recap : day three (photos)

After two days of oktoberfest, we mutually agreed that we were done with the thing


sooo, instead, we decided to tour downtown Munich, saw some cool buildings and met some cool people. I Even found a hat (the grey barre you'll see from time to time was actually found on the side of a foot path)



By the end of the night we met some Irish guys, and by the end of it they were mooning people... I guess it's normal.

recap : day two (photos)

So, we woke up, me with less of a hangover than everone else (mainly because i'm awesome, but partially because I went to bed 3-4 hours earlier than everyone else), so I figured on my first full day in germany i would grab a bite to eat at a traditional german place. This is what I found.



Damon managed to be a champ that day, and mustered the fortitude and manlyness to come along. But he was obviously not aldente...



So, once I had received a menu, (and then a second I was able to read) I proceeded to order whatever looked the least healthy and unique to Bavaria. (note the inclusion of lard) In addition to this plate I ordered some kind of gelatin mushroom thing as an appetizer. nothing was very good, So... I brought back the majority of my food to the two slumbering guys. they weren't exactly excited about my offerings, but then again, they decided to not wake up).




I was presented with what appeared to be an ungodly odd combination of random meats, pastes, and other things of which we shall not speak. Note the girl at the top of the frame. This is Flora (whom I lovingly referred to as Fauna, just because), I learned after ordering my dishes that she is a very conservative vegetarian with her diet. (so much for polite ordering habits) We had decided to meet up having not been able to find her the night before at oktoberfest)



Damon ordered a significantly less risky dish (duck and stuff), which came with a gelatenous ball of somthing, it wasn't completely in-edible, but was nothing to write home about (and yet, here I find myself writing about it...... whatever....)



Note, we had eaten around 1pm, by 5pm the other two had risen, and by 7pm we found our selfs back where we had started the night before.



We met a pair of identical twin redheads, whom were no strangers to drinking, so they did what they do.



After the night was over, We (again read: I) managed to procure one of the gigantic mugs used at oktoberfest. So we proceeded to pose with it everywhere. This was on the way back to the hotel, it was a tombstone sales shop (that's right, they sold tombstones to passers by on the side of the road, so don't go ranting that I was desecrating graves or nothing :) )

recap : day one (photos)

This is actually a picture of a guy names Emmerich, he's an austrian that the other 3 guys met when we were separated on our first night. They ended up, unbeknownced to them at a place called cult fabric, a conglomeration of some 26+ discoteks and night clubs.



These are the actual benches at every octoberfest tent, they are rickety, and not not vary wide, yet somehow support the weight of 6+ very large german and austrians that jump and stomp to various chants/songs



This is the high voltage electrician we met (his wife's name was Alex, and offered to cut our hair) not the ridiculous size of the "mugs" we had



Prost! good god, that is a lot of beer.




Wombat hostel (a very expensive hostel in downtown munich) but it was easy to get to from the train station and had free wifi and bathrooms.



My first public transportation ticket and monopoly money (things didn't feel as expensive if you just assumed the euros you have are fake money anyway :)



A bus map that I apparently used incorrectly and ended up 20 miles from where I indended to be, but had more fun than my compadres anyway.

4:15pm 9/28/11

back in salzburg, just about to find a train to munich, and possibly rent a car from there to drive to amsterdam. we'll see i guess.

day 8 begins

Today (is day 8 early morning) we are going to some ice caves.... the plan so far is to see these cave here in Holdstat(maybe?) we're catching a bus shortly. The plan after that as far as i know is to split up into our original group of 4, we're headed north (WAY north) to Amsterdam, likely for the remainder of my part of the trip. After that we shall see who updates the blog (it's been somewhat communal at this point, but notably slightly one sided for perspective. I'll update better about day 7 and 8 when we start our trek out of here, as I don't have a lot of time right now :) I posted what we had been working on over the last few days. Additionally I added some pictures of 2 of the days (need to get the rest done on the trains, but i need to charge the laptop somewhere....

sooo that's about it for now. enjoy, and feel free to comment, as we don't really have any other way to communicate with anyone aside from the blog. (which we can access from our phones)

pictures from day 4

in no particular order.

