Munich

Munich, our third city, is a great city but different from Berlin. It is smaller and calmer than Berlin. In Berlin, their monuments and museums are extremely visible to serve as a reminder of the past. However, in Munich, many of their monuments and museums are subtle because they believe that the past is behind them. You must be conscious of your surroundings in order to catch the different monuments that are created in remembrance of the past. Fun fact: Munich was re-built practically the same way before World War II, mainly because people created blueprints of the city before the war even began. We went on a walking tour and during part of our tour our guide led us through the same path that Hitler went on during his first rally against the government. On a lighter note we got to explore two great parks in Munich. One was the Englishgarten where the people can be seen surfing on the river (the park is beautiful) and it has the Chinese Tower/beer garden and Theresienwiese, which is where Oktoberfest is held. While we were at the Beirgarten in the Englishgarten we met some really fun Italians, Francesco and Alessandro (and later Francesco’s brother), who kicked it with us during Oktoberfest as well.

Oktoberfest is a crazy, outrageous and fun festival. On the grounds of the festival are carnival rides, food vendors, drunk people, and on the perimeter are the many beer. Basically, it’s an excuse to drink liters of beer and act crazy drunk stupid. We met people from Switzerland, America, Australia, Germany and Italy while we were hanging out in various beer tents -so many people from different countries while we were hanging out in the beer tents.