Munich... and a Wild Goose or three (also Beer and Coffee)

Munich - City of Beer (and Starbucks)

Whilst on route to Italy, we stopped for a day in Munich. It was a natural stopping point (Southern Germany) and we spent the day doing errands and enjoying one of the famous Beer Halls along with several Starbucks (warmth with free wi-fi!!)... That it just happens to be a major train hub was somewhat of a bonus...

Here are a few pictures of Munich, and don't forget to check out the TrippyFood blog to see the German food and beer experience (yes, "experience" is the perfect word) at the beer hall... all Miranda could say was that there seems to be a major lack of veggies in traditional Bavarian food (yay for the meatitarians!)

Coincidentally, this was the exact same beer hall that Adolf Hitler announced the 25 theses of the National Socialist program on February 24, 1920, which created the National Socialist German Workers Party... aka... Nazi Party... we feel dirty now. Place is called Hofbräuhaus and has been around since 1589.

A Clocktower!...also, a pole with a statue on it!... and some clockwork automatons...
(Incidentally, the clocktower is attached to the New City Hall, the Marian Column celebrates the end of the 30 Years War and has a statue of the Virgin Mary on it, and the Glockenspiel in the tower runs for 15 minutes with life-sized figures)

Oompah band... seriously, who can honestly say they hate a beer hall when it's got one of these?

Jagermeister sponsored DRM division II BMW 320i turbo that ran in the 1979 DRM series, driven by Markus Höttinger
Though Miranda just called it "an orange car" (closer look, article by SpeedHunters)

Did you know it's NOT illegal to drink in public places?!? Awesomeness!!

Anywho, the Wild Goose we were chasing was several fold... 

First, we needed a place to print photos for our visa applications (thought we needed more... ended up not, but there it is);

Second, we needed to print the actual visa application forms (more on that later);

Third, the camera's adjustment dial to manually change...well, anything really... had stopped working in the clog factory in Holland, and Munich has a Nikon Service Center. Photos with Auto and no-flash Auto modes aren't terribly flexible creatively, so my experimenting has been cut short by technical issues.

Initially we went to the Nikon service center, and were told that the Nikon warranty we had was NOT, in fact, global. They only handle European warranties, and the American warranty system is different (I didn't bother to correct him that we weren't American, since it was a moot point anyways). Cost to replace the internal pcb with the either broken or clogged rotation sensor would have been 130 €... no thanks. Not when it's covered under warranty.

So, the service center being a bit out of the center of Munich, as it probably took us 45 minutes to an hour to walk there (with all of our gear, since we didn't notice the baggage storage place in the train station until we got back), we were close to the University and a bunch of print shops. Apparently though, "photo printing" doesn't mean they can print on "photo paper"... go figure. Bloody shops. So no go for the photo print, but we could print the applications. 

So, applications printed (with an error that ended up costing us some aggravation), we were told that the photo SERVICE places were downtown. Where we had started. Bah. Ok fine, back downtown we go. On a separate note, if we had wanted pictures TAKEN, there were any number of photo booths along the streets that could have taken and printed photos, but they wouldn't have matched the online photos we have to upload.

Once downtown, didn't find any sort of photo places, so decided to regroup at a Starbucks with wifi and attempt to find something online. There was something in the main plaza according to google, but after I headed out alone to find it, nothing there.... wandered around some, and found a tiny little shop in a basement that was very well stocked and staffed, and exceedingly helpful. They could print the photos, trim them to size, and only charged me 10 € for it.

So out of 3 chases, we managed to get 2, but it took most of the day, and after hauling our backpacks around the city we were pretty drained. Definitely grateful for free wifi at Starbucks and McDonalds!

More to come from Rome!