Included is Damon riding on the train to Fussen, me on the same train writing entries for the blog (no internet, so they were typed up in word, and then copied and pasted the next time we had internets). also the enlarged group of 6 walking around in Fussen, at the depo, and around the camp fire at the end of the night with christian (the hostel owner).

pictures from day 5

day 6 pt 1

Personally I had decided to wake up early around 6am to go through our images from the days before, and post some if possible. This really didnt happen. The night before, we decided, having endured the putrid stench of only 1-2 days of dirty backpacking clothes in a room in Munich, to wash our laundry in the sink, and hang it to dry in our room.
It seemed logical at the time to leave the bathroom fan on and the windows open overnight (especially because Austria is quite warm compared to Alaska this time of year) in order to aide in the drying of wrung our clothing). We didn't take into conderation the total number of single stroke combustion engines used throughout the day, and night (all night) in the immediate vicinity of our hostel. Basically I was awoken at least every 20 minutes, and managed to get barely 3 hours of sleep by the time 7:45 came around.
The group of guys went down to breakfast around 8 (Dustin just prior to 8, not wanting to be late for our date, and potentally upsetting our quasi-guests) by 8:20 we were joined by both Dana and Gladis, and by 9:30 we departed the Hostel: Dirrection, south-ish.
By late morning we we had toured a park, and famous courtyard, and by early afternoon we found ourselfs in Wolfgang Motzart home. The museum was adorned with various artifacts, and replcas from throughout his life, complete with a rollling 30 minute biography and maps of his travels. while quite interesting a sense of dismay was felt by many that it was quite unfortunate the majority of the dated structure was, in fact, merely a restoration, having been mostley destroyed by an allied 500kg bomb in 1944, rebuilt with an attached Mercedes dealership for decades, and only recently (in 1994) purchased by a historical society who proceeded to demolish the newer Mercedes attachment in favor of a historically remake of the original Motzart apartment.
We originally planned on jumping on a bus around 3:20pm to go to somewhere else in Austria, though I'm not entirely sure where (I'm sitting out the leading part of this particular mis-adventure). So we concluded Solzburg with a church, some amazing ice cream, a quick stop inside the modern art museum (with a particularly disturbing mass exhibit featuring some amazingly unattractive people (whom appear to be transgender males) wandering around various parts of the city in sun dresses carrying white parrocells(sp). I opted not to tour the museum (as did everyone else).
I finally picked up a pocket knife (which would have been useful on several ocassions), and a few bottles of wine for our group of now 6 for the next train ride. We are currently halfway through this new treck via bus, to a train, and on to.... somewhere. it is 4:28 on day 6 (9/26/2011)
-Squirrel

Day 5

Woke up at around 6am (the sun began lightening the remote village hostel room), and jumped in the shower. The floor was sticky but otherwise seemed decent enough. After we were all showered and ready we awaited the arrival of Christian, who had previously arraingeed to meet us around 7:35.
As the pre-arrainged meeting time came, and went we began to wonder about the chances we would be able to meet up at the overbooked LA hostel where both the taiwanese ladies had their bookings. Our original plan was to meet at the hostel, and then take the Bus up to King Ludwig II's unfinished (and 4th castle). We would have to be able to get to the bus stop by 8:05AM in order to be at the ticket counter by 8:20am, and then be able to walk to the castle (which would be a 50 minute walk with the tour begining promptly at 9:20am).
roughly around 7:55 we were greated by a very hospitable Christian, whom insisted he prepare us a breakfast. We relented and made plans to have him drive us in his car to the ticket counter.
We ended up meeting up with the girls at the ticket counter, slightly late, but they had re-arrainged our tour to take place at 9:55 to accomodate our late arival (this continues to represent their contributions to our ongoing adventure: time conscience planning with plenty of contingency plans).
The castle tour was quite interesting, though quite brief (to our dismay in some respects), but we quickly learned that tourist traps are amazingly effective with our aquired Tai (not Thai). after a few shops, and lunch the collective decision was made *read: we made them* to change the extremely well made (rediculously so) plans of our chompanions to go to Austria with us that evening.
After Jumping on a train at the last second (where the conductor wouldn't let us take any more time to purchase tickets because he was running late by the time we managed to comunicate our intentions to him), we made the 4 hours journey via Munich on two trains to Saltzburg, Austria. Here Dana and Gladis had managed to bump up their travel plans several days at a local hostel, which happened to have room enough for 4 more.
having trecked up and down hills for hours in the hot late summer sun, and riding two trains immediately after sprinting in train-stations with eggregiously large backpacks, showers were in order immediately. From there, we plotted our course of action for the next day. We all planned to meet up in the morning for breakfast (included with our stay) at 8AM

