Celebrities, leaving France, and arrival in Munich

Lyon, France is not a top tourist destination. Especially for American tourists. Tim and I, on our way out of Lyon, made a discovery. Yes, its possible that this might not be true, but we were big time celebrities in Lyon. First of all, 2 girls with whom I was sharing a cigarette on the night we went out refused to believe that I was from the U.S. They wanted to see my I.D.

On our way to the train station yesterday morning, we stopped at Plaza Bellancour to take some pictures of a statue there. We got our pictures, but what we also got was a French gentlemen taking pictures of us. He had a pretty heavy duty camera, but Maier and I were puzzled as to why he would be wasting his pictures on us. Than it hit us: we were big time celebrities in Lyon. At that moment we were saddened that we wouldn't be staying in Lyon for one more day so that we could see the headlines on tomorrow's newspaper involving our visit.

Exaggeration aside, it was a little weird to have a random guy taking pictures of us, but we brushed it off and headed to the station of the high speed train (TGV). Once there, we found a Sport Store in the train station where Tim could buy a club Lyon soccer jersey, as his friend Rachel Kunz had recently told him that he didn't have enough of them. There was a bit of linguistic confusion as Maier attempted to ask the employee which player was the best, but he was very polite and with his broken English and my broken French we were able to determine that Lisandro was the fan favourite, and therefore the jersey Tim would be buying. We grabbed some chicken tomato sandwiches with baguette bread, and sat down. About three bites in we noticed the pockets of overpowering French mustard that were hidden throughout the sandwich. This both amused us as well as cleared our sinuses and made us take short breaks to pause and recover. I assure you, it is that strong.

Dooley went to go read, so I'll take over from here for a bit.

We took the train with little difficulty despite very real concern about our 9 minutes transfer window from one train to another in Strassburg, France. We made it, but unfortunately the second train was overbooked and therefore extremely crowded to navigate with our backpacks. The signs were written wrong so we got on the first train car instead of the last and had quite a time getting to the other side only to find people were in our seats. Fortunately, Dools and I had made reservations, so those seats were rightfully ours. Dooley told me to show the guy my ticket and the man looked at it, apologized, and grabbed his cane and proceeded to get up. I felt terrible, but as his stop was next, he was on his way off the train anyway. Crisis averted. It is also very impressive how much English the Germans know. Almost all citizens learn English in high school, and we are extremely thankful of that.

We arrived in Munich around 10 pm and got over to our hostel, checked in, dropped off our bags, and went in search of food and some sights. We achieved both, and with dinner each had our first pint of delicious German beer. It's the beer capital for a reason.

After exploring, we headed back to our hostel to have a few beers at the hostel bar and try to meet some of our fellow travelers. We didn't do a great job as it seems that Munich is a place where you go out for drinks quite early and head to bed at a reasonable time, which is a great system. The only people we met were a traveler from Louisiana who was, well, exactly as you would expect, but very nice, and a German girl named Regina. We talked with her for a while as she was very nice and we compared cultures a bit. I'm pretty sure she was hitting on both of us, but she left very abruptly which confused both of us. As she had the build of a girl who would be a great power hitter in softball, I can only assume she realized she needed to get in some swings at a 24 hour batting cage or something.

After a couple more beers, which were brewed only a couple blocks from our hostel, it was time for bed. Dooley and I are not in the same room, but are both in the top bunks of our respective neighboring rooms with windows just above the top bunks separating the rooms. I quickly noticed Dooley had made the choice to start shining his little flashlight into my 10 person dorm room. Why? I could not tell you, but it was quite humorous and I'm sure the girls in my room from Hong Kong were more than a bit confused.

We made very tentative plans to meet at 9:45 this morning to go on a free 3 hour walking tour around Munich. The tour guides simply work for tips, and it is a great program that I highly recommend. It's a series of NewEurope tours with the local one obviously being NewMunich. Our tour guide was a young New Zealander who had come here after she abandoned her profession as a lawyer and now makes her living here giving different tours with some paid and some just for tips such as the one tonight.

Anyway, Dooley told me last night that there was a good chance he may opt to skip the tour and catch up on sleep. He has on a couple occasions on this trip already used the line that we can sleep when we're dead so I feared that he was lifeless in his bed, but I don't want anyone to worry because my fears it turned out were surprisingly irrational. Dooley is alive, and I plan on drinking to that. (In Bavaria, no excuse to have a beer is too small.) Fortunately though, I slept for a decent amount on the train yesterday and as we only had a few beers last night in the bar, I was only fighting some exhaustion as opposed to any of the Irish flu, so I figured I could suck it up for this tour.

As I said, Dooley was not waiting for me in the lobby this morning after I ate breakfast, so I quickly became friends with some of the others in our hostel who were also waiting for the tour. These including a couple of Americans, a group of Australians, a Canadian, and a Brazilian (who later apologized to me about taking the Olympics from us). The Australians and Brazilian struggled in the cold and snowy weather and were amazed that me and the Canadian boy, Mike, had hardly any difficulty other than some cold feet (literally not figuratively) despite not wearing any long underwear or anything under our jeans. One of the Australian girls asked me multiple times how I could have on just boxers under my jeans and not be freezing. Needless to say she was impressed by my manliness, and I can only assume that she is thinking of me now.

The tour was great, and I learned quickly that Munich is far more than simply a place to drink beer, although I certainly plan on exploring the beer aspect soon. (Get over it Mom.) As I've recently become very fascinated by history for some reason, there was a lot to be obtained from today's tour especially regarding Double U Double U's 1&2. It was kind of surreal knowing that I was in some of the same places were Hitler rose to power and the Nazi party was started. I also got to see the Hofbrauhaus, Marienplats with the Glockenspiel, and several beautiful churches among other things. I'm trying to upload my pictures now, but I'm struggling to do it as the photo uploader on Picasa is not recognizing my camera for some reason despite the fact that I can see my photos on the computer, so that's great. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon. I won't bore you with all the details of the tour I took, but it was pretty amazing, and walking back to the hostel with my fellow travelers we all agreed it was definitely worth far more than what we paid for it, free.

Currently, it's about 3pm in Munich, so I'm going to try to go relax before Dooley and I try to go line our stomachs with sausages and bratwursts before heading to a beer hall. We're considering joining the Australians on a beer hall tour this evening given by the same group as the tour this morning. On the tour we'd pay 14 Euros to visit and learn about 4 of the local beer halls and obviously be given some pints of German beer and some Jagermeister along the way. I know my mother thinks anyone who ever has a shot probably has a drinking problem, but it's going to happen so call A&E and lets at least get me on the show "Intervention."

I'll work on the pictures, and I'm sure we'll have some fun stories to tell after this evening. We have 2 more nights in Munich and easy access to computers so those of you at work will hopefully have an easy time avoiding your actual jobs.