Saturday, May 14

Again we went to Munich, but this time it was for tourist purposes. We arrived at 10:45 just in time for the performance of the Glockenspiel at 11, pictured above. The Glockenspiel is the big clock in the middle of the Marienplatz, the center of Munich, and under the clock there are two scenes from a wedding that play out every day at 11, 12, and 5. The clock was unfortunately destroyed during World War 2, but they built it exactly how it was before the war and looks very authentic. Our tour guide told us that Munich chose to rebuild their city so that it looked like the classic Bavarian city, which was the opposite of many cities like Frankfurt decided to do, Frankfurt chose to modernize their city following the war, and it is now such an international hub with multiple skyscrapers that it’s called the “Manhattan of Europe”. The tour took us through the old town of Munich, starting at the Marienplatz and going past the multiple churches, and of course the Hofbrau Haus, pictured to the right, and ending up on Ludwigstrasse, one of the main streets in Munich. Following the tour, we had from 1-5:30 for free time, during which me and a couple of friends went shopping and walked around the old town a lot, and also went to the English Gardens where we saw people surfing on a river. That was so cool because even with the cloudy and cold weather a ton of people were still out surfing and having fun. The day was even more significant because FC Bayern Munich, the top soccer team in Munich, won the Bundesliga on Saturday so all of their fans were out and celebrating another victory for the accomplished club, and that is definitely something I’ll never forget. For dinner the entire group ate together at a cool burger place with trees in the tables. Because dinner took so long we almost missed the train, but we made it with just minutes to spare. Many of us were still really tired from the night before and all the walking so we decided to stay in and catch up on sleep and work on the projects.