Leaving Milan; On to Germany
Milan has one of the most beautiful train stations I've ever seen. Unfortunately, everytime I connect through it, I seem to like it a little bit less. The number one annoyance? It is a major international rail hub and yet it has NO place to sit down. None. Nada. In the end, Maria and I ended up huddled outside on the sidewalk midway between the carbon-monoxide fumes of the taxi ring and the steady drizzle of the rainfall outside. All the while we half expected some uniformed person to inform us that in oh-so-orderly Germany you can not sit on the ground.
Night trains are always a risk. This one would be our one bad experience for the trip. We had a loud Italian in our cabin who opted to smoke and drink in the corridor all night--with our room door open. I, luckily, was able to sleep through it all. Maria was not so lucky. Being a sound sleeper has its advantages on the front end. Light sleepers have an advantage on the back end. I always wake to Maria saying, "Bryce, get up! We're there." and panic.
Arriving in Munich
One of the first cultural differences we noticed between Italy and Germany had to with shampoo. Maria simply could not find any in Italy--not in pharmacies, grocery stores or apothecaries. But as soon as we set foot in the Munich station, we spied a whole store dedicated to hair products. The choices were overwhelming. In the end, we settled on a Nivea shampoo scented "for men." Go figure.
Our true first stop: McClean. I kid you not, the public restrooms in the Munich train station are branded McClean. For just DM2 each, we cleaned up nicely. So nicely, in fact, I left my liquid soap there. Oops. Feeling fresh and clean, we set out to figure out this Romantic Road business. We stopped at the handy EurAide office (run by English-speakers for a Florida-based company under contract to Deutsche Bahn...very unexpected) and booked a bus trip for the same day and took care of our reservations to Copenhagen as well. We had a bit less than an hour until it left so we dashed out to leave our packs at our hostel and grab some breakfast.
First Impressions
People don't jaywalk. Period. Compliance is the order of the day. Todo, we are definately not in Italy anymore. But the coffee is still smooth and very good. We had a cup with a choco roll before we set out for our tour...mmm.
Day 10: Seeing the Romantic Road
The bus tour we took is pitched as the perfect way to see all the towns along the Romantic Road. In retrospect, I made the fatal error of thinking "see" meant "do." Instead, we blew through several towns without stopping (imagine the disappointment of seeing a picture to take or a shop to visit and then discovering that, no, I guess we won't be stopping in this town either.) and then were allotted as little as 15min. to see other towns. Maria and I spent our first 15min. allottment enjoying a second morning coffee at a bistro with the local construction workers. The fashion we noticed seemed all, so, well, American. It was plaid everywhere. Store windows looked like Meier & Frank and Eddie Bauer. Really.
We had headed out of Munich on a freeway shrouded in green trees and fields and I couldn't have told you whether we were in Stafford, Oregon or Houston, Texas...it all looked strangely familiar -- and very odd after being on rails for a week. The landscape was quite different than I had expected: rolling fields of corn. I had always expected these to be towns set in the mountains, not on the prarie. The towns themselves were cute, on the verge of being too cute actually. They were devoid of any evidence of locals bustling about and felt too 'packaged' -- a la Disney's EPCOT Center -- and ready for tourists. Our fellow bus travelers were the most amazing people. After visiting a town for 15min, they would hurriedly write a few postcards from THAT town as we made our way to the next one. True, we would try to see Stockholm in 18hrs, but what can you see in 15min? These are efficient tourists.
In DB Schedules We Trust?
We left the bus tour in Rothenberg and regained control of our lives. Our first stop was the train station to figure out when we could get back to Munich. Here we were in for a rude surprise. The posted schdedule only showed connections to an obscure place a few miles down the tracks. No other options. We were in disbelief (afraid the guidebook had lied to us and we would be trapped here ever after) until we found a leaflet in the DB office showing frequent service to Munich. Why that timetable isn't reflected on the wall is a good question. Collected, we ventured forth into town.
We spent the rest of the day there, admiring its impressive location on a hilltop, its ancient wall, and livelier town atmosphere. There were still loads of tourists, but locals, too helped to give the town legitimacy. This town is also home to an out-of-this-world Christmas shop if you happen to be in the area. Room upon room of handcrafted German wooden ornaments, windmills, glass balls and countless other things to part with from your money. Heading home, we took a train with just two cars. It dropped us at its destination, which turned out to be in the MIDDLE of nowhere, no town in sight. We waited for a while and then a bigger train (three cars) rolled in to take us the next leg. I entertained myself trying to capture pictures of the scenery and Maria sampled German radio on her walkman (finding it wanting).
Day 11: Morning in Munich
Maria booked us into a YMCA in Munich that proved far nicer than I ever imagined. It was furnished with maple, smart lights and lots of glass. Very hip. It even had a free breakfast. I woke up early to my South Korean roommate's sister banging on our door to wake him up. I took the opportunity to get up and see the city as it woke up (and post a quick weblog update). The weather was nice and seemed to be in the 70s.
It smelled like garbage and the sex shops which had suprised us the night before with their colorful neon signs quietly receded and the dozens of PC and electronics hardware shops seemed more prominant by day. I noticed not one but two hearing aid stores as well. Quite an odd neighborhood I must say. Four star hotels, adult entertainment and hard core electronics stores (when was the last time you saw an entire window display of just oscilliscopes?!) all mixed in.
Over breakfast, we met a girl from San Diego (UCSD). We all enjoyed a hearty selection of breads, meat, cheeses, musli, coffee and OJ. Maria had arranged our lodging for Munich, but Germany turned out to be kind of no-man's land in terms of planning. We planned Italy and Denmark carefully, but Munich was really never much more than a layover on our itinerary. So we grabbed her Lonely Planet information and set out to make the best of our day in Munich.
Seeing Munich
We started on their recommended walking tour, saw the first few sights and then I saw a fruit market -- probably the biggest I've ever seen. From then on, we just wandered. I bought some cherries and plums; Maria bought some grapes. It was all so fresh and flavorful. We spent the morning augmenting our lunch by buying bread, cheese and an odd Coke product called Mezzo Mix, which tastes just like Coke. We meandered through MartinPlatz and watched the Glockspiel do its magical clockwork at noon. We retreated to a picnic table and had our lunch -- with about a thousand other people. Everyone had a bier -- even folks clearly on break from the office, but then Maria shared this trivia from the guidebook: The average person in Munich drinks 350L per year! Thats nearly one a day. Wow.
Sightseeing gave way to shopping as the day wore on and I was amazed at the number of shoe and men's clothing stores they had. We also explored Schuster, which with 5 big floors of stuff is probably the world's largest sporting goods store. Stores in general had huge inventories, verging on ridiculous. But then the streets were packed with people -- something I still can't completely understand (does anyone work?) -- so maybe it all gets bought. Maria and I each tried to support the local economy, but had only limited success. Still, it was fun to shop for an afternoon.
Transitions
Running out of time, we grabbed a quick meal, headed to our hostel to get bags and were off to the train station to board our night train to Copenhagen -- a place I have waited my whole life to see. Any good transition in film always has music and life proves no different. The last thing I heard on the streets of Munich was a street performer doing a cover of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." Our night train was thoughtfully equipped with a barbershop quartet, crooning to a slightly different style. Going to the bistro car, we discovered a stereo blasting out dance music between two cars. Later we would see some people hanging out there. The train conductor passed through. We expected him to ask what was going on and disrupt the party, but instead he just smiled. The dance party continued. Perhaps there is just a little bit of Italy in Germany aftter all.
