Getting There Is Half The...

We're safe, people! Pictures don't seem to be uploading, though, so I'll have to add 'em later.


The plane ride wasn't so bad, actually. A little kink in the back, but pretty good other than that. The safety video featured a terrifying looking animated man who looked ready to kill. During the flight, I watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Atonement, and August Rush, all of which were enjoyable in their own right. Atonement was the best-done and left you with something to think about. Mr. Magorium was fun and silly and light-hearted and included terrifying scenes involving a possessed sock monkey. Seriously, I may have nightmares about that thing. August Rush was quite possibly the worst script I've heard since Transformers, but I still blubbered at the end. Hey, orphans tug at the heartstrings, OK?


Story time: ever try to put a toilet seat cover on an automatically flushing toilet? Yeah, so I'm in the San Fran airport during our layover, and I pull out a seat cover, carefully set it in place, and *SWOOSH!*. Gone. Hm. Touchy sensors. So I pull out another and quickly get it in place. Just as I let go, *SWOOSH!*. Gone. OK, this is ridiculous. I take out a third cover. This time, I put it in place but hold on as *SWOOSH!*. Ha!! Got it. I let go, turn around, and just as I'm about to sit, *SWOOSH!*. Forget it. I took my chances with the toilet seat.


People-watching on planes can be fun. My favorites were a really wild-haired, scruffy old guy who is probably perpetually living in a rock band former life, a neurotic-looking business man who couldn't seem to stop peering around the place all-to-alertly, and the girl just to the left of us with lips that screamed for attention and a demeanor that somehow captivated my usually-oblivious attention. Go fig. I didn't get her number, though.


So we arrived in Munich, but our luggage, unfortunately, did not. Apparently, it happens a lot with Lufthansa. They’ve lost Khara’s several times, and we had to take a number to await our barely-civil assistance. Overnight to Milan? Nope. Missed that window of opportunity. So here we are in Munich, no place to stay, no clothes, but a bag of toiletries offered by Lufthansa, complete with one XXL, white t-shirt. That’ll come in handy while we’re washing our only change of clothes. So did we just go to Stuttgart anyway? Nope. Severe weather advisory in effect between here and there and storm warning for all day tomorrow. We might be snowed in if we go there. OK, …fun…but hey, at least they have fun shops here for the weary traveler, like the one in front of which Greg is posed.



So after much humming and hawing, we took off for downtown Munich (after verifying with Information that there are, in fact, no neighborhoods around there to worry about at night) to see what we could find. A 45-minute train ride later, we were downtown, and we opted for the third hostel we found, the Euro Youth Hotel. Lovely place. So for only 50 euro *cringe* we had a place to sleep.

Time to eat. We were starved, so we went to the little Turkish place around the corner. After ordering, we discovered they don't take credit. Every place we could exchange money had been closed for some time, so we tried an ATM. And another. And another. No luck. We didn't know our credit card PINs. We found a pizza place that took credit, picked the best-looking slices, then found out they only take credit on orders over 20 euro. Crap. Burger King it is. But Burger King takes dollars, which we had. So we had a flash of genius. We bought a "hot brownie" with "eis" (ice cream) using a $20 bill and got the change in euro!! We ate a turkish pizza each, a hot brownie, and a Kinder Bueno and a Duplo. Mmm, hazelnut. And that brownie was really good. Does Burger King do those in the states?


Back at the room, we found that TV consisted mostly of infomercials and stripping women. So we opted for sleep...


Sleeping was OK. I didn't sleep much. But enough. There were people running through the halls and making noise until probably 4 am or so, and using the bathroom which was right next to our room. Then they finally quieted down.


The breakfast (included in the hostel fee) was great! Cold cuts, bread, cereal, yogurt, toast with nutella. Mm. One kid from New Zealand introduced himself and asked where Greg and I are from. I said, "Utah." He said, "Utah eh? You're not Mormon are you? Ha ha." We said, "Heh, actually, we are." And just as he said, "Oh really?!" he cut himself...with a butter knife. He used some colorful words, then apologized, then said, "How does a person cut himself with a butter knife?!" We all laughed.


OK, I'm done writing. Time to get out and enjoy Munich!