Gday all,
Before I begin I should apologise for a couple of character faults.
Firstly, I'm dead lazy meaning it takes a long time for me to get around to writing mass emails like this (its been about seven or eight weeks).
Secondly, I'm insecure and have a constant need for validation, which means I've put in absolutely everything that might get me the littlest bit of attention.
Those two traits have combined to make a massive email - well actually there's an email coming about Dublin and Edinburgh also so make that two emails.
But I'll try and break them up somehow.
So sorry about that. You've heard this before, but I'll try and make them shorter.
Bish's Precis
- I went to Munich by train. Travelling took about 30 hours, and I was only there for 24 hours
- Australia lost 2-0 and I wasn't at the game
- To grossly generalise, German kids are worse than UCFK kids
- I've got a job
- the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum are awesome
Bebo
The links in this email are to photos on my Bebo website. For those of you who are not Bebo members you might not be able to view them. If thats the case, let me know and I'll send you an invite to start you up. I can show you how to be a secret member of Bebo also - so you don't get hassled by others.
Also, those of you at DPI, you won't be able to view them anyway as I managed to get it blocked when I was there. So just send this email to a home address.
The Plan
OK, so the plan was simple enough. Get the Eurostar to Paris and another train to Munich to get to the game on Sunday. It meant leaving home at 4pm, and arriving in Munich at about 8:30am, having slept on the overnight train from Paris. Accomodation during a Brazilian game is of course impossible, so I thought I'd party hard to about 5am and then head to the train station for my 8:40am train back home Monday morning, sleeping all the way to Paris and arriving home at about 9:30pm. Oh, and I had my first day of work on Tuesday.
Did I mention I didn't take any luggage? So I was carrying and wearing everything I thought I'd need for the time I was away.
Hey, I said it was "simple" - I never said it wasn't gruelling.
A few others were going to meet up with us over there: Rob Morgan, Richie Somerville, his sister Katherine, Hazy, Tyse, Spitty and Laney were gonna be there.
Travel to Munich
Travel to Paris was pretty uneventful, and knowing I had a bed on the way there was pretty sweet. Then I went into the cabin and found it was 6 to a cabin (two triple bunks, I was on top coz I'm so mobile). The ventilation was awful on board and no one else spoke in English in the cabin. The bed was disgraceful - very uncomfortable, and I woke up about every hour. Also, I didn't take any water with me so I was completely parched when I got off the train in Munich.
Before the Game
So I got in and texted (woke up) Rob, walked around Munich for a while and took in some sights. Most of the time I was looking at my watch thinking "OK, only 22 more hours I have to be awake." I met Somers, Catherine and Rob in the town square at midday. The square was going nuts - Brazilians mainly, but an Aussie got up the top of the town hall to fly an Aussie flag. Awesome. The town itself was very beautiful.
But what the heck was with these lions? There were hundreds of them, all flamboyantly painted. Very unusual!
We found a place to eat easily enough and sat down to some cheap sausage and potato salad (read: mash with a couple of leaves in it). The waiter came out with our orders and needed some help getting them onto our table, to which we said "you're a bad waiter", and that he wasn't getting a tip. He was, in fact, a nice guy and gave us some good ideas. He mentioned the area around the English Garden was full of "sloppy bars." I don't think he meant it to be a recommendation, but he should've considered his audience better.
In the end we walked away without tipping him (in my case accidental - not so sure about Rob the tightwad). Just as we were preparing to leave, I ran into a mate from DPI - Tom - completely by random. I had texied him when I was in Paris telling him I'd be in Munich and received no reply. Turns out he had an Italian SIM card, so didn't get it. We exchanged numbers and planned to meet after the game.
Anyways having given up on seeing the game I left the guys to get to the stadium, and headed to the English Garden to catch up with some cricketing mates (TJ, Laney and Spitty). On the way I got distracted by a stationary wave in the English Garden that some dudes were surfing, and also by the extensive areas of n*de bathing (sorry, you can't see anything in that pic). I actually missed the boys and ended up at a random big screen for the Croatia-Japan game, watching it by myself. But made my way back to the Chinese Palace in the English Garden (in Germany - weird, eh?) and watched the rest of the game there, as well as meeting some random West Aussies.
