Si's Year Out! (Plus Europe! Plus Morocco!): Munich

So the last couple of days in Interlaken involved a canyoning trip, where I absailed, slid and jumped down a huge series of waterfalls in the valley between a couple of alps - great fun to say the least! The other thing we did was rent some "fun cars", which looked ridiculos (but were definitly fun) to explore one of the lakes Interlaken is situated between with Heather and Karen, two girls from the US that we had spent the last few days with.

The next day it was off to Zurich for Sara to catch her flight home. We had some traditional Swiss food at a local restaurant and the next day she flew back home and I jumped on a train to Munich.

I was lucky to find a hostel with a bed (in a 22 bed dorm which is a record!) and immediatly dumped my stuff and headed out to see what I could find. I ended up visiting Dacau, the first concentration camp. It was very morbid and shocking but unbelieveably interesting. Before being liberated by the Americans, over 200,000 people were imprisoned in Dacau and 43,000 died in horrible ways.

The next day I went on one of "Mike's Bike Tours", a guided tour through the city of Munich.....on bike! The tour guide was really great and really knew everything about the city. We saw the street where hitler made a failed attempt to overthrow the government, the English Gardens which is the biggest city park in the world (and had loads of fat naked German men sunbathing nude....I could have done without seeing that sight!) and a good old fasioned beer garden, where they serve beer by the LITRE!! In the English Gardens there is a fast flowing river that draws crystal clear, freezing cold water from the Alps. An optional part of the tour was to strip down to our undies and jump from a ropeswing into the river and let it carry you through the gardens. After a hot day riding a bike it was the best way to cool down!!

That evening I went with a Brazilian guy and Scottish girl I met from my hostel to the Hofbräuhaus, Munichs biggest beer hall. I had the brilliant idea of trying to drink a litre stein of each type of beer on the menu....which was great fun....until I woke up the next morning with only 30 minutes to catch the train to Prague and a banging headache!! It all worked out though and I'm now in the Czech Republic....