The 'doomsday device'

This would never be legal for sale in the US...  but it's frikken incredible.    You align the paddles with the positive and negative terminals for any battery, and somehow charges it, regardless of voltage or pin layout....   it was the Turkish answer to a camera batty charger gone missing.   It has been able to charge everything we've put on it this far.

Day 5 (to be amended)

still in Fussen, went to the new (incomplete) Ludwig II's castle, and are trying to decide where we go from here. it is 3:51, and we're looking into what countries we can go into w/o a visa (prospective countries are Slovakia or the Czech republic, and poland (Poland will be an easy task, not sure about the other two.)


will post pictures of previous days when time allows.

-Anthony

Day 4 continued

After arriving in Fussen we accompanied a seperate group of ladies, whom also spoke Japanese, in addition to both being english majors. They were planning on overnighting at a local hostel; and after 20-30 seconds of contemplation we decided to scrap our original plan of managing our way bnack to munich and on to austria via the railway in exchange for sticking around to explore the country side.
We attempted to contact the owner of the hostel at which the Taiwanese & Chinese women were going to be residing to limited avail. By 5pm (when the owners returned to the property we were informed they were at capacity, but arrainged a alternative stay at a hostel some 6km outside of town.
After touring the village with Dana and Gladis (the assumed english names of the two) and randomly taking an impromptu trail-blazing to the river (just the squirrel) we set down for some food and drink ata quaint little cafe of sorts. We contacted Christian (the owner of the second hostle) and he was gracious enough to give us a lift to his place.
Upon our arrival there were 3 or 4 people gathered around a fire pit infront of a circa 1800's building. Christian was very relieved to be able to partake in the festivites with the others around the fire (he had abstained from drinking until he had provided us our ride). By now it was 9pm, and we were plied into reveling as well.
Christian had his own special selection of beer produced by a very small local brewer, in addition to some very rustic cognac. we retired for the night around 11:30.

Day 4 part 1

After waking up around 8:20 believing it was in fact 9:20 (40 minutes until we would have to checkout to avoid an additional day charge of 204 euros) we partaked in our now normal ritual of downing a multitude of pain medication and water (followed by haare fur mich) we packed up our belongins in our bags (of which only Justin and I's are hiking style) and proceeded to check out.
We left the hotel and were downtown by 10:30am (attempting in vain to aquire some "German Sushi", but alas they werent slated to open for another hour), we made our way to the train station, and purchased a ticket for the day for all 4 of us (31 euros). Justin and I grabbed some wurst, weiss for me, red for him (I have managed to somehow convince people I can actually understand German, and order my food with what little understanding I do have relativley successfully thus far).
As of the time of writing these exerpts for day 2, 3, and 4 (it is only 1:08pm right now) we are all on the train headed to Fussen (spelt with an umlout). On our second train we were forced to stand due to a lack of seating in 2nd class (it seemed a waste to pay for a firstklasse ticket). I spotted a group of 4 Japanese looking ladies whom were managing to occupy 8 seats between them and their luggage, and asked them auf japanese if Dustin and I might sit in the seats if i relocated their bags for them (they were surprised that a random german looking individual spoke Japanese, and were oddley enough English Majors at a London University).
So at current Dustin and I are sitting across two lovley japanese ladies and Justin and Damon are still stuck standing in the isle complaining about having to stand :D

