 15 minute walk from the train station so we'd be better of just paying the 11 Euro fee to grab the Airport shuttle directly from the Freising Marriott.

The Freising Marriott was nice, but it was kind of dated. It had the feel of a WWII Bavarian Inn. The tvs were not flat panels. We checked in and then found an outdoor cafe. Munich being only a few hours from the Italian border has quite a bit of Italian influences so we found an Italian Cafe to have lunch. Our server actually turned out to be a man of Middle Eastern descent from Mississauga who had recently moved to Freising to help out his brother. We ordered a pizza and of course beer- Freising has the world's oldest brewery, Weihenstephanner founded in the 11th Century. We had debated checking it out but didn't have the patience to sit through a lengthy tour. We wandered around the local shops, again I noticed the prevalence of Jack Wolfskin's the German version of Mountain Equipment Co-Op. We went into the German equivalent of the K-Mart, I was really tempted to buy a 10 Euro bottle of Jagermeister but didn't think it'd survive in my luggage. Instead we bought a couple bags of World Cup M&M's (red black and gold) and a few other souvenirs/useful items. We wandered around the streets of what is really quite a lovely little village before heading back to the hotel.

We got back to the hotel and changed into some nice clothes, by now it was close to 6 PM we decided to go down to the hotel restaurant and have our last supper in Germany. I wanted spargel but I also wanted the grill platter, I basically ended up ordering 2 meals and both came with massive portions of potatoes neither of which I ate. Again a lot of Bavarian food is seemingly fatty, but it's all organic, no steroids or any genetic modifications so really all quite tasty.

After a large supper we wanted to walk it off so we headed back into town to see if we could find a place to get some coffee and dessert. We found a cafe but the woman only spoke German and Italian, luckily there was a server there who spoke English we enjoyed an espresso before wandering back to our hotel room. We packed up and then walked downstairs to the hotel pool to enjoy a sauna and a swim. We went back to our room and enjoyed a fairly quiet evening again amused by episodes of South Park in German and ads for "Rage Against the Machine Metallica undt Justin Bieber".

Day 12: Munich by Bike

Tuesday after the long weekend we got up early walked to the Bonn station and caught an 8:15 ICE train to Munich. After 6 hrs of beautiful scenery along the Rhein  and along what is referred to as the romantic road we arrived back in Munich our starting point.

This time rather than stay in the southern end of town we were staying in a 4 star Marriott more centrally located near the English Garden. The English garden is a large urban park, 7 1/2 times larger than Central Park and actually modelled after Central Park. We checked in and realized if we hurried we could make it down to the Hofbrauhaus and join a Mike's Bike's Tour of the city.

We hopped on the U-Bahn and made our way back down to Marienplatz. Mike's Bike's run half and full day tours of Munich as well as Neuschwanstein Castle, a 2 hr drive South West of Munich. Our tour guides appeared to be all American College students or party animal types and our tour group consisted of mostly Americans, but also a few Brits, Kiwis and Canadians. We were given 3 speed cruiser bikes each with unique names. It'd been a while since I'd been on a bike, these bikes were pretty easy to ride, but I didn't really feel comfortable sitting down, the seat felt way too far back. Still much quicker than walking. Also on our tour was a Fromer's guy or at least that's where he said he was from. Mike's Bikes tours are apparently the number 1 tour operator in Munich and when you think that for approximately 20 Euros a person you get a 4 hr bike tour of the friendliest bike city in Europe  including a 1 hr stop at the Beer Garden in the English Garden, you can see the appeal.

My favourite part of the trip was definitely the English Garden. We rode through the Nudist meadow, fortunately we did not see the man they call Tripod who makes a habit of chasing down cyclists. After a stop in the Beer Garden for a litre stein of beer and more currywurst we made our way to the edge of the park to see the surfers. Yes, surfers. There is a pretty strong current that flows under a bridge, years ago an American came up with the idea of putting a block of wood to split the current in two thus creating a wave people could surf on. It was subsequently replaced with a wave shaped concrete block along the river bed. It is really bizarre to see in the middle of the city a group of wetsuit clad individuals lining up to catch a wave.

The sun started to hang low around 7:30 PM and cast a beautiful golden light on the many churches and statues around Munich. Our tour finished up around 8 PM and since we were around the corner we decided to try hitting the Hofbrauhaus one more time.

