Day 2 of our trip and I woke up early. We went down and grabbed some breakfast from the buffet, really nice but also expensive 14€ each. Leighann was complaining about a stiff neck and a headache. We didn't bring any acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Leighann wasn't feeling great so I told her she should go back to sleep for a few hours and I´d try to grab her some painkillers. Her headache seemed to be the pressing issue so she really wanted Tylenol.
I left the hotel to look for some Tylenol, I went into the REWE grocery store next day and sort of got sidetracked. The store didn´t carry any drugs but did have three aisles of German beer. I wasn't sure if I had a bottle opener in the room so I got that along with some American gum. I realized perhaps I had to go to the Apotheke, the German pharmacy which is marked by a big red A. There was almost nothing in front of the counter. When I asked for Tylenol the Pharmacist seemed confused she asked me to write it down. She typed something in her computer and then told me that you needed a prescription for Acetaminophen, I was a little shocked but then it kicked in we are in the hometown of Bayer Aspirin so it sort of made sense. I later read that there is this mysterious wind that is blamed for bad moods.
I returned to our hotel and gave Leighann the German ibuprofen which according to her is really harsh. She started to feel better and then we made our way back to the downtown area. I phoned Bob and he confirmed he'd meet us at Marienplatz. Leighann and I took the U line and then wandered around the area for a while through an open air market, grabbing a coffee which is really good here being so close to the Italian border. We went into some German stores like SportScheck, as one would expect a lot of Adidas and a lot of soccer gear. We ended up at another open air festival stage and the signs said "Gospel Train". We could see kids dancing and the band on stage was playing the standard Christian classics, really badly. I started to understand why David Hasselhof is so popular in Germany. We made our way back to Bob and walked to a nearby Bierhall called Augustine. The beer there isn't exported outside of Bavaria and looked like a lager. We ordered a round of Masses all around, a litre stein and some traditional Bavarian cuisine, I ordered a half ham hock. Bob and I talked for a long time about old times and he explained some of the local customs. Bob explained to me that this weekend was like the Ascension of Christ 40 days after Easter, I am not religious I sort of thought man must not have been a direct flight or maybe he was delayed by ash cloud. I was reminded that Bavaria is the Catholic region and the pope is German.
In many German Bierhalls everyone just sits at a big table. We noticed many groups come and go as well we noticed Bayern Munich supporters fill up the hall. When I got up to go to the bathroom, I didn't have any problems, they left a neat orderly channel for people to get by. Every 10 minutes or so they would cheer as Bayern put goal after goal in on Bremen. Weird but the game was meaningless as Bayern Munich had clicnhed the league title the week prior and there are no playoffs for this season anytime soon.
Washrooms, there are pay toilets in Germany but I didn't see any in Munich, rather they have an attendant who stands in the hallway and you more or less tip them anywhere between ,20 € and ,50€ according to Bob. It's a tradeoff since you don´t really tip and if you just remember to keep your change in your pocket it's never an issue. The coins in Europe are crazy they have the equivalent of 1,2,5,10,20,50 cent pieces and 1€ and 2€ coins and they all look the same like Dave and Busters game tokens.
Several bachelor parties rolled through including a group of British university students, they mentioned flights out of the UK were disrupted by volcanic ash but to my knowledge none of the Air Canada flights from Toronto to Munich have been effected at all. We finally left at around 10PM and said goodbye to Bob-O promising to meet up in a few weeks when he's in Toronto for business.
We walked home and I picked up several other beers at the gas station just to try including a radler, it's a lemonade shandy 1-1 beer and lemonade quite refreshing I'd imagine on a summers day. The end of our 1st tour of Munich one more to come at the end of our trip. Off to Berlin for 3 days on Sunday morning...
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