LOVING Munich & feeling weird not being able to speak German

Today was my first full day in Germany! And we did, in fact, survive, which is a great start.

This morning was relatively slow which was nice, I don’t think I woke up until like 9:30am, so I got a decent amount of sleep. Unfortunately Alex was still feeling really sick so he ended up getting a doctor’s appointment in the morning whilst I got ready for the day. This was when I was getting really irritated with my phone, my esim still decided to not work, and I wasn’t about to go travelling without being contactable. No thank you. Luckily for me there’s a Telekom store just around the corner and Alex was an angel and got me a sim card. Now I have a German number which is wild, truly feeling a local cos of that. Whilst it wasn’t really an inconvenience, if anything it was nice to walk around Freising for a bit, it just didn’t put me in the best mood for the day. I thought buying an esim valid for all of the UK and Europe would mean I wouldn’t have to worry about that, but here we are. Anyway at least it’s sorted now.

To be honest I didn’t really have solid plans for the rest of the day. I was more seeing how Alex was feeling, but there was no way he was going to be well enough to spend a full day walking around a city with me, so I thought I’d get the touristy stuff done and out of the day. All I knew was that it was going to be very warm. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of the fact that a max temperature of 30 degrees isn’t actually hot. However. Unless you’ve been in 30 degrees on a train for 40mins completely filled to the brim with people and you have to stand the whole time and the guy behind you smells really bad and there’s no air conditioning, I don’t want to hear anything from anyone.

I got into Munich centre station within the hour though which was pretty good, and it was a 15 minute walk from there to Marienplatz, which is the main touristy square of the city. It was a big wakeup call when I passed through a main street on the way to the square. It really was packed with people. It was around 1pm at this point on a Saturday in the middle of Euro summer so I should’ve expected that, but I guess London never seemed too busy, and obviously Ireland wasn’t, so I got used to having personal space. But not today! It also didn’t help that Adele and Coldplay were in town, so it was extra busy for that. First impressions of Munich were very positive, I really loved doing a couple laps of the main square which was so beautiful. I came around a corner to get there so I turned and bam there it was!

It was a bit disconcerting walking around and understanding nothing of what people were saying. I had assumed to hear a lot of UK and American accents, but the Germans were still out in force, and honestly probably most people were either Spanish or Italian, which I found interesting. It was a bit isolating though, especially when I couldn’t seem to get the courage to ask someone to take a photo for me. I was waiting to hear someone speaking English and I would ask them, but I realised pretty quickly I could be waiting a while. Although it’s nice to feel like a touristy city is still lived in by locals, which so many big European cities have massive issues with, it was hard to feel like I could get to know the city well, like I would always be on the fringes if I was here for a longer period of time. Although I’m also well aware that everyone of these people would’ve been able to speak English if they needed to, but then I would just feel bad expecting them to be able to accommodate me not being able to speak their language.

Anyway I continued up a small side street heading away from Marienplatz to hunt down a church I had seen on Tiktok that I wanted to pop inside. From the outside I initially thought I got the wrong place, it was all under construction and didn’t seem like the location for an elaborate church. I was incorrect, of course, as inside the quite small space, was probably the most ornate church I’ve ever been inside. And I’ve been inside some pretty cool churches. I can’t even begin to describe what the inside looked like, the layers and colours and art were so detailed and carefully considered, I’m sure the photos aren’t going to do it justice either. I spent a lot longer in there than I thought I would. If anything, it was out of the sun, and relatively quiet, so it was a nice break. I sat down on one of the benches and started seeing what else was recommended to do in the city. I came to the conclusion pretty quickly that I couldn’t be bothered to make my way to all these different places. If anything my phone was already warning me it was overheating and was only happy tucked away in my bag. Which is a bit hard when you need to use Google Maps for everything. So I decided I would do a little walking tour, and found one that started in an hour at 3:15pm, back in Marienplatz. There was only one spot left on the English speaking one, so I snapped it up and decided to walk to a city park to eat my lunch before it started. The plan ended up working out really well, I even found somewhere to refill my water. I didn’t know it at the time but I basically ended up walking the entire route of the tour before it even started, but I didn’t mind. It was good to just wander around following someone else instead of having to think about where you’re going to next. And I actually learnt more about the buildings and the city rather than walking up to them and thinking they’re pretty. My favourite little fun fact is really random, but I’ll share why not. There are 2 big stone lions outside the town hall (cause why not I guess) and one of them has its mouth open, one of them has its mouth closed. Turns out there is a symbolic meaning behind this, being that the closed-mouth one was on the side of the square closest to a church, symbolising a warning to not speak badly about the faith. The open-mouthed lion was on the side of the square closest to the Royal Family residence, meaning that if you were going to speak badly about someone, it would be better to do so about the Royal Family rather than the faith. It really just reinforced to me the strength and power of the church in medieval times, that they were to be feared more than the Emperor.

The tour finished around 5pm, which was later than I expected it to. I was very much done for the day. Even though I had only been in the city for 5 hours or so, 90% of that being outside in the sun is very draining, and I was very much looking forward to sitting on the train for a bit. One thing I will say about that train station, they really don’t want you to know where you’re going. From Marienplatz I took the metro first to the train station, then wandered around for a good 10 minutes trying to find my platform before eventually just asking one of the staff what was going on. Turns out it was only just up the stairs, but if I’d followed signs I thought were relevant I would’ve ended up going the complete wrong way, so it’s lucky I checked.

The train itself actually had some space, so I was able to sit down, which was lovely. As we approached Freising though, I realised that at the top before, the train would actually split, with 2 carriages going directly to the airport and only the first carriage going to Freising. Knowing my luck, I ended up being in the carriage farthest from the one I needed. Unfortunately for me, this was the first time I’ve ever run to make a train in my life. Getting off at one station, I had all of 1 minute to sprint to the front of the train to get on the front carriage before I either ended up back at the airport or in a random in the middle of absolute nowhere. I made it, thank god, and also found another seat, even though I was only on for another 5 minutes or so.

Once the train arrived back in Freising I went to the closest Rewe to get some basics for the next couple of days. This was where I got a bit overwhelmed. I feel like with most foreign languages I’ve some across they have some similarity to English where I can decipher what’s going on. Unfortunately for me, German is definitely not one of those languages. I pretty much had to just go up and down every aisle, looking at everything until I found what I needed. Also turns out to be able to leave the store you have to scan the barcode on the receipt, which I must’ve looked like an idiot trying to figure out. All those little things built up pretty quickly, I felt so stupid and dumb. Why did I feel so proud of myself for buying 5 things? That took me probably half an hour. I was pretty hard on myself walking back to Alex’s apartment, I felt like I was a burden to the people in the town for not understanding these things, and though I can pretty much guarantee not a single person in the shop cared, I can overthink enough for all of us. And when Alex stopped to talk to someone at the apartment complex it felt so strange to have no clue what was being said, or not being able to contribute to the conversation. A part of me is really looking forward to being in hostels now for this reason. English is going to often be the only commonality language wise, which I’m sure will help this issue. I also felt very reserved and shy, all my personality went out the window when I couldn’t express myself how I wanted to. Anyway, I guess that’s something to get used to, at least whilst I’m in Germany. And the thing is that everyone has been really lovely so far, so this is very much a me problem.

Back at the apartment we grabbed some water and walked up to a popular hill in the town to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful spot and exactly the downtime I needed. Freising as a spot is so pretty, I think we’re going to explore more of this area tomorrow which I’m really looking forward to.

I’m trying to lean into my uncertainty just go with the flow, not be afraid to ask for help, but it’s definitely hard. I’m working on it!

Currently MIA,

Lauren x