We sat down at a table shared with a young Newlywed American couple. He was an American Military man stationed on a base at Nuremburg which is just an hour North of Munich and she was over from the States to visit. For a 2nd time I was asked if I was from California this time because of my Raiders cap. We drank and listened to the world renowned Oompapa band. 2 hrs and 5 litre steins combined between us and we were feeling pretty tipsy. We wandered to the U-Bahn and made our way back to the Marriott.

Day 11: A Really Quite Fantastic Witt Monday in Bonn

After a late Sunday night at the world hockey championships in Cologne, we slept until about noon. The 24th of May is also a long weekend in Germany, technically a religious Holiday it is supposed to be 50 days after Easter so Jeramy was available to show us around town. It was looking to be a nice sunny day so we decided to go out for breakfast and again enjoyed a traditional German breakfast of fresh bread, meats and cheeses. We were slightly hung over and had no clear plans for the day. Jeramy wanted to show us the Older part of town or the Alstadt so after breakfast we made arrangements to meet up with one of Jeramy's very good friends Alessio for coffee. Alessio is a foodie and runs a catering business as more of a hobby than a money making venture, he has a fantastic blog called the Recipe Taster.

After coffee Jeramy wanted to take us back towards Cologne, but I pointed out it was almost 3 PM and had been 3+ hours since breakfast and we were starting to get a little hungry again, so Jeramy and Alessio decided they should take us to a very popular Middle Eastern restaurant. I ordered a doner plate with salad and of course a tall glass of hefeweizen. Towards the end of lunch I mentioned I had not actually had "kaffe undt kuchen" the German equivalent of tea time so we made plans to walk around for a bit after lunch before grabbing some cake and coffee at an outdoor cafe. When I write this it sounds like we did nothing all day, but as Alessio might say "it was really quite fantastic".

After Kaffe undt Kuchen we had been out travelling from outdoor cafe to cafe we decided to head back to Jeramy's to do a bit of laundry and pack up for our early morning train back to Munich. Jeramy suggested we go to a local "American Style" Cocktail bar. The bar was what I'd describe as the German perception of the American bar, lots of stainless steel and neon signs. Unlike beer, cocktails, wines and spirits are quite expensive in Germany. This bar had a massive selection of your classic cocktails plus some unique. My facourite was the 'St. Pauli Killer'. Very similar to a Zombie, just massive like 4 shots of alcohol. We sat on the patio for several hours talking and joking. The bar was really quiet and it was somewhat chilly. After several hours we decided we should get back to Jeramy's as we knew we had a 6 hr train ride the next day back to Munich.

Day 10: Cologne: Stuck on Replay

The day I had been looking forward to for months had finally arrived, the 2010 IIHF World Championships. When I purchased the tickets back in February my hope had been to see Canada play in the Gold Medal game, ideally against the Russians. As the NHL playoffs progressed and the Devils, Capitals and then the Penguins and Red Wings had been eliminated I knew the Russian team would be stacked with Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Semin, Kharlamov, Malkin, Datsyuk and even if the young Canadian team managed to make it to this point they would be in tough. The Day prior the Germans hopes of a Gold Medal had been squandered with a tight 1-0 loss to the Russians. However, the Germans still had a shot at the Bronze Medal and would be facing a very talented Swedish team who had lost to the Czechs.

 After an early breakfast we took the regional train about 30 minutes to Cologne. Leighann and I weren't quite sure where the Lanxess Arena was so we rode the train an extra stop and walked over towards the box office to check out the arena. We noticed a number of booths set up for Skoda the lead sponsr, a beer garden, a merchandise tent. Leighann suggested we try getting bronze medal tickets for the Germany game, but she also wanted to check out the famous Cathedral and the Chocolate museum and I thought the tickets might be quite expensive. We walked across the bridge  and we noticed a peculiar custom where couples would inscribe a lock and then lock it to the fence alongside the railway bridge. The fence itself has become a bit of a tourist attraction and hundreds of people were milling about looking at all the names of couples my favourite was Herr and Frau Schmau.

Across the bridge we came across a sobering reminder of the terrible past. There was a Memorial set up showing all the photos where available of men, women and children transported across the bridge to Concentration Camps during the regime.

