Writhe and Shine

From Writhe’s journal:

I get into Munich at about 11:30am and find the first Youth Hostel listed in the Let’s Go! Guide. The guy in front of me in line asked about rooms and they were full, so I asked him (S from London, 18 years old) if he was going to try other ones. We decided to pool our efforts. We went downstairs and used a phonecard I had bought earlier and immediately got two beds at the next hostel over, but we couldn’t check in until 2pm. I don’t remember when I bought the Tageskarte for the Metro but we used it to take the bus to the right place where we ran into two guys from the States who were looking a bit lost. They were going to the same hostel that we were so we all went. I kept thinking that we looked like some kind of weird parade. We get to the hostel and it seemed pretty big. It was 12:45pm or so, so we just waited in the lobby until we could check in. We were going to drop our bags off in the lockers but some of the guys’ packs wouldn’t fit. We finally checked in at 2 and found our beds. There were 16 beds to a room with strange cabinets with strange locks. There were a lot of beer containers in the room and lots of dirty sheets scattered all over the floor. It must have been some party last night, OR the hostel hadn’t been keeping up with their cleaning schedule. Our room keys cost us a little bit of money, but we get it back after our stay. One of our group had some fantastic Swiss chocolate which he shared with us. We headed out and wander off to the Hofbräuhaus for some food and drinks. One of the guys (the short, funny-looking one) held up four fingers to the waiter/host to tell him that we had a party of four that needed to be seated. All of a sudden we were sitting at a booth table and had four really large beers plopped down in front of us. We couldn’t do anything except shrug our shoulders and start drinking. We ate some sausage, sauerkraut, and potatoes, which were all really good. I’ve never had sauerkraut that I actually liked. I guess it’s a specialty here. While we ate and drank, there was a traditional German band playing some loud omm-pa-pa music. It was all a bunch of fun. We headed to St. Peter’s Church and got to the top for a look of the city. There were so many stairs! Next we went to St. Michael’s Church and saw the tomb of King Ludwig II of Bavaria among others. Watched the Rathaus-Glockenspiel. Back to the hostel for a rest then went to the world’s largest beer garden. I drank a couple of liters of Radler, which is a sort of beer/lemon soda mixture. Ate a really good pretzel, pissed in the woods. We went back to the Hofbräuhaus and drank some more. Got drunk, staggered back to the hostel and fell asleep.
Woke up for breakfast at 8 still feeling the beer – no hang-over, but wobbly. Ate cereal and raisin bread with jam and something they called orange juice. It took some time for the four of us to get ready, then went to Dachau Concentration Camp. Hot day. Excellent place, fantastic art, comprehensive museum. We lost each other as we wandered the grounds and museums, but met up later. Dachau was bigger than I thought. Execution Field was amazing. It still had the blood ditch. There were tall thin trees planted against the wall to represent the people that had been lined up for execution. I ate at a small stand, bratwurst on a hamburger bun. We all came back to Munich and tried to find the Museum of Erotic Art, but it had moved to Berlin. Walked around a bit, then sat down to rest because the guys were kind of tired. I guess they’re not as used to booze as I am from living in New Orleans. We tried to find the Haus der Kunst but it was 4pm, a 20 min walk away, and we were all pretty tired. Back at the hostel I took a long needed shower and got ready for dinner.