charismatic megafauna since 1985

Munich

(posted from Gimmelwald, in the Swiss Alps. The pictures above are one-per-day starting on the 6th of November, the start of my trip.)

Mostly, I visited beer gardens/hall. I’d heard that Munich was known for its beers, and I wasn’t disappointed. The first thing I did when I arrived was to check into my hostel. The second thing was visiting Viktualienmarkt for some fruit. The third was visit my first beer house.

Hofbräuhaus was very tourist-y; when I walked in around 1630 the main hall was filled with people and they didn’t look like locals. While winter may not be the typical tourist season for Americans, it seems to be the season for Asian/Australian tourists. Upstairs, there’s a small museum which tells the history of the Hofbräuhaus (it was originally beer for the prince, but it’s now owned by the state) with more tables, but that part was a real restaurant and was closing soon. Since I couldn’t find a table in the main hall, I wandered around the side to another entrance where there were a couple free tables. They only have been by the liter, so I sat for a bit and tried to plan out the next day. It would have been great if I hadn’t lost that map, but at least I remembered enough that I’m pretty sure I got to everything.

The next day was a bit more eclectic:

• Dachau concentration camp and memorial
• Deutsches Museum (science/technology)
• beer garden
• beer hall
• beer hall

Dachau

I’ve seen my fair share of Holocaust-related museums, but nothing compares to walking around an actual concentration camp. I’m not really sure what to say about it; I’m not sure how to describe it. All I can really say is that I hope that when people see places like that, that they’ll stop it from happening again.

Deutsches Museum

Part of it reminded me of the Air/Space Museum in Washington, D.C. They’ve got a floor that’s covered in airplanes, helicopters, rockets, etc. But unlike Air/Space it doesn’t stop there. I saw (but didn’t always entirely understand, due to it being mostly in German) exhibits on electricity generation and transmission, engines, the environment/clean power, paper, printing, computers, microelectronics, astronomy and surveying. I may have seen more, but I can’t think of them here on the train to Zurich.

My favorite part (unsurprisingly) was the part about computers. They walked from analog computing to the modern office computer. I spent the most time in the logic section, playing with various exhibits set up to perform logical operations. There were the typical circuits doing AND, OR, NOT, XOR and NOR operations. There were some physical demonstrations, too, like a binary counter using marbles and gravity. I also spent some time looking at the old computers they had there (UNIVAC!) too see how far we’ve come in a short time.

Chinesischen Turm (Chinese Tower)

An actual beer garden outside, so called because it’s right next to a big Chinese tower. It’s in the middle of the Englischer Garten, “the green lung of Munich” as the guy on the train described it. Unlike beer gardens that I’ve been to in America, this one wasn’t segregated with fences or anything. I just walked up, ordered a beer (well, half beer/half lemonade), and sat down next to the tower to watch the carousel.

Augustiner-Keller

More local Munich beer.

Augustiner Bräustüberl

Who knew that Bavarian beer houses had vegetarian food other than pretzels? This place had macaroni and cheese with fried onions on top, along with tasty beer.

That was my last stop in Munich. I’m on my way to Gimmelvald right now and I imagine I’ll post it from there.