Munich and Time with Dave

The train ride to Munich was pretty nice. It was a direct train from Goppingen to Munich. When we got there, we were able to check into the hostel right away, then we went to go explore the city. We walked down to the Glockenspiel and then over to the English Gardens (not to be confused with Elitch Gardens). We also saw the Frauenkirchen, which means church of our lady (strangely enough, that's also what Cathedral of Notre Dame means). That was a pretty cool church. Then we walked around the corner and we saw this HUGE church! It was St. Stephen's cathedral, and it was really awesome. We took some good pictures of everything, so those will go up when we can figure out how to do it. We walked around some more, then went back to the park. We took a nap there, and right when we were about to go to sleep, this duck came over to Andrew and got really close to him. It was pretty cool. Then we saw this family of geese. There was a mom and a dad and three babies. They were pretty cute, and when another goose got close to them, the dad would start making a lot of noise and chase the other goose away. It was hilarious to watch. I told Andrew that he should go near them and see if the dad would chase him away. He got within five feet of them, when the whole family started to move away, and the little babies said, "Meep!" in a really high-pitched squeal. We walked around a little bit more, then we went to check out the Glockenspiel's performance at 5:00. It was kind of cool, just because it was the world's biggest cookoo clock, but other than that, it was kind of lame. We both agreed that our dad would have loved it. After this, we went to the Hofbrauhaus and ordered the obligatory liter sized beers and some good food. I got the sausage platter and the dark beer. It was delicious! Andrew got the light beer and a meatball plate. He said that was really good too. To finish, we had some applestreudel. It was a great meal. After this, we walked around some more and went back to the hostel. The Euro Cup soccer games were still going on, so I went and checked them out for a little bit, and Andrew went to bed. It wasn't very exciting, but there were a lot of people cheering for Holland to win, and they did, so that was cool. The next day, we went to the food market and had these yummy sandwiches with meat in them. They have a really funny sounding German name so I don't remember what it is, but they were good. We went back to the park to play hackeysack, and there were a few people scattered in this open field with a river running through it. We decided to go play over there, but I saw this guy who was either naked, or wearing some skin-colored clothes. I said to Andrew, "Andrew, is that guy naked?" He said, "I don't know," so we went over to check it out... and it turned out he was completely naked! We both just started cracking up! You couldn't really see any of his... parts because of the way he was sitting, but it was still nasty. He looked really sunburnt everywhere. Everyone just seemed like it was natural, so we said, "Ok!" and acted like it was natural. Every once in a while, we would check to see if he was still there, and he would be. Then Andrew just pointed and he was fully dressed! It was the weirdest thing ever. After that, we walked back through the food market and I had a bratwurst for lunch. The meat there was so good. We then caught a 1:00 train to go to Hof to meet up with Dave and his wife Steffi. We got there at 5:30 and had an awesome time with them. They live in a bed and breakfast type of place that Steffi's dad owns. He also has a zoo-like park with a bunch of animals in cages including tiny monkies, guinea pigs (they were nuts), and snow owls. It was quite a variety of stuff. Then we had a barbecue with Dave and Steffi's dad while Steffi was working and her mom was at English class. It was a good bit of man time. It was a bit surprising to see Dave talking in German with Steffi's dad. It was pretty cool to hear. Anyway, the barbecue was really good, and there was a lot of meat involved. Apparently it is somewhat of a tradition to make sure everything gets eaten off the table. Usually they make Dave to it, but this time we had to do it. It was really good, but we were so stuffed when it was done. Then Dave put some chocolate in some bananas and barbecued those. Those were "deelish" as he likes to say. It was good to be with someone whose first language was English again. Also, he knew the food really well so he knew the best Bavarian foods that Americans would like. It was really good. Later, we went to the restaurant where Steffi works and sat around for a while and played this game kind of like liar's dice. We'll have to teach people how to play when we get back. We shared some good stories and had a great time. Steffi had to close the restaurant, so it was midnight when she was done. We met up with one of her other friends and we were going to go in town to hang out, but there was nothing open. We decided to go back to the house and have some rum and cokes. It was delicious. After talking some more and laughing, we went to bed. The next morning, Andrew and I forgot to set our alarms, so we got up kind of late. We went downstairs, and there was another huge meal waiting for us. Steffi's mom was really nice too. She knew a lot of English because of the classes she is taking, and she packed us a big lunch for the train ride to Brussels. It was a very short visit, and everyone there wanted us to stay longer, but we weren't able to cancel our reservation in Brussels. Overall, we had a great time and got to Brussels at about 9:00 last night. More to come later about that.