Goodbye, Germany!

The internet in Brussels is difficult to access so I am a bit behind on my blog posts. This was meant to be posted on Wednesday.

Yesterday morning was free, so Jenna, Lindsey, Keith and I walked to the Münchner Stadtmuseum. The exhibit "Typically Munich!" went over the history of Munich. There were a lot of old paintings which were interesting to see. The only problem was all of the signs explaining the pieces were in German. We had a book in English but only some of the information was included so I didn't know what a lot of the pieces were for. That was probably one of the worst language barriers that I have experienced so far; normally it hasn't been bad at all. Nevertheless, it was a cool exhibit. We then went to an exhibit on puppets which was really creepy but cool. There was one life size clown doll that moved and laughed when someone walked in front of it. Probably one of the most terrifying moments ever!! The four of us then went to a little restaurant in the market and had delicious house-made Gluhwein. I felt like I could have drank cup after cup, but that would not have been smart :] We also had a delicious ham and cheese sandwich on toasted bread that tasted amazing...there were like four different kinds of cheese on the sandwich! We then picked up some bread, meat, and cheese at the market to have for dinner. 

In the afternoon the group walked to Paulaner Brauhaus for a tour of the brewery. Paulaner used to be a monastic brewery which was interesting because we visited a monastic brewery today (more about that later). Our tour guide was a brewing student at the brewing school in Munich which is the rival of the VLB, the school we visited in Berlin. I was surprised to learn that only 15% of the brewing students are German. He offered us each a glass of beer during the tour; I had the weisse beer. It was very banana-y which I think is starting to grow on me. It was probably the best weisse beer that I have had during this trip so far. Overall it was a great tour and a cool brewery. If I ever make it back to Munich I would definitely stop in again!

We walked back through the park where Oktoberfest is held. It was cool to imagine all of the tents set up...maybe some day I will get to experience Oktoberfest myself! When we got back to the hotel, Gudrun talked about monks and printing and Keith did his presentation on monastic brewing. I learned that centuries ago, monks had the advantage of owning their own land and therefore were able to grow the crops that they wanted rather than do what the king said. This made it easier to grow the crops needed for brewing beer. Beer also came in handy when the monks fasted for 40 days during Lent; they made the beers stronger to take the place of food. Keith brought a few beers from monasteries in for us to try. We paired the beers with gruyer cheese which was delicious. The beers were all fairly dark but pretty easy to drink. Later that evening, most of us went to Augustiner and had a mas while enjoying each other's company. Overall a good day.

Today we took a trip to Kloster Andechs, a monastic brewery. The drive up was beautiful...you could see a lot of the countryside. I learned that the top of the hill is a place of pilgrimage. There are six monks who live there, though the other 200 employees are not monks. It was much bigger than I expected...they bottle about 20,000 beers every hour! After the tour we sat on the top of the hill and looked over the countryside. The sun was shining and we could see the Alps in the background. So beautiful. It was even pretty warm. I could have sat up there for hours. We left Andechs at noon and came back to the hotel. Jenna and I had döner for lunch...it's some kind of meat but we have no idea what it is. It was delicious though! We walked around a bit to pick up some last minute Munich souvenirs. I will be sad to leave this place but am excited to see what Brussels has to offer.