many reasons to love munich: road trip part ll

#1. neuschwanstein castle






so magnificent, good ol' walt disney modeled sleeping beauty's castle after it. we sped here from zurich and got there at 4:05. lucky for us, ticket office closed at 4:00. we still had a good time touring the grounds and making friends with all the asian tourists.

even though i didn't take this picture, i want everyone to see how cool this place is.

#2. hitchhiker #2

he wasn't much of a talker- but that could have been the result of the language barrier...

#3. hitchhiker #3
we have no picture of this lady, but the poor woman had a bad knee and was limping down this huge hill. cade pulled over and told her we were there to save her. she graciously accepted the ride to the bottom of the hill.

#4. the country's obsession with beer.

we may not drink, but you have to admire passion this intense. this whole structure is made of bottle openers.

#5. sneaking into our hotel.

this was the fiasco of munich. here in europe most of the time, you pay for hotel rooms per person rather than per room. before we left on the road trip, we booked a great hotel in munich right in the city center- and lucky for us, they charged per room based on double occupancy. we figured that whole double occupancy thing was just a recommendation, so we brought along our manager's air mattress so we could save money by sleeping in one room. thinking nobody would ever notice how many people walk in and out of a hotel every day, we thought we would be fine. as soon as we got to the hotel- i knew the guy was not going to let this happen... he regulated the front door with an iron fist. the hotel only had about 12 rooms and he had memorized every person in it. we asked about renting another room, but the cost was triple what we were paying for the one room we had. we had to devise a plan to sneak in.
our first plan was to have cade and jony slyly walk around to the side entrance where we would let them in to the locked door. the problem: the side door was barricaded off with crates and garbage cans and by the time jony and cade had hopped over all the obstacles, the guy came out and caught them. after seeing jony's sleeping bag, the guy thought they were trying to sleep there outside. cade did a good job of playing it off and asked how much a room would be for the night - but now that he had seen cade and jony- we knew this was going to be even harder.
our second plan involved william and i going to our room, unplugging the tv and calling the front desk guy up to the room to fix it while cade and jony ran around the side again. the problem: the guy wouldn't fall for it. he said we would have to go without tv for a night.
jony started getting antsy by this point and thought the plan was all too much for him- so he decided to sleep in the car- which , unfortunately was parked outside of a strip club. jony was in for a long night. cade and william were more determined than ever to get in.
the third plan was fool-proof. i stayed up in the room which overlooked the small alley where the side door was located. i was on look out and my job was to yell "pollo" (spanish for chicken) if i thought cade was in danger of getting caught- that way the guy wouldn't know the yeller was american and link cade to us. william's main job was distraction. he had propped the side door open with a piece of bark and headed down to the front desk. while he showed they guy a picture on his camera, cade sneaked aroudnd the side and safely into the hotel. the whole process took about 3 hours. ridiculous, we know, but it was actually really fun.
our next big problem was they same guy was on duty the next morning- he practically lives in the hotel. william and i stuffed our pockets with rolls and cheese from the breakfast bar for cade and distracted the guy again so cade could leave out the side door in the morning. we are this cheap and we are not ashamed.

#6. the autobahn



cade loved driving- especially in germany. this is actual footage of how fast he was going. yes, it scares me that he was filming this while driving at a high rate of speed. that is why i slept.


#7. munich



we loved this city

again, the schedule was packed, so we didn't stay long before we were on the road again headed towards prague!