February 21, 2011

52 Things: #12, #16, and #28… (and Some Other Unrelated Stuff, Too)

I knocked three things off of the list this weekend. Unintentionally, too. Thursday night, during one of our Skype video chats, Brenna and I decided that, since we were both off for most of the day on Friday, that we would go to the Dachau concentration camp memorial site. I’d already been but Brenna had yet to go and I was happy to go again because one, it’s free, and two, it’s really interesting and always worth a visit. We met at the fish fountain (Standard!) at noon and then argued about whether or not we should be honorable and get an S Bahn ticket. I convinced her that we did, in fact, need to get a ticket (we’re honorable residents!) and assured her that I’d read all of the ticket options and that I knew exactly which one was the one that we needed.

Turns out I was wrong. Which brings me to #12 on my list of things to do in Munich:

Be stymied by Munich’s public transport pricing system.

This happens all the time. I don’t know WHY it’s so confusing it just is. There are rings and zones and inner districts and outer districts, partner tickets and single tickets, day trips, single trips, stripe cards. Yada, yada. It’s ridiculous. Most of Munich lies within rings 1-4 and on the map, ther area is coded in white and green. Weird shades of green, mind you! Dachau is on the edge of the fourth ring in the green… I think. Oh shit, I don’t know! I thought we needed the outer district ticket (Außenraum: green, yellow and red zone) because Dachau was in the green zone. So we bought the outer ticket, only to discover later, as our ticket is being checked (Brenna, you’re WELCOME!) that the Außenraum ticket covers rings 5-16. What? Who even goes out that far? Haha. Seriously. So not only did we have the wrong ticket but I was missing rings 3-4… the only rings that I needed to get from point A to point B. And we were definitely inside of ring 3 when he checked us. But the guy didn’t get me for it. It probably happens a lot. Haha. But I did have my MONTHLY TRAIN PASS (which is #16 – “Buy a monthly public transport ticket”) so I had rings 1-2 and rings 5-16. I was officially stymied.

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Halfway through the journey, we met some fellow Americans who had taken the seats near us and we quickly befriended them. How could we not with Brenna and I being the only two people in the entire train car that were speaking? They heard us and sat down next to us, comforted by our shared home language. The four of us were all headed to the same place and since I’d been to Dachau once already, I kind of became the unofficial tour guide. And Brenna became the unofficial comic relief. Although at times it felt a tad bit inappropriate, the girl kept us laughing throughout the two or so hours that we spent walking around the historical site. I’ve been there before so I won’t get into it but the place is just depressing. As it has every right to be. Horrible things happened there. But either way, it was nice to have Brenna there to keep things jovial. Haha.

We spent the rest of the weekend showing our new friends around Munich (Schloss Nymphenburg and the inside of not one but two McDonald’s, haha). Also, #28 (tell someone off for standing on the wrong side on the escalator) comes in to play because I got to yell at one of the girls to move to the right side of the escalator. Haha. Sorry, Tyler!

On Friday night, Brenna and I joined some friends at Mike’s house for dinner and wine and then we all went out and stayed in the city, bar hopping until 4 am. We went from Sausalitos to Ned Kelly’s to Kilian’s, to a cheap kebap shop where the owner tried to take advantage of us. We picked up some interesting characters throughout the night the best being an Italian cocaine dealer who thought we were the cops after Brenna told him to ‘Leave us the f%$k alone and go away!’ Haha. On Saturday night I was home with the girls so it was macaroni and cheese and a few streaming episodes of Desperate Housewives for me.

DSC07842Me and Brenna. I ADORE this picture mostly because I adore this girl!

On Sunday morning, I met Laura, Andrzej, Mike, and Ana at Hauptbahnhof where we bought a Bayern ticket and caught a train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We spent an incredible day in the little city, braving the cold and ski crowds. It was the last day of the Alpine Ski World Championships but the crowds weren’t too bad. We did a pretty easy hike to the partnachklamm and it was so worth it. The ice was INCREDIBLE through there - I’d never seen anything like it before.

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After our hike, we hung out at Kathe’s house for a few hours and were fed chips, hummus, and animal crackers that belonged to some other kid. We’re still not sure what she was talking about on that one. Haha. Dustin was there for one more day so we spent some time with him, too, and after Kathe entertained us and warmed us up, we all walked to the Bahnhof and had drinks in Sausalitos. Then we went home… where Laura, Andrzej, and I had drinks at Jaeger’s happy hour.

Then I came home and now it’s 1 am and I’m posting this blog. Life is good, isn’t it? I have absolutely NO complaints.

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