Castle & Spring Festival!

April 20, 2010

Nymphenburg Castle was our destination today. The weather wasn't as nice but we  heard it was worth the trip anyways. By the time we got there though (which took us a little longer than we thought it would) the sun was out. We didn't want to pay to go inside the actual castle or the museums so we did some more wandering around the beautiful grounds and ended up on a park bench by a pond and in the sun. We sat, ate, talked and even napped a little. It was a great outing. We headed back in to the city and went to the tourist area to get our souvenirs. I normally just got a shot glass from each country and maybe one other thing for a friend if I find something I think someone will like. But we're in Munich. Pretty much the beer capital of the world. This meant we needed something bigger. What better than a beer stein? They are kind of heavy and definitely not cheap, but oh so cool looking. It was hard spending that money when I know I have so little of it, but Hilary rationalized it that we didn't have to pay for hostels so it's okay to splurge a little. Good enough for me. :) Now the trick will be to make sure it doesn't break in the next two months.

After we got our fill of spending too much money, it was back to Steph's to drop everything off and then we were heading to Spring Festival!! I had no idea this was going on when we planned Munich, but it started the 16th and was going on for two weeks. Great timing. Spring Festival is essentially a mini-Oktoberfest. It is more for the locals as it isn't advertised as heavily but it still has everything Oktoberfest does. There was a carnival with games, rides and food. I love carnivals! They just make me so happy. Love rides, love games, love food. Plus there are always happy little kids running around jacked up on sugar, it's so cute. The best part about this carnival though was that there were two major beer tents. Steph took us to the one that had better beer and we settled down for the night. Another couchsurfer had messaged Steph about staying with her but since we were already there she said she couldn't. Instead he got a hostel but met up with us around 8 at the beer tent. His name was Zach from Reno. Really cool guy and had done a lot of traveling by himself and had a lot a head of him. He was pretty much just going to random cities on the fly until his money ran out. He said he wasn't even sure he was going to Munich when he got to the train station. He had an idea of a couple different places than just chose Munich last minute. I love it. If I had a choice of how to travel that would be it. He also only had a one way ticket to Europe. I'm pretty I would have been in love with him if he wasn't 19. Such a youngin, haha.

Spring Festival was definitely a success. The night has some good stories to go along  with it but in order to not completely freak out and worry my family I'm going to skip most of these stories. All I have to say is Oktoberfest has got to be a ridiculously good time. My new life goal is to make it there within the next three years. Getting a group of friends together for such an out of the world party would be nothing short of epic. I'm thinking 2012 is a realistic goal. I'm now officially recruiting friends who want to go with me. Let me know!! :)