Day 3

Since we managed to make it to bed before 2am, I was up at the crack of dawn cheery and full of life (to the dismay of everyone else as usual). Whilst I made coffee and tea for everyone, noone consumed it as has been more or less the norm to date. By 7:30 am, we were all out of the hotel and wandering around downtown Munich looking for our previously met hair stylist (from oktoberfest) attempting to get Justin and Dustin's hear sheared to a more reasonable level.
After making it down to the address she had indicated, we found that the building was simply a old office building without a functional door to enter, we were directed to a location that was pronounced almost identically to 4haareszeiten which turned out to be the Four Seasons Hotel in the most expensive district in an already very expensive Munich (Dolce and Gabana, and many more very pricey stores were located in very lavish buildings and courtyards).
We eventually ended up speaking with the much more expensive hotel's concierge and were informed the Hair Salon we were looking for was actually in a distant suburb of Munich some 40-50 minutes south east of the city. As such we abandoned our quest of the holy grail *hair cut* and proceeded back to downtown Munich. Quite honestly I don't remember what we did at that point, but by 7-8pm we were inadvertantly re-tracing the steps made 2 days earlier by the three stooges whilst I was at my very much illegitimate party on day 1.
We had been advised by some different Austrians that we needed to go to kultfabrik, a large conglomeration of night clubs and discoteks in a removed industrial zone a short ways from downtown.
The entire complex seemed abandoned, which we associated with the relativley early time of the evening (prior to 9pm), however most of the industrial buildings' doors remained in an insecured state. Soooo, being me (aptley dubbed 'Squirrel' by my peers in the name-sake of Scrat from Ice Age due to my aversion to anything close to moderation and reserved-ness), I went in and explored every place I could find (including rooftops).
In one particular building I found a very tall stairwell that extended through 7 floors of a giant warehouse. I found several different unlocked hallways and rooms with various things laying about (procuring only a black rag I found in a small bathroom complete with a twin-sized bed). At the climax of the stairwell I found a very open white room where there were some reserved sounding German voices reverberating. With complete lack of concern for my impending arrest for tresspass I made friends with the gentleman whom were sitting around a day-bar drinking red-wine and champagne.
After a short time (and after being joined by my much less extroverted coleages) we discovered the large chamber was, in fact, an art gallery, and the artists were numbered amoungst the people drinking wine with us. We spent a good hour with our new friends and toured the artwork (which was really very excellent in most cases). I came across a painting that I found personally very exquisite, but knowing it would cost several thousand euros, refrained from aquiring it that day.
We traveled back in the general direction of the hotel and went to another previously reccomended sites, a "cafe". this is refferenced in a seperate post as well. When we returned to our hotel (all-be-it the wrong one) we comendeered a gaggle of irish and austalian folks whom we proceeded to exchange with. At one point a comrade engaged in a long winded conversation with the reception lady whilst he was nearly entirely unpanted outside of view of the employee (this somwhat summarizes the vast majority of the evening).
At the end of it all we attempted to steal a box of beer but were unsuccessful and PTFO'ed (by we I mean I, it must be clarified per Dustin, Justin, and Damon). Das ist alle.

Day 2

On day two, as Justin and Dustin (whom I will start calling the twins only because their names sound similar) were sleeping off their night before, Damon and I (whom are much more similarlly mannered) went out to meet up with Justin's welsh friend Flora (whom I have been calling Fauna because i feel like it) for Breakfast/Lunch (it was well after 1pm by the time we made it out of the hotel after the adventure portrayed in "long night" below.
We decided we should try the local cuisine, and stoped at Wirtshaus Zur Brez'n and ordered the strangest things *read: most expensive* on the menu. Damon ordered half a duck, and I ordered what turned out to be the least appetizing presumably edible item I have had in recent memory, which was followed by a plate of ... for lack of a better expression... random undesireable cuts of meat with lard and other crap in little piles ( it was like a German version of Antepasta only disgusting and served with more fat than meat)
Tried as I might i was unable to finish the lard platter, and figured it a waste to simply toss it out, and so I returned with the meal to give to the still extremely hungover twins back at the hotel (turns out the were less than pleased with it and left it on the counter) we drug back Fauna and then eventually proceeded back to oktoberfest for another night (this led to the events of the previous postings with the conveyor belt etc) We managed to make it back to the hotel, and went to be relatively speaking, early.

so, the beer on the table...

