oans, zwoa, g'suffa

It's now day 2 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany and things are continuing to go great. Last night's beer hall crawl, the beer challenge, was better than I expected. We went to 3 different beer halls including the world famous Hofbräuhaus. To give you all the basics, the group met at the train station where we were given a beer to drink while taking the U-Bahn (subway) to the first beer hall. We had a beer there, learned a little history, then walked across the street to the Hofbräuhaus where we had a huge (1 liter) of the Hofbräuhaus beer. It was great. The place is not a huge hit for tourists and locals alike for no reason. Some of the group also ordered food, which I'll address later. After our time at that hall was over we jumped back on the U-Bahn to go to the final hall where we had another beer. We then ended the tour at the bar in our hostel where we all had a final beer, a shot of jager, and all relaxed and hung out.

Although we were out drinking and I did bring the paper and pen with me, for a couple reasons there isn't much to show for the night in terms of writing. The first, we kind of forgot about it in all the fun of the evening. The second, although Dools and I spent much of the night with each other, we also did a pretty excellent job of not simply spending our night chatting by ourselves. We both spent a lot of time talking to our fellow travelers. The tour seemed to have mainly Americans, British, and Australians. I'm quickly learning that the Australians are inescapable on this tour as there are lots of them traveling. Fortunately, we have made fast connections with a lot of them and they're great. Anyway, here is the notes from last night, which I will actually take the time to explain unlike the last time. The bold items were added by me now and not actually included on the paper.

Paper from last night:
-English kid said he loves the Super Bowl? (And he was not mocking me)
- Dooley explains "Bro"-ing out to the Australians (When they asked if he was in a frat and he confirmed he was, one of the Australian girls, Claire, wanted to know if it was exactly like the show Greek. I told her yes, it's a documentary.)
-LTXC Ubahn (At one point our tour guide, the same girl from my walking tour earlier in the day, tried to get everyone to dance as we walked through the U-Bahn. Dooley and I pulled out the old LT variety show dance we performed with the cross country team.)

Unfortunately that was it for the note taking. Sorry. Anyway, that was about it for the night. No amazing stories that I can think of, but a great time with the other kids on the tour and back at our hostel bar. Mom and Dad, I know you told me to tell everyone I'm Canadian but the amount of people I've told that I'm from Canada remains at zero. What can I say, with Obama in charge (and racism a distant, almost laughable thing of the past, ) everyone loves hearing we're from Chicago. I'm not homophobic or anything, but I just can't tell people I'm Canadian.

I spent plenty of time talking with the Australians (Meg, Matt, Kate, and Clair), Owen from England, and some of the other Americans included a boy named Miles who is likely a few years older than us and a bit of an egotistical ass. Upon meeting Dools and I, Miles said "Hey, I don't want to get into a big convo about it or anything but if you guys are from Chicago, big Obama supporters?" After hearing we both voted for Obama, Miles decided his last statement was a complete lie as he wanted to talk about politicis all night. Sorry jackass, I didn't come to Europe to talk to Americans about back home. I enjoy talking to people from other countries about everything included politics even if they have completely opposite views to mine, but not this guy. We avoided him. He later in the night told me he had to say something to me later, I have no idea what this guy wanted, maybe he found me sexy (I was looking damn good last night) but I had no interest in finding out what this guy was talking about.

Like I said most of the time, I spent the night chatting with the others and particularly the Australians. Claire looked just like Leks Campesinos so I was in love. Unfortunately, all of the cuties on the tour had boyfriends back home. I know what you're thinking, "they lied," but you are both mean and wrong because I was working some great game. I even pretended to care about what they were saying and everything, but I suppose you can't win them all.

It ended up being a rather late night, with Dooley again deciding bed time was the ideal time to shine lights into our room. The kids a winner. I had every intention of sleeping in, and I did it, waking up at around 10:30ish or so and finally feeling caught up on sleep. Dooley wanted to catch the tour I went on yesterday morning, but he slept through it again. Fortunately there was an afternoon one he caught though, during which time I simply wandered around Munich by myself taking pictures and looking for the perfect beer stein to bring back to America with me. Whenever I have questions about buildings or where things are, I simply look for the most attractive local in sight, preferably not dudes, and ask them in German if they speak English. Most can at least well enough to help me out, and I am honored when I am mistaken by a local as German.

After all my walking around, it was time for some food. Earlier we had some spicy sausages together, but on my own at this point, I wandered into a small shop and got a pork sandwich on a nice bread roll. The pork was almost an inch thick and about the size of the palm of my hand. It was great. The Germans love to eat pigs, and tonight I plan on having a traditional German meal of pig's knuckle at the Hofbräuhaus. One of the girls got it last night and insisted I try a bit, it was delicious and I need to have my own tonight.

As I said, we are heading back to the Hofbräuhaus tonight for a relaxed evening of beer and German food with some of the Australians. I will try to make a great effort to maintain the note taking and try to get Dools to black out. He insisted on going drink for drink with me last night which I thought was a sure blackout for Dools but he held his own, and most of the Australians did not. I bumped into Matt and Claire while walking around today, both had succumbed to the dangerous, but not contagious, Irish flu.

We leave for Prague tomorrow.

Dooley Blackouts: 1 (still)