Continued from Verona.

Today we will travel from Venice to Munich. We hope to do a fuck load of drinking in Munich.

Free breakfast at our hotel. Too bad I don’t take more advantage of it. I am always just too lazy to wake up early enough to eat breakfast. Thanks to our early train out of Venice, today I actually got up early enough to chow.

UGH! Stairs!

Venice is so cramped, this is how they throw out their trash, one little bag at a time.

Better picture of all the graffiti on Rialto Bridge.

Ah yes, train station, every day where thousands of tourists come here with their rolling luggage. Stairs only, no ramps. Fuck you tourists!

Taking advantage of having no open container laws.

I am glad someone brought a pocket knife with a cork screw.

No cups needed, straight from the bottle. Stay classy my friends.

How familiar. We will be connecting to a different train over here.

Lunch. At least it’s fast.

They charged me 20 Euro cents for a packet of ketchup. Bastards.

Time to catch up on some diary writing while on the train.

The Italian countryside is beautiful. Tons of these random castles on top of hills.

Vineyards.

The Alps.

Train was packed. Almost everyone will be going to Munich.

Snow!

Cargos are transported by rail with the tractor and the trailer together.

When I see images like this, I think of Switzerland and not Italy.

We’ve started our descent and the snow has started to disappear.

This was news to me. They grow tons of corn here. Can you believe that? When I think of the Alps, corn is the last thing on my mind for a farm crop.

This lady came by, flashed a badge and started randomly checking passenger for their passports and correct visas. There were 4 in our group of 6 that got checked, I am not one of them, but apparently I am traveling with many suspicious looking individuals.

Munich main station.

Streets of Munich.

Found our hotel which is just a few blocks from the station. On the way to our hotel, we ran into tons of people wearing Dirndls and Lederhosens. Half of them were drunk or about to get drunk at Oktoberfest.

Another small elevator.

View from our hotel.

It’s going to be a loud night of drunk people screaming outside our hotel window.

Ladies and guys wearing Dirndls and Lederhosens.

I’ve been on the road for a week now and it’s time to do some laundry. One of my least favorite things to do while on vacation. It’s especially tough when not everyone in our travel group are doing laundry and we have to figure out how to get all of our schedules to match up.

Visit to Doner kebab shop just around the corner while waiting for laundry.

Falafel wrap for me this time.

Lots of cyclists here in Munich. They were everywhere.

The wash was quick, less than 25 minutes. Now the drying which takes forever. Half of the group that I am traveling with went ahead to a beer garden already. The plan is for me to throw the clothes in the dryer for an hour and a half, and meet them for a drink while the clothes are getting dried.

Augustiner is a very popular beer here in Munich.

Easily the biggest beer garden I have been to. Thousands of people can fit in here.

Prost!

Stein washing machines.

Schnitzel.

Sausage with sauerkraut. Yes, both of the above were for me. I’ve been starving this entire trip because I’ve been so physically active by walking around.

Cheese to spread on the bread. Really, it’s more like bread to spread on the cheese.

Oh no, we’ve reached danger zone after 1 liter of beer. How can a man drink 1 liter of beer but then drink 3 liters of water afterwards?

After a liter of beer and some dinner, I made the walk back to the laundromat to pick up the dried clothes. The Doner kebab place next to the laundromat kept on enticing me with the smell, so I had to get a Doner kebab…after eating schnitzel and a plate of sausage and sauerkraut.

In my defense, I only ate a quarter of it and saved the rest for later.

After dumping off all of our laundry, we walked back to the beer garden to join the rest of the group again for more consumption.

AB, in his drunken state, got convinced into buying a deck of cards for some sort of drinking game. This was attached as part of the deck. Now I know how to suck out a Bavarian white sausage. LOL!

1 liter of beer and 3 liters of water apparently will give you a killer headache.

The place never got filled up tonight. Everyone is at Oktoberfest and we soon closed the place down at 10. I only had 2 liters as I was trying to save my strength for the marathon drinking session tomorrow. This warm up session shone light on where we all stood on the drinking totem pole. Me and another guy can put up a solid performance. There is a light heavyweight in our group. Then there’s the 90 pound Asian female who can out drink two of the guys in our group…It may be a really rough day for some of us tomorrow. Names withheld for their dignity.

Some of the tables here have name plates on them. Regulars?

Many sidewalks here are split into part sidewalk part bike lane. After having bikes almost run me over several times right when I got here, I learned pretty quickly to stay on the correct side of the sidewalk.

Saw this on the way back to our hotel.

Soccer gambling parlor. Seems like a really shady kind of place, which I am sure it is.

Time to get well rested because tomorrow will start early and end late. I am so excited!

To be continued at Munich Day 2, Oktoberfest.