Just Don't Mention The War

I woke up at about 6:30 AM on Friday morning. I showered and dressed and then went down for breakfast. It was bitterly cold. -4 degrees celcius and snowing. The breakfast was exactly the same as it was the day before. After eating I went back upstairs to pack. My train to Munich was at 10:00 AM, so I was hoping to be at the station no later than 9:15 AM, just to ensure I had plenty of time to get some food and drink and find my way to the train.

I headed downstairs to check out of the hotel it was probably about 9:10 AM and I mentioned to the guy at reception, that I was off to Munich. He told me that he was German and lived in MUnich for 10 years but left because Bavarians are snobs. I laughed. He said, "It's probably Ok if you are a tourist, but not to live there." I told him that if I could find a job in Vienna, I would never leave either.

He called me a cab and by the time I left the hotel, it was about 9:20 AM. I was hoping I wasn't going to get lost at the station. The thing about Vienna is that it is an easy place to get around. The streets are well laid out and well marked and the train station is the same. I had a smoke then looked at the monitor  to find out which platform my train was leaving from. Platform 7.

I entered the station and headed through the tunnel leading to the platforms. They were all clearly numbered and the display on the platform clearly stated the train destination and the departure time. I found a vending machine and bought a bottle of water, bottle of coke and a packet of chips. I didn't know at the time, but the chips were Capsicum (red pepper) flavoured.

I waited for the train to arrive. It was on time. German trains are very modern, not like the older trains I had been on prior to this point. I got on, there were 2 numbers on my ticket 60 and 32. I wasn't sure which one was the seat number. I looked for seat 60 but it didn't appear to exist. Some girls helped me and told me that the 32 was my seat number. I found seat 32 but when i got there there was a middle aged man and woman sitting in the seats. Now I was really confused. The man motioned to me to indicate that he understood it was my seat and he moved. I sat down and I guess it was his wife, remained next to me. It was 4 and a half hours from Vienna to Munich. The train had come from Budapest so it was already reasonably full.

The inside of German trains are very modern and high tech. There are monitors at intervals throughout the carriage that tells you the speed of the train, the stops the train will make and the time of each stop, the weather and a GPS map system. It's similar to the inflight monitors on aircraft. The train even had WiFi. I was using my phone and I kept losing my connection, but I think it was because my phone finds it difficult when there is a log in screen for WiFi. It was 2nd class, but still reasonably comfortable.

The Austrian countryside is really nice too. To get an idea of what it looks like, think about the movie 'The Sound Of Music'. I fell asleep for about half an hour or 45 minutes slumped over the fold out tray in the seat. The guy in front of me kept stomping his feet on the ground and it was very annoying. When I woke up, I decided to get something to eat and went to the restaurant car. The girl didn't understand me when I asked "What do you sell here to eat?", so I asked if there was a menu. She told me it was on the wall. She spoke English but because of her accent it was a little difficult to communicate. I ended up ordering a ham and cheese grilled sandwich. I ate it and returned to my seat. There was still 2 hours until Munich. I thought about the episode of Fawlty Towers where a German tourist was coming to stay at the hotel and John Cleese's goose stepping. It brought a smile to my face and inspired the title for this story.

I fell asleep again and woke up at Salzburg Station in Austria. The woman next to me had gone and I was starting to stretch out when some beefy young woman came and sat next to me. Great now I have less room than before. I decided to eat the bag of chips I bought from the vending machine in Vienna. This is when I noticed they were capsicum flavoured. Don't get me wrong I like capsicum very much in salads and meals, but there is a reason we don't have capsicum flavoured chips in Australia. The reason is because they are really not that nice. The conductor came along and checked our tickets. She was an older German woman with a deep voice. At first I thought it was a man but then saw her ponytail and realised it was just a very ugly woman.

I looked at the time and there was still around 1 and a half hours to Munich. I thought about the rest of my trip around Germany and beyond and how I predicted it to happen and what I needed to arrange. Before too long we were about 15 minutes from Munich. "Yay!!!!, finally", I thought.These long train trips are starting to really drain me mentally and emotionally.

I got off the train. Headed through the station to the first exit I saw and had a cigarette. There was a taxi stand right there, so once I finished the cigarette, I got in the first taxi and headed to the Hostel. The fare was about 12.00 Euro. It's a big complex. It has flags of different countries painted on the walls. There were some young people, probably in their teens, hanging around the lobby. What I would later learn is that they have school groups stay here when they are on excursions and field trips. There are older people that stay here too.

I checked in, I had to pay up front, but I guess being a hostel, they make kick you out if you break any of the rules, so they need you to pay upfront. I went up to the room. I guess the best way to describe it is like a dormitory. There is a restaurant on the ground floor and a bar and 'discotheque' downstairs.

At about 6:00 PM I went downstairs for a cigarette. The temperature had dropped significantly. I went into the restaurant to get some food. It was more like a caffeteria at a school or university. The guy explained how it worked and I payed 5.00 Euro for some chicken and potatoes (or rice) and access the salad buffet. The food was basic but you can't expect a lot from a hostel. It was edible.

After eating I went outside for another cigarette and when I came back in, a guy in the lift told me it was -7 degrees celcius and predicted to drop to around - 14 degrees celcius. This is the coldest I have been while here in Europe, except when I went to Lake Balea in Romania. I once heard the main reasons that the Nazi's were defeated by the Russians in World War 2, was due to how cold the Russian front was. If that's the case, then Russia must be fucking freezing, because it is cold enough here.

at about 9:00 PM the bar downstairs opened. I decided to go down and have a beer and see if there was somebody to talk to. I went down and there was 1 guy in the bar. There was hip hop and R&B music playing. I ordered a beer from the tap and wandered around the bar/club. The main area is a dance floor with booth tables around all the walls. there was a pool table in a divided off section as well as a pinball Machine and Virtua Soccer 4 arcade game.

In a room off to the back was 2 pool tables a foosball table and a TV with some sport showing. I decided I would play some pool for awhile, I could practice shots and maybe other people might come. It was 6 Euro an hour. I left my room key as a deposit and got the balls and went into the back area. I played 2 games of regular pool against myself, I won 2-0. What a surprise!!!

I ordered another beer. It was in a bottle. It was called 'Desperado' and is a tequila flavoured cerveza. Basically tequila mixed with Corona. I like tequila and I like beer, what could go wrong. It tasted like tequila but tequila is best drunk in shots for a reason, because the taste doesn't continue. It was Ok, but      I think my expectations were too high. I decided to just play some 9 ball instead. It's a better game to play on your own. I put all the balls over 9 back in the tray and racked 1 to 9 using the normal triangle but in the correct 9 ball formation.

A few people came in and looked around and then left. I think they were mainly kids anyway. In Germany the legal drinking age is 16, so anyone over 16 is allowed in the club. I spoke with the guy at the bar and asked him if they normally get more people in there. He told me it's normally alot of schoolkids that stay here and the older people don't always go in the bar. "What a waste", I thought. The bar was only open to guests of the hostel.

My hour was up so I took the balls back to the bar, payed my 6 Euro and got my key back. I stayed and had 2 more beers. At about 11:00 PM a group of middle aged Germans came in and they had a few drinks. They were all friends, maybe a school reunion or work function or something.

I finished my fourth beer and went upstairs to bed. I wanted to get up reasonably early as I wanted to head into Central Station and buy my tickets to Berlin and Hamburg and book a couple of tours. One is a walking tour of Munich and the other is a beer and food tour. It should be good.