On Wednesday, we took an 8 hour train ride from Luxembourg to Munich. Going into the day the thought on an 8 hour train ride wasn´t too appealing. But it turned out to be a much needed day of relaxation. Our first class railpasses got us some great seats. The seats were comfortable, the bathrooms were clean, there were automatic sliding doors between each of the cars, and there were attendants that brought us snacks. It was a much needed day off of our feet! Surprisingly the 8 hour trip went by very fast.
After arriving in Munich we checked into our hostel. So far it seems okay. The rooms are a decent size and seem clean. We have a private attached bathroom. And the location is good. It´s near the train station and close to the city center. Even though we arrived later in the day we have already seen a lot of the main sights. We walked over to the Marienplatz which has the Rathause (town hall). There is a Glockenspiel (carillon) at the Rathause that has characters in it sort of like on a coo coo clock that spin and play music. We need to get back later in the week to see that. We walked around the Viktualmarkt which is an outdoor market with about 140 food stalls of everything from meat to vegetables to flowers. But mostly meat. We had bratwurst which I thought was dinner but was apparently only a snack. Then we moved on to the world famous Hofbrauhaus which is the state run beer hall. We ordered the standard liter of beer. We are having difficulty uploading pictures again due to the security settings at the internet cafe but we´ll hopefully get these pictures uploaded soon. It took Greg 1.25 hours to finish his liter of beer and I´m sad to say I couldn´t finish mine. We also ordered more meat. It had the meatballs and potatoes. Greg had 4 bratwurst bringing his grand total for the day to 6 bratwurst! That´s a lot of meat. I made it through about a quarter of my meatballs and couldn´t eat anymore. After all the meat we had today, which I can feel oozing through my skin, I have decided that I am now a vegetarian. I think I´ll only eat bananas and pretzels the rest of our time in Munich. We enjoyed the Haufbrauhaus though. There was a great Bavarian band of men wearing lederhosen playing. The atmosphere was lively and everyone was friendly. We are planning on going back again.
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