more fun in munich

as mentioned, we spent our first munich dinner at the legendary hofbrauhaus. this place was everything i had hoped for in a bavarian beer hall -- big tables with long benches, huge mugs of german beer foaming all over the place, crazy foods and of course these guys:



back to the hofbrauhaus:





the atmosphere was perfect. brandon ordered a pig's knuckle (nasty...looked more like a shoulder or something) and he LOVED it. maybe a little too much.



it came with cabbage and a thing called knodel, which are very tasty german potato dumplings that i love.



i, on the other hand, wasn't exactly starving so i decided to try for the regional favorite: bread, meat and cheese plate. safe enough, right? especially because all of our hotels thus far had provided fantastic continental breakfasts for us -- which, for germans, consists of the following:

- hard rolls
- cheese -- usually swiss or provolone
- meat -- salami or ham
- pickles
- yogurt (ALL of their yogurt tastes like pinkberry. it was fantastic. apparently they use a whole lot of bacteria -- some varieties aren't even legal in the states!)
- various condiments including but not limited to butter, jelly, cheese spread and nutella (you KNOW i'm in the right country when they serve chocolate for breakfast!)
- occasionally eggs, bacon, sausage etc.

we had been big-time loving these breakfasts (even more so because i'd make an extra sandwich and stash it in my purse -- perfect second-breakfast snack later on!), and german meat and cheese just tastes SO much better than american, so i figured all would be well.

unfortunately i hadn't accounted for the fact that we were in bavaria and ended up with this nice little tray of mystery meats:



it consisted of weird-smelling cheeses, some spreadable meat, other slices of meat that had THINGS in them, and some grossly unidentifiable "black and white pudding" that was actually a meat. yuck. i stuck to the ham slices and bread with butter, and snuck bites of knodel when b wasn't looking.



we drank big mugs of apfelschorle, a nice hybrid drink containing half apple juice and half bubbly water. did i mention that water isn't free in germany? you always have to pay, and even then you usually get bubbly room-temperature water. i filled up my water bottle every morning in the hotel room and tried to stay hydrated (i'm used to drinking at least a gallon a day, according to b).

for dessert at the haus, we had authentic german apple streusel with warm vanilla sauce. HEAVEN! this picture's for you, mom:



and yes i know i talk about food all the time, but there was just so much to try and it was (mostly) so delicious! one more recap of one of my all-time favorite german treats:

i had heard about "spaghetti eis" since we got there and was dying to try it. "eis" is their word for gelato, and i am always intrigued by clever food items. so while in munich i got to finally try it.





looks like a plate of spaghetti, no? here's the deal: they squeeze vanilla gelato out of a press so it looks like spaghetti noodles, top it with raspberry fruit sauce and white chocolate shavings (to look like sauce and parmesan cheese) and give it to you on a plate. it was adorable and truly one of the best things i ate on our trip. HOW has this not caught on in the u.s. yet??

and lastly, we couldn't go all the way to germany without trying on lederhosen and dirndls! excuse the stealth-mode pictures (we were in the c&a dressing room, trying not to get kicked out for too much laughing) but here's a glimpse of how b & i would look as true germans. i WISH we could have brought these home but they were a little pricey for the souvenir budget...although they'd be perfect for halloween costumes for life!







cute, no? we had a blast in munich; it was one of my favorite parts of the trip.