From Salzburg to Munich by train
I knew it must happen. Today in a department store back in Munich, where I now am, in the flash basement food section, I saw a dog take a full piss on some tiles that were on a slope, so it ran down into the stores carpet. Excellent.
All over Europe, including England, you can take your dog whereever your please. If you tried that in David Jones you might get arrested, we still try and ban blind people with their dogs from time to time.
Anyway, they can enjoy cleaning that up now, cause the old woman just kept walking as if nothing happened.
As I mentioned, I am now back in Munich, where I was for a week a week ago. I am very near to where I stayed, but of course not in a nice hotel because I only enjoy cheap hotels.
Having said that, the hotel which I am in is much nicer than the last 3, despite being cheaper. It even has a little fridge, a very rare thing in Europe.
There is no air conditioning though, very rare to find that in Europe, so since its hot outside, its hot inside, I can open the window to let in the hot breeze and ambience from the various strip clubs and kebab stores below.
Also, you may have heard stories about the punctuality of the German train system. Dont be fooled! All mine have been late, and today the 1.5 hour train journey ended up taking 2.5 hours. Thats worse than most plane delays which have weather to contend with.
The train was mostly empty again also, probably due to everyone being sick of being late, the few people that were on board were ranting and raving and pacing about, presumably due to how late we were.
Blue sky in Salzburg! Just in time for me to leave.
I think thats the mountain I got soaked on yesterday, I attempted to get to the pointy bit still in the cloud in this photo, but went up an even pointier bit that lead to a dead end.
Today in Salzburg is wall to wall tour groups, mostly old people, a few Chinese. They are absolutely everywhere. I also saw 2 competing segway tours under way, and the sound of music buses plying the streets.
Speaking of the sound of music, its everywhere here. I dont recall seeing the movie, but it involves a flying nun who throws pixie dust at children and helps them escape nazis by blowing a whistle.
The bit I dont get is why did they escape to Austria? Maybe it was just filmed here but in the movie they escaped to Switzerland? I will re write the story in my head now, ok done, they all escaped to Austria not realising there were even more nazis, and they all got shot.
Todays train. As I mentioned, quite empty.
Proof of lateness! Wheres my refund! My watch is angry I have sat still for too long.
And my final hotel room of this trip.
The shopping streets and fountains of Munich
Its the last night of my trip, on the ground, still have 2 to go, in the air.
It was time for a last lap of the city of Munich, in the burning sunshine.
As I have come to expect, everything shut at 7, and then everyone wandered around wondering what to do now. Even coffee shops and ice cream shops SHUT. Your only choice was the convenience stores in the train station.
Before my trip to such a store, I found an entire part of Munich I somehow missed until now, lots of grand buildings and fancy cars, and rich people standing around in the street smoking. Germans smoke more than Chinese, based on a study I just did.
One good thing was that I found a few great places to eat, selling healthy non German food, and I was able to have the best meal of my entire trip. More on that below.
But then at the end of my long walk, I was at an arab run convenience store, specializing in selling imported cigarettes, hookah parts, lotto tickets and cigars, where I was buying an orange falvoured diet cola, when I was approached by a group of American girls.
They asked me if I would buy them beer and one of them held up a 20 euro note with her purse wide open showing about 1000 euros inside. The girls looked about 20 years old and terrified, so I told them that and they said they were 19 and 20. I also told them to stop flashing so much money about.
Now I was confused.
I informed them you can buy beer in most of the world when you turn 18, which left them looking confused.
So I told them that not only are you old enough to legally buy beer, I doubt the guy running this store who is watching soccer on his phone would care if you were 5 years old.
After some hushed debate amongst themselves, they decided to give it a try (I hung aounnd for amusement purposes). Of course they had no problem buying 1 beer each. Now they had beer and were debating if they should drink it, throw it away, or buy more.
I like to think in some small way I contributed to their downfall. This time next week they will all be working over the road for tips.
Blazing sunshine had people jostling for position around the fountain.
The main shopping street was a sea of people at closing time.
This guy is here to save us from all the vampires getting about.
I finally found something to take home as a gift.
Then I snuck into this ridiculous church and took photos despite the sign advising me not to because its frowned upon by god.
Best dinner so far. Photo is misleading, under the lettuce is a heap of different antipasto vegetables. And its real grilled chicken, grilled from raw. Too much food here is reheated dried and salted meat.
These guys were the greatest buskers I ever saw. They played a 20 minute montage of every inconic song ever made to the tune of Pachelbels Canon, with crowd participation, stunts, instrument swapping, falsetto, acapella, dog barking and a backflip.
They got a shiny 1 euro coin from me and about 1000 other people. I had to fight the moths coming out my wallet to make that happen.
Then I found a new part of Munich, I think it might be the town hall.
And a giant statue favoured by the homeless, drunks, and misbehaving youths not concerned about buying beer from convenience stores.
Then I found a truly bizzarre shrine to Michael Jackson. It had tupperware containers detailing TRUE FACTS ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON - all your questions answered and more.
The guy died years ago and yet this shrine lives on. I would burn it if it were up to me.
The Deutsches museum in Munich
Normally I would title this day, 'the longest day' as my flight is not until 22:35. Ordinarily I am asleep by then, even whilst overseas on holiday, so the prospect of taking a 30 hour flight after getting up at 6am on the day of departure when the flight doesnt leave until late in the night (confused yet?) is somewhat daunting.
I had my long day pre planned before I left 3 weeks ago, The Deutches Museum, it is supposed to be excellent, it wasnt.