We wandered towards the famous Cathedral Dom a n mpressive twin spire cathedral. This is the biggest tourist attraction next to Carnival in Cologne. We went inside and wandered inside the Church for awhile, this was the one thing Leighann wanted to see in Cologne.

We exited the church and Jeramy informed us she had to leave to take care of painting an old apartment. She showed us the direction of the Chocolate Museum but it was a full 5 hours before the Gold Medal game. I didn't think we could kill 5 hours looking at Chocolate so I suggested we walk back to the arena and see if there were any cheap tickets available for the earlier Bronze Medal game. There was a decent crowd but nothing spectacular so we decided to see if there were any tickets at the box office. Luckily there were plenty of seats and they were 2 for 1, so for less than the cost of a single gold medal ticket game we got into the Bronze Medal game. We enjoyed a beer, outside and got these cute collectible Dinosaur cups. Well there was 2 Euro Pfand or deposit you could return the cup to get your deposit back but Leighann decided we needed to collect two full sets of 3 dinosaur cups (goalie, ref and skater). We noticed Skoda had hired a very Brunoesque spokesperson, we didn't think he was very happy to be there he didn't seem to like hockey very much.

4PM rolled around, game time and we were very happy to get inside having spent a good 4 hrs walking around on a hot bright day the darkness of the arena was quite welcome. We noticed that for 6.5 Euro we could get a litre container of beer, it to came with a 2 Euro pfand but the cups weren't as nice so after each beer we'd return for our deposit back.

The Bronze medal game was very entertaining, it is European hockey so not much hitting although the Germans were actually quite aggressive on the forecheck, The 1st period the Swedes scored on kind of a soft goal and what music do you think the IIHF thinks is representative of Sweden, Mama Mia of course. I'd actually wondered about this, earlier in the tournament I'd noticed whenever Canada scored they'd play Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. Every stoppage they would play the IIHF theme song "Stuck on Replay" by Scooter which features a heavy sample of On My Way by Steve Winwood, it's quite catchy. My recollection of the exact order of things gets a bit foggy the rest of the game. The German goaltender a Blackhawks AHL farmhand was outstanding, the Germans eventually tied up the game in the 2nd. In the third the Swedes went ahead and put in an empty netter. The most odd thing was with less than a second remaining and a faceoff in their own end up by 2 goals the Swedes called a timeout. The only rationale I could think of was for a group hug. The Germans stood up after the game and gave their team a standing ovation. A great performance for the host nation.

We had to vacate the arena inbetween games and Leighann sought to complete her collection of cups. We ran into a few Canadians, who were approximately 5% of the crowd. We made friends with a drunken Russian who didn't understand why he couldn't refill his 1L jug outside of the arena. He told me his KHL team was coached by Nik the Stik Borschevsky of Maple Leafs 1993 Game 7 vs. Detroit OT hero fame and he also used a racial slur to describe former goalie Ray Emery. We were glad when he left.

We re-entered the arena and the jubilant happy laid back mood that existed for the Swedes and Germans was gone. We found ourselves in a section sandwiched between Russian and Czech fans. Seated next to us were people who claimed to be from Toronto but when asked specifically where they were from they said Thornhill as it turns out they were both York students who had flown into Cologne just a few days earlier. The York students turned to a group of yellow and blue clad fans in the row behind us and asked if they were Germans. I laughed. The York students told us they were cheering for the Russians as they had befriended them earlier and the Russians were going to take them out drinking after the game. I suggested that might not be such a good idea since by the looks of most Russian fans everyone had already had plenty to drink and these two kids were lightweights. The York guys quickly changed their mind as to who they wanted to win when the Czechs scored just seconds into the game. In between periods they started chatting up the Czech fans and engaged in what I refer to as "poking the bear" when they asked a Russian fan which hurts more losing the Olympics or losing the World Championships to which the angry Russian answered "both".

The game was one of the fastest paced I think I've ever seen the puck movement was crisp and fast, but there was no hitting. Thomas Vokoun played outstanding for the Czechs and late in the 2nd they went up 2-0. You could just see the Russian fans hearts just sink. Having not lost a single game in the past two world championships it would be devastating to them and equally as sweet for the Czechs to beat the Russians.

