Day 6 – Munich – New Years Eve

Of all of the ways to spend New Years Eve, I don’t think anything will ever compare to the New Years Eve we had here last night. It was as if everyone in the city had gotten the memo to go absolutely insane all night long. It was unbelievable. We started out the day still at our hotel in Austria, but left early in the morning for Munich. The trip was almost a three hour trip, but went by fast once we fell asleep. Once in Munich, we were given a two hour window to walk around the downtown area, grab some food and go shopping because there won’t be any shops open on New Years Day. One of the main spots of the city we wanted to hit was the Hofbrauhaus. Once we got there, it was clear we were not going to stay long at all. It was overflowing with people looking to get a stein of beer and some food. Although it was a short visit, I’m glad we went, just so I can say “I was at the Hofbrauhaus”. After that we went shopping for a short while before grabbing a quick bite of some bratwurst, the best I have ever had, no doubt, and then heading back to the bus to get to our hotel. Our hotel room might be one of my favorites we have had all trip. It deceives you at the beginning because all you see once you walk in is one pull out couch, which scared me because I was rooming with three other guys. However, once you are fully in the room, you see a staircase leading up to a loft with two beds. A quick nap later, we got all dressed up to go to dinner at the restaurant right down the street. With our dinner of chicken, pork, steak, and bratwursts, we were treated to a round of beers by our Commissioner. I don’t think he realized how large the beers were that we were about to get because as soon as the waiters brought us our steins of beers, you could almost hear the wallet in his back pocket crying. One of the things that I was most nervous about on this trip was the food. I am a bit of a picky eater, so I wasn’t sure if I would like what we ate at all. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Everything here has been absolutely delicious. I don’t know what they do differently, but the pretzels here make the best pretzel back at home taste like paper. I don’t understand it. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to get a little less dressed up, and pre-game a little bit before we hit the streets. On the streets, everyone was losing their minds shooting off fireworks, dancing in the streets, whole groups of people chanting. And that was just our group. We started out in the square watching everyone shooting off their fireworks. After that, we headed to the train station to get to a bar on the other side of town. It was here that we spent the New Year. This bar had the whole nine yards: dancing, music, fog lights, laser lights, and filled to the brim with people. There wasn’t much of a countdown to New Years. It was more of a two minute, and one minute warning. But when the clock struck, the entire place was up for grabs. We stayed at this bar for the majority of the night, leaving at around 1:15 to try and find some other teammates. We developed a system early on in the night that if anyone gets lost, to start yelling out random things and having everyone in the group repeat it. That way, it will be easier to find the group. Well, it paid off. Walking through the train station we started our chant and across the way we heard a group of people repeat it back and it turned out to be another big group of ours lost in the train station. I couldn’t believe it actually worked. We ended up getting severely lost on the way home just because it is a brand new city few of us have been to, no one spoke english but us, and we were quite intoxicated at this point and needed to get back to the hotel to make our 3:00 curfew. So after around an hour of spinning in circles and passing the same places twice, we finally were able to gather our bearings and find our way back to the hotel in time for curfew. This New Years was without a doubt the best I have had yet, and will be a memory I have forever.