As the game started, and my 3rd stein also started, I found my spot had been taken by some German dudes. Not that it mattered. I think I just continued my conversation from before with a different audience. They were nice guys, and were particularly interested when I started screaming "Schwartzer-negger" whenever the ball went near our goalie (thanks Anand). They decided to join in as well, which made for some more interesting looks from other tables in the garden. But the atmosphere there was simply amazing.
As the game ended, everyone I had planned to meet made their way back to where I was and we kicked on for a while. All of a sudden it was dark and there were mad Brazilians and massive servings of food everywhere. Infact I think I found my wife there. It was great to see Laney again. We stayed in the English Garden for a while and then headed to the aforementioned sloppy bars.
When we got there it was going nuts. The roads were cordoned off so that the fans couldn't get onto the road, but there was absolutely no agro on the streets - everyone was just happy to be there. A policeman in a van was telling us over a loudspeaker "Everyone stay off the road, stay off the ... oh my God" - a gorgeous blonde had stood on the front bumper, lovingly hugging the police van. I wish I was that van.
Somewhere along the way I found some Fanatics armbands. After trying to burn them (as is my patriotic duty), Hazy protested, and Somers asked me to stop for his sake. Well they didn't burn easily anyway, so I had no objection to complying.
But I got rid of them in the end.*
And I got rid of Hazy and Somers eventually. First we tried to get a train, but failing that we waited a considerable time for a taxi. I later heard that the taxi had to stop mid-fare to enable Hazy to empty his guts outside the vehicle...
So I was alone in Munich at 2.30am. Six hours until my train leaves, and nowhere to sleep... what to do?
I walked back to the train station with some random Aussies, all of whom were trying to have a crack at a German hostess who had helped them that day. These young tackers didn't realise that hostess didn't mean hostess I guess... On the way back I tried to do some drunk night time sightseeing. Turns out its really hard.
I got to a kebab joint in time for the place to close (once I had eaten thankfully), and headed to an internet cafe, trying in vain to find something interesting to keep me awake for two hours. No luck - I fell asleep on the keyboard quite often. Much like many of you are now.
By 5am my time was up, and with a few corrugations from the keyboard still imprinted on my face I walked over the road to the train station and saw about 2000 people asleep on the floor there. But I managed to look past them all and head to Burger King for a traditional German breakfast - onion rings. Awesome.
The last couple of hours before the train came were absolutely excruciating. All I could do was drink coffee and wait for the newsagent to open so I'd have something to read. I couldn't shower, I had to pay to go to the bathroom, and I couldn't risk sleeping, lest I miss my train.
The Journey Home
So finally I boarded my train, and slept, in a chair in a cabin all to myself. A lady got on which woke me, but the next time I was awoken she was asking the guard to move carriages. I guess I snore.
It was not long after that I learned what the afterlife will be like if I don't change my ways. At Ulm we stopped and I was awoken by a noise. It was schoolchildren. They filled all the seats in my cabin and the entire rest of the carriage. These weren't 17 year olds either. They were f*cking twelve. And eating a *lot* of sugar (like Uter from the Simpsons, but less portly).
I was reluctant to be rude to them, or ask them to stay quiet, which unfortunately they interpreted as a sign of friendship. They returned the favour by wheeling their friends in to the cabin to point at the "28 year old Australian." They might have been charging their friends to see me. So to German kids I'm basically a circus freak.
Honestly, writing this seven weeks later I'm getting goosebumps. I was in so much pain! I wish I got a photo of them.
They were with me for about three hours, roughly to the French border but any hope of sleep had evaporated. From then I was never by myself in the cabin, and chose to spend most of the journey standing, getting some fresh air and viewing the countryside.
I got in to Paris and had a magnificent steak with chips and salad (read: lettuce and bacon - how good are European salads!). It was superb, and pretty cheap also. Oh, and the Eurostar back to London was delayed by 40 minutes. The rest of the journey was uneventful, but also sleepless. I finally walked in the door in Greenwich about 15 hours after I'd set off from Munich. And the good news was that it was 10pm and my alarm was going off at 6am the next day... for my first day of work in my new job!
So that was it. Munich was awesome, and I am definitely going back, and would recommend it to anyone. Just bring water with you on the train, and book accommodation!
... so that's the end of part one. The second email follows shortly.
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