Day 51: Munich

I woke up this morning around 8:00am again, and went to take a shower, but the light in our bathroom wasn’t working. The hostel I’m staying at (Euro Youth Hostel) is definitely not the best I’ve been in; the push buttons on the shower last, literally, four seconds before shutting off, the air conditioning doesn’t work, and the wi-fi is slow and works half the time. I skipped the shower and biked to the main plaza in central Munich to find a store to buy a bathing suit. I looked at the signs for about ten different stores, and they all had the same hours listed. I couldn’t read the days of the week listed in German, so I decided to go to a Starbucks to sort things out. After hopping on their free wi-fi, I come to find out that no stores are open on Sunday in Munich, only some restaurants. So planning to buy a bathing suit today instead of yesterday turned out to be a bad idea.

I eventually find out that the only place to buy clothes on a Sunday in Munich is near the airport. After buying a ticket for the 45 minute metro ride, I realize this is a huge waste of time, and get off at the next stop. I went back to my hostel and just changed into some athletic shorts instead. I’ll (hopefully) just buy one tomorrow.

I ride my bike over the Isar River and spent the next couple hours swimming and lying out on the rocky beach.

Just upstream is a dam, so the water flows pretty fast through the narrow portions (Conservation of volume, anyone?) to the point where it will carry you down the river if you’re not careful. Like the English Gardens, the beach along the Isar River is clothing optional, so it wasn’t uncommon to see people lying out naked. Definitely something different from back in the states.

Beach along the Isar river:

I then spent the most of the day taking more pictures of the English Garden, including some nice long exposures of the river with my tripod.
 

This dog kept trying to grab the bone out of his owner’s hand:

The had nice row and paddle boats you could rent on a lake in the middle of the English Garden:

The English Garden had some of the greenest trees I’ve ever seen before:

One of the many streams running through the park:

I went back to my hostel around 7:00pm, posted my blog update from yesterday, and tried to upload some pictures. The wi-fi and my hostel then cut out due to ‘the server being down’ so I had to go to the Starbucks at the train station to finish writing. At this point, it started pouring outside, which brought an abrupt end to my idea of taking pictures later that night.

Tomorrow, I think I’m going to wake up around 8:00am, pack up my things, and then go back to the main plaza. I want to pick up a bathing suit at H&M and a Germany soccer jersey before I catch a 12:20pm train to Innsbruck. Hopefully the weather improves before then…