Oh, woe is me! Trials and tribulations through inadequate preparedness be. Out of the way, it seems, so hotel dining and some dreams.
I'm pretty bloody tired right now but I wanted to write up some bits before going to sleep.
Flight was, as usual, uneventful. I managed to move to a seat without anyone next to me, though there was a baby nearby that would either cry about something, or smile at me. I've said this before, but even in coach the service on Qatar Airways flights is excellent, particularly the food. I had the "light" meal that ended up coming with a pretty darn substantial amount of food. Spinach cannelloni, cheese+crackers, a green bean salad, tiramisu, and I'm not sure why, but there was a Mars bar too. I left a bit behind for a change. Oh, and I forgot the wine, which is also included. I actually passed over the second meal (a sandwich and stuff) entirely, in favor of getting some good german food, and also the fact that I wasn't hungry yet.
After landing and getting through customs is when the fun starts. I find two ATMs in the airport, neither of which was working. Oh well. I fight with the S-bahn machine for a while to get it to read my credit card and thus give me a damn ticket. Eventually it does. (Although it's interesting to note that the entire subway system is on the honor system.) The directions I have say to go to the central munich station, which I do. These directions are sadly, completely wrong. I wander around for a bit, asking a couple people if they heard of this hotel, and then I stop in a different hotel and ask where the hotel I have reservations at is. Apparently, it's actually a good distance away, so the directions were completely stupid. I find an ATM and take a cab.
Once I'm checked in I go out for a walk to get my bearings. It is, like the last time I was in Munich, raining. I hear this is pretty common. I establish that I'm in a residential district with a few corporate offices around (Lufthansa Systems, Fujitsu, etc). I walk in what I think is the direction of the subway and find it, it's not too bad a walk (0.5 km). I will walk into the city center at some point to see how long that takes, but I have established the quickest way to get to the subway system and general navigability. Now, I haven't solved the problem of whether there's a week-pass or something I can buy, or not. Sadly, my abilities to read german do not extend that far.
That established, I see that there's really not much in the way of restaurants in the area, and so I head back to the hotel to eat at the restaurant there. My expectations, being a not-fancy (though comfortable) hotel were not high. However, I got a beer recommendation and then picked out this dish made with pork neck. It was AWESOME. There were little bundles of green beans...wrapped with strips of bacon. The pork neck itself was topped with thin onion rings. In addiiton, there were some good old homefries, but they had a garlic twist to them, which was surprising and excellent. On top of that was a reasonable baguette. It was most excellent. Or maybe I was just really hungry, but either way.
I'd like to note that this room is probably the smallest hotel room I've ever stayed in, but it is designed, and it has a big picture window that swings wide open, so I will be sleeping with it open. It will do nicely, even though I'm paying through the nose for it due to it being oktoberfest.
I feel the rain on my head as I walk, sometimes more, sometimes less. Passing by a surfeit of sundry restaurants, I walk. Gazing with wonder at the natural beauty nestled in with stately stonework, I walk. Bicycles pass me by, I walk. As I enjoy a delicious meal, I sit. Then walk.
I slept a bit fitfully due to drunken hooligans and sirens outside my window, but I ended up getting up a bit after 8 feeling like I'd slept in. Before long I gathered my things together and decided that today I would walk all the way into the city center. Now, this was good exercise, and it was actually quite fun (the road that goes into the city actually has a bunch of stuff on it once you get a little closer). However, once including the trip in and the trip back, as well as the walking around I did closer to the center of the city, I probably walked about 20km. I was exhausted.
Anyway, one of the first things I noticed on my way into town was that there are green. I mean that literally. There are parks all over the place, and plant life is integrated everywhere else. It ought to be, since it rained all day today too. I don't know that I've ever been in any other city that had that much greenery.
Furthermore, I saw a cornucopia of different ethnic restaurants. I'm trying to concentrate on german while I'm here, of course, (for which I figured there would be more little wurst stands I could grab a bite from, but appearantly not), but I saw almost any kind of cuisine you can think of...ethiopian, japanese (kaiten even), indian, middle eastern, even American (albeit in the form of the Hard Rock Cafe). I saw juice bars reminiscent of the west coast, as well as tons of coffee shops. Thankfully, I only saw one Starbucks.
I stopped at some gaming stores on my walk in but I'm not really up to date on current German board games or anything like that, so I didn't know to look for anything.
Not that the part of the city I was in had a "new" feel to it, but as you get closer to the center things start to feel older and older (as well as more ornate), pretty much as you'd expect. I wandered a bit around the kitchenware store where I reminded myself I'd have to carry anything I bought all day. Otherwise I'd be in danger of buying something...lots of nice high-quality stuff there, actually. The pans, they have heft, unlike almost all the cookware you could find in Doha (though I did find some at one location--they had a couple reasonable pieces). Not that close buy but in a related retail sense, here's a picture of a gayshop for Tom.
I did, of course, see the glockenspiel. Actually watching it move is uninteresting except in the notion of thinking about how old this thing is, but it's still impressively detailed and ornate, as is the rest of the building it's housed in.
I wandered around for hours, during which time I grew tired of taking pictures, so I don't have many. But a very good ending to the day (before I started walking back to my hotel, anyway), was had at the Hackerhaus (no, I didn't decide to eat there because of the name--I didn't actually notice at first, the menu looked interesting). It's part of one of the major breweries still operating in Munich (Hackerbrau-started in the 15th century) and I ate at the main old inn location rather than the oktoberfest tent. A brief examination of the menu while I enjoyed my weissbier convinced me to get the roast suckling pig. Oh my god was that good. First off, the food came out surprisingly quickly, and it was all done well. Cabbage with bacon sauce, and the suckling pig (two massive slices) had excellent crunchy skin, in a dark beer sauce. There was some gummy potato-like thing that was uninteresting, as well. But that, in addition to the bratwursts I had earlier from random stands, sated my pork desires for the day.
