Well it was another fun filled day in Munich! I decided to take advantage of the tour that was offered through our hostel, it was a fantastic tour with a local guy who's focus is to make people understand what it is to live in Munich.

The divide between Bavaria and the rest of Germany is really quite intense.. Munich, in short, is made up of older, conservative, wealthy, single people. Whereas the capital city of Berlin is younger, liberal, working class. Most of the stereotypes that people often associate as distinctly German (Oktoberfest, Liederhösen, the Hofbräuhaus, the Nazi party) are actually all from Bavaria, the only state in Germany that refused to sign the national constitution. After the tour, my tour guide also brought me to a place to buy my first beer stein! He gave me some pointers on what kind of stein to buy, and found a beautiful one that I'm really pumped about!

After the tour I took the tram to the Paulaner Bierkellar, and to my surprise there was a huge festival going on, their Starkbierfest. This particular festival takes place during Lent and was started by monks, they brewed a higher alcohol, higher calorie beer. Wanting to get the approval of the Pope, they sent some of the beer for him to try. Because of the lack of preservatives, and the lack of refrigeration, the beer went bad. Went the Pope tried it, he declared that if they could drink that, it was fine to do so. So during Lent, the monks would drink 5-6 liters of beer around 8% every day, getting their caloric intake from their beer! Sounds good to me. Had a beer there and then headed back into the city. Decided I should leave Munich as I started it, at the Hofbräuhaus. I of course managed to find a table full of Americans. I sat down with them, playing cards, enjoying the fantastic beer and atmosphere. I was a bit embarrassed as the night went on because I managed to also choose the loudest table in the place.. oh well, had a good time none the less! I will definitely miss Munich, it's a city I'll have to come back to (probably during Oktoberfest :-D).