As Canadians we always thought of the Soviet block hockey nations as one monolithic block and we sort of hated them all, post Communism we just sort of began to view all Europeans the same. The last twenty years or so we have seen plenty of big strong, physical mean European players come to the NHL and a flourishing of skilled finesse Canadians so I think it's safe to say that players adapt to the style of hockey that will allow them to hold jobs in the NHL.

The 3rd period progressed and the Russians were turned back time after time, finally late in the period they made it 2-1. However it was a bit too late and the Czechs were able to hang on to win. It was actually quite an amazing thing to witness, the underdog Czechs had pulled off the upset, a bunch of unknown Czech players had defeated a Russian team stacked with 14 returning Olympic players and some of the top NHL scorers. Never having been live at a high level Championship it was something, even if it wasn't the Canadians I was very glad that the Russians had been defeated.

Leighann and I made our way back to Bonn for the night with that damn Scooter song still in my head.

Day 9: Drachenfels /Beethoven's Big Concrete 3-D Head

Saturday morning we got up and enjoyed a traditional German breakfast of sliced meats, cheeses and fresh rolls. Jeramy was gracious enough to let us do a load of laundry and suggested she was going to take us to a nearby castle ruins. This was particularly exciting because Leighann had desperately wanted to go to Neuschwanstein Castle and when we had initially planned our trip we had allocated a day, but when we realized the Monday was Pentecost or Wit Monday a German holiday and the train schedule was severely limited we opted to cut that day out of our trip.

We hopped on a regional train and about half an hour later we were at the ruins. The ruins are situated high atop a hill near the Rhine. Realizing that there wasn't much up top except for a very expensive touristy restaurant we decided to grab some lunch at an outdoor cafe. After my 2nd tasting of currywurst during our trip and a pint of hefeweizen we walked up the hillside towards the ruins.

There is actually a tram which takes you up the hill, but we decided to walk the 40 plus minutes to reach the top. There are actually many things up the side of the hill. Apparently Drachenfels is the legendary location for where Siegfried slayed a Dragon as told in Wagner's 19th Century opera. There is a Castle about a third of the way up the hill which was under renovations as well as a Reptile museum and several beer gardens. Along the way there are several look out points where you can see the river below. Finally we reached the top, a good trek we spent about half an hour looking out over the city. Jeramy tells us that during the summer there is a river festival and massive fireworks displays take place. The top of Drachenfels is apparently a very popular place during the fireworks for obvious reasons.

We walked back down the hill and decided to take the 5 PM ferry back to Bonn. The ferry was spectacular we sat in chairs on the upper deck, I sipped on my Fransikaner Hefeweizen and Jeramy and Leighann drank Radlers (half lemondade half beer). The ferry had this slide and at the bottom a rocking horse like you might see in playgrounds. We watched several near disasters, I imagined the children getting off the slide as a particularly rambunctious child swung wildly on her horsey, I had these visions of either the kids getting off the slide getting cracked by the jockey or the jockey getting thrown from her horse. I thought you'd never see this on a ferry in North America the 1st time some kid cracked their head open the parents would file a lawsuit and the slide and horse would be removed from the ferry. I notice this general attitude in Germany and Jeramy confirms that basically if you do something stupid and you get hurt it's your own damn fault.

We arrive back in Bonn at the Ferry dock and decide to walk to the famous Beethoven statue. We walk along the bank of the Rhein and along the way we walk by a docked party boat blaring it's "raining men" the deck of the boat is packed with men dancing, yep a gay cruise we look to our left and sitting along the benches are Nuns reading scripture, I wondered whether the Nuns timed their readings on purpose. It was probably just a strange coincidence.

 


 We find the statue and at first I am like what is up with that it looks kind of strange, but then when you look at the statue straight on you realize that it's 3-D. It makes for a pretty cool picture it almost looks like it's been computer enhanced, but no 3-D glasses required.

We headed back to Jeramy's and along the way back we realize that people seem to be setting up TV sets on cafe streets and I realize that tonight is the Champions League Final between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich. Munich is about 500 KM away from Bonn, but still the Soccer fans in Bonn are clearly behind  the German powerhouse. We decide to go out to eat and the outdoor cafes are packed with fans. We grabbed some dinner at a local Vietnamese buffett and decided to call it an early evening as a fay out in the Sun and the long hike had exhausted us, plus we knew we had a big day ahead of us at the World Hockey Championships in Cologne.