Well, another day has come and went (and i think we forgot to really post about one of them, but they are blurred together. Justin and I have concluded that we are all in a perpetual hangover like state, so we've decided we should probably go to brataslava. why, i don't know, but at least we will all be completely ignorant of the local customs and language (not that we aren't currently).

about the last day :

the hotel we are staying at undoubtedly hates us, for numerous reasons.

at some point we went to sleep last night, but prior to that we managed to wander around the city center, found a very out of the way art gallery (with some really cool works) we went to a cafe (which in america a bar) that had no fewer than 70% females, which was a good change from what justin and dustin keep dragging us to (gay bars and clubs) we ended up at the neighboring hotel to ours, drug over a group of Irish guys and Australians, and thoroughly demolished any rapport we may have had developed over the past few days (in addition to the hotel lobby). as of this moment we're all slightly worried about exiting our room and wandering through the hotel lobby.

Soooooooo anyways, justin thinks we need saunas, I'm pretty sure we would all vomit on each other, but that's just me. i think the proceeding picture captures our morning.

3 days, 4 hangovers (fucking Irish)

es ist morgen und alles sie kopfs tutwei. das is alle

Laundered and gtg

Just finished the laundry.  On our way out on an adventure

Strange entertainment

We went back to oktoberfest for a short stint again last night, and did a few carnival things in addition to the expected brew consumption. One of the activities was quite unique, it was simply a very fast conveyor belt that you attempted to avoid falling off, tumbling down the ramps, and then slid down a large spiral thing back to the ground level.... I attempted to film the endeavor below.

001

you have to press zero far too man times to do anything on a phone in this country. and it is different for every damn phone number. that is all.

very long night

It has been determined by the group that out of what all was captured over the last 20 odd hours, this is one we are allowed to post for our friends and family. (it was deemed mostly appropriate)




Anyways, we decided it wouldn't be right for us to retire for the night at 7pm tough we were all beat ass tired (all of us having been awake since ridiculously early on 9/20/2011), so we went to oktoberfest just to get a quick over view.

Personally I figured we could stay out until 10-11 (the festival officially closes at 11, and you are slowly directed out of the facilities around 10:30 which we figured was fine for us) and hit the hay. But after entering the event, we immediately lost Damon, and then me, and then Dustin, and eventually found everyone after a bit. We wandered around the masses of people, partake in various games and dares, and found a very popular festival tent. Inside was packed, and each of the hundreds of tables were filled to capacity with 8-10 people most of whom were standing on the benches and tables just because, whilst yelling *read: singing* to songs noone knew (not even them). Initially Justin felt there was no way in hell we could get a table, which i personally took as a challenge, so I negotiated with a small group of Germans and we joined them at in the middle rear area (completely packed) someone ordered beer, eventually that was followed by a multitude of other brew purchases.

two of the Germans we met were a very nice couple whom have attended 4 days out of the previous 8-9 days, one of whom is oddly enough a high voltage lineman, and the other owns a hair salon. I convinced Dustin, and Justin to allow the lovely newly acquired acquaintance (i know it's redundant but i like it so shove it) to trim *read: shave off* their hair the next day. Having consumed 2-3 mugs of beer (you don't understand the quantity of beer contained in the a fore mentioned "mugs") we eventually left, and failed in an attempt to procure a "mug" as a relic (which in hindsight probably was more a victory than a failure as these fukin things weighed at least 5-10lbs each) but managed to maintain contact with a few of the other table mates as we exited the fair grounds.

At this point in the evening I managed to diverge from the other 3, and went with one of the germans to a private club where nothing seemed to cost anything (probably means it was all stolen on a regular basis from somewhere else) I eventually decided i should call it a night, and managed to make it back to the Suite Novotel and hit the hay around 1-1:30am (approx 36 hours after i woke up at 4am in Alaska on the 20th)

what happened to the other guys I didn't know (or really care at that point). At around 5:30-6am I found my self awaken by a group of very exhausted *read: extremely intoxicated and delirious* guys, whom were somewhat recognizable as Justin, Dustin, and Damon. I encouraged them to take preemptive actions to assist in their impending hangovers prior to passing out, which i think Dustin and Damon did, but Justin just fell on the bed and passed out. I had a slight headache at this point, and took a cocktail of ibuprofen and acetaminophen and went back to sleep. I woke up feeling pretty much good to go at 10am. Everyone else was dead to the world...