Unfortunately it is old, dilapidated, not much English (thats excusable), and despite having so many things they could put in the huge building, they somehow managed to only find boring stuff.
Also, the food was a new peak achievement in terrible, there were 3 cafes and 1 restaurant, and it went from bad to horrific. I basically had to leave because of that in the end.
Anyway, still it rains, and since the museum took less time than I imagined, I had hours to kill, so wander I did, in the rain, until it was late enough to leave for the airport to get there only 4 hours before my flight departs!
The good news, I left my bags including my passport at the sketchy hotel, and they were still there when I collected them.
This is hot mashed potato, served from something like a soft serve ice cream machine, which you wander around and eat as a snack, after squirting butter and mayonaise onto it.
Another excellent group of buskers. Not as good as last night so I gave them no money, but still good. Tibetan throat singers.
I took photos of the rain. In Europe it rains all summer, relentlessly, and it floods, all the time. 100% of the time, rain and flood.
The museum looks impressive from the outside, but then you go in and the ticket office is relocated to a shipping container in a courtyard in the rain. I stood in rain for 20 minutes for a ticket, there were plenty of places to put it not in the rain. I thought Germans were logical?
The ship was ok I guess. But its just a regular sailing boat.
I got to fire a cannon, or a recreation of cannons.
This was the best thing they had, its an actual U-boat. Das boot. Except from WW1 not 2. ALARM!!!!
Tractor of sorts.
Now my quest for food, and even water commences, they had no water! The whole place is run by Sodexo (Serco), its a disgrace!
The cafes only had cake from 2 days ago, and had run out of coffee 30 minutes after opening time!
I have been to museums all over the world, and this is the worst food by far. Even in places in China where the museum is barely still standing and hasnt been painted since Mao they manage to serve ok food and supply water.
Why are all those cakes floating in crap? To hide how stale they are thats why.
I read that the flight part of the museum was great. No its not. It has 2 real planes and a bunch of models and some kites. Try the British Air Force museum on the outskirts of London, which is free unlike the Deutches museum.
It was also very hot inside, so I climbed up to the roof past 3 floors closed for permanent rennovations. Nice clouds. A rare gap in the rain.
This was the space section. Germans invented rockets. Germans built all the American rockets, yet no rocket. I wanted to see real V1 and V2 rockets.
Anyway, I left the museum, and star wars is still a thing, now its perfume. But its nothing compared to the level of star wars Japan achieved.
Then I found the biggest most amazing sporting and outdoor gear store in the world by far without exaggeration. Its 5 levels and goes a long way back, with rock climbing walls, and a pond to try out kayaks in!
I had no idea there was enough of this type of gear in the world to fill such a large store.
Next up I found a second hand store that snaked around through a fire hazard labyrinth store where you pay for used crap by how much it weighs. I think this concept also exists in Australia.
I got lost in amongst the knickerbockers and related items such as cow bells and whistles.
Then the town square was overtaken by militant hare krishnas, who have imported their public address system from deepest China to deafen us all with amazing distortion.
Getting to the airport by train in Munich
Getting to the airport was no problem, once here I pulled off an exercise in contortionism to change my clothes inside a toilet cubicle with all my bags.
Then I went to check in at the time Emirates advised check in would open, and waited. I waited with some important looking Arabs, who were going completely insane that the counter did not open on time, they were all ringing someone in Dubai at Emirates to complain!
The German counter nazis then opened about 20 minutes late, or wandered slowly over as a group to pretend to open, I was braced for excitement and not disappointed.
The first person served was from the economy line, this sent my new Arab friends over the edge, they started hurling abuse which seemed to have the German Emirates staff very amused, until he handed one of them his phone.....
Then there were all kinds of apologies going on, and the manager came over and personally apologised, not to me of course, but to anyone who might have called the boss of Emirates in Dubai.
Munich airport is split into 8 sections, so other than the underground travelator linking the sections, it appears quite small.
My watch showing the time...
The screen showing the opening time. I only took these photos because other people seemed so incredibly mad about it. I guess the guy at the front had 6 people in first class, so hes paid $60,000!
Emirates actually has a full sized fancy lounge here in Munich, I thought they might share someone elses.
The food buffet was impressive, since I was here on my own I took a few photos.
A few as in 3, this is 2 of 3.
And 3 of 3.
And here is the dinner I served myself. I will get multiple meals on the plane but didnt eat much all day due to Museum food.
The big white thing is white asparagus, finally got to have that.
The gloop in front of it is delicious Malaysian style curried vegetables, probably the highlight.
Now its only 6 hours to Dubai, in 3 hours time.... then a couple of hours there, then 14 hours to Melbourne.
From Munich to Dubai on Emirates business
6 hour flight left on time, and arrived on time.
Nothing unusual happened, for dinner I had the excellent Lamb Biriyani, second dinner as I had dinner in the lounge before boarding.
As it was only a short flight they didnt serve breakfast, no doubt I will get that on my next flight which is in a couple of hours and is a much longer flight, unfortunately.
It was also the hottest plane I have ever been on, I was sweating! Just terrible. So once in Dubai I enjoyed a shower, which was surprisingly non luxurious, and then found that they now have a free Costa coffee shop in the lounge, so I got a chai latte.
Not sure if I will update this again, I took photos of the plane on the way here, its the same plane.
My biriyani dinner.
The shower rooms in Dubai lounge, no mirror, no seat to get dressed on. Pretty weird.
Then I decided just to have fruit salad, and a litre of water.
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