After taking a shower and making some tea, Damon arose, and the other two as of this posting, remain in a state of repose, only discernible from the dead via their rising and falling chests. At one point during this slumber Justin was spooning Dustin (which i made sure to document for future dissemination) Now comes the task of rousing and dragging them out of the hotel.

-CHEERS! ,
Squirrel (aka Anthony)

@wombats hostel

Waiting on the guys (whom have no methods for communication.)

Didn't find anyone

Spoon, i hopped on a bus.   Pretty sure i can find this place, but given the davis' post,  I'm not sure i will find anyone there when i arive.

So far i have gotten a pretty bad exchange rate on what little i chose to exchange ($140ish) got 90.53 euros... even though the exchange rate should be more like .78 on the dollar (ill look harder next time)

The bus is running 10.5 euros one way... bah.

On commuter jet to munchen.

So, this little commuter jet ( e190) is amazing.  Much quieter than a similar sized 737-200, nicer interrior, more leg room than any flight in the US, and tge seats are actually comfortable.  What gives America?  I mean, we invented heavier than air travel, you would think we would have an edge in this... Even the clouds seem better in Europe ....  whats the deal?

Your break is OVER!!

get down-town! and get a phone.

01522-7073473

danke! o, wombat's wep code is wombat160904 fwiw if you need internets down here

Complications resolved-ish

We found Justin! If Anthony is reading this, we're at the Suite Novotel, so ignore the last post by Damon.

Almost

I have been advised by a professional European tour operator that we need to spend at least a few days in Amsterdam ....  we shall see

I has a stamp!

Yea, whatever ... it's cool.

unexpected complacations

our reservation at the hotel was canceled. no idea why, but we were able to stay a day and have found a place for tonight as well. if you need to find it, it is the pension am kaiserplatz, at kaiserplatz 12. to get there, take the U6 or U3 to munchner freigeit and go west. have a map, it took us a while to find it. Also, everyone speaks english, so dont be afraid to ask passerbyers. we'll be at the verdi until 11 or so, but we will leave your names at kaiserplatz if we miss you guys. we have a 3 day group pass for all metro transport so dont overbuy for yourselves. good luck, see you soon.

my backpack.... expanded

Some of this stuff will be doled out to others, like extra flasks, headlamps spare towel and some travel cards etc, but everything else is neatly packed in my bag :D



bigger : http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm65/dwarfcow/expandedbackpack.jpg

-Squirrel

Samples

I chopped up my travel card proofs today, should work for our purposes.

Travel cards : Epic :D

Please see attached amazingness.

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
That is all.

The Plan

Behold....  

A must have for any adventure : sake choko & tokkuri +ample sake + cups (we be drinkin outta cups!)

An early Germany trip for us (we shall see if they allow an unoppenesd bottle onboard.

To justin

:)

Only five more days till I get to leave and we are still looking for places to go. The original plan was for us to go in a circle from Munich to Vienna to Venice and back to Munich. But due to squirrels usual impromptu change of plans we are going north. All I know is that we are going to end up in Amsterdam. I guess the train will decide where we are going. But for now all I have to look at is my office and a pile of left over Turnaround work!!!!!!!

New locks

Picked up last night, in exchange for a copy of Monty python and the holy grail... (you can't make this stuff up...)  seriously ...

The preparations begin (or, more precisely, culminate)

Today I picked up what will likley be our most important equipment on our impending adventure. (from left to right : "Lion Tamer", "Nuke", "Squirrel", "Porn Star" )



(larger image: http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm65/dwarfcow/Flasks.jpg)

I also have secured a number of less important items, such as a medley of sizes of combination locks to share, first aide gear, and survival items...