Munich can also boast the largest city park in the world: Englischer Garten. I don’t know where they got the English thing from, because it doesn’t look like an English garden in the least. Instead, it is a lush park with forestlike areas alternated with big open lawns and smaller, cozy openings. And the beer gardens, of course.

Through all of this flows the Eisbach. At the spot where the underground river enters the park and flows into the open air, the constant wave that is created has turned out to be perfect for surfing. So there I was, walking through this city park in Munich, and was suddenly met on the path by a guy in a wet suit and a surf board under his arm. Such a wierd sight. I had to check it out. And sure, people were actually surfing. And it even seemed to be a pretty good place to practice. Not as exhilirating as the waves at the Robertsport beach in Liberia, but decent. The surfers in Munich, the city without an ocean coast, have been resourceful, indeed.

In another part of the park, the sun shining through the red leaves on the trees by the Japanese tea house made for a more romantic setting.

The big center lawn, with the Monopteros monument in the background. A perfect place to spend a lazy afternoon in the sun. Unfortunately for me, the sun was already about to drop behind the tree tops, which meant I had to start heading back to Max’ couch.

Max had lended me a bike, and through the Friday happy Munich night, with Verdi sounding from Ludwig strasse, I slowly rolled back toward the west. With the wind in my face and the movement in my body, I felt perfectly content. Munich had welcomed me with open arms.

The Bavarian state library is just next to the Ludwig Maximilians Universität, and is this huge piece of a building which it is very hard to get a good perspective from the street. No picture I took could really capture it’s extreme, stylish squareness.

I also realised that it mainly serves as a research library, with a archive-like interior and students sitting everywhere, studying, despite it being Friday evening already. No children’s books to check. But the entrance hall was pretty.

And as if by chance, I happened to see a sign in German next to a picture of a really old book. The only thing I understood of the sign was that there was an exhibition and that it was free. So I though, why not. I climbed some really narrow stairs and ended up in one of the library wings, where a small dark room was filled with 500 year old books from the Bavarian royal collection. Incredibly beautiful books, like pieces of art, with illustrations and yellow KRUSIGT paper. There was a sign forbidding cameras, but there was no one else there and my smartphone can’t really be called a camera, now, can it? It doesn’t even have a flash.

A book of medicine, prabably made in Naples in 950.

Some kind of book about Christianity from 1541 (my German has never been particularly strong).

A lovely little exhibition. I wish they still made books like these. Then I would certainly buy them, instead of always borrowing them from the library like now.

Munich used to be the capital of a kingdom. Bavaria. A kingdom with aspirations and at least occationally a lot of money too. There are huge, intricately decorated buildings, wide boulevards, high churches, the biggest inner city park in the world and museums full of art by the big masters. I guess, in the European context, Munich can’t really compare – what with London and Paris and Amsterdam and Berlin and Vienna as centers of former empires. But if you just forget about the competition for a while, there really is a huge amount of both high and low culture to enjoy. My first day in the city (28/6), I only spent walking around looking at all the houses.

In the middle of it all lies Neues Rathaus, the ”new” City Hall, only new in the sense that it’s not as old as (at least the foundations of) the Alter Rathaus, that lies on the other side of the .

On one corner of the Neues Rathaus, a dragon is climbing up the facade. Without a sign or anything describing how that came about. I wonder how that happened.

Next to the City Hall square lies Marienhof, apparently a popular place to meet. In the background, you can see two important things: the twin towers of Frauenkirche, and the crane. No other building in central Munich is allowed to be higher than the Frauenkirche towers, 99 meters high, and for some reason there was reconstructions going on all over the city when I was there. Hence the crane.

From within, Frauenkirsche is pretty sparingly decorated. It was built during the tail end of the 15^th century, but was badly damaged during World War II, as most buildings in Munich were – so this white and light thing is, to my understanding, a result of the post-war reconstruction.

At Max Joseph Platz, by the opera and theater and the Residence, two orchestras were practicing for an outdoor concert that evening. I walked onto the square to the sound of ominous bass tubes and thought: This is so Wagner. Which, surprisingly enough, it was. I was pretty impressed by myself. I’m not really a classical music connoiseur. I stayed there for a while and listened to them finishing the practice session. The actual concert would be at ten at night, a competition bewteen Wagner and Verdi, and it seemed like the entire town was dressed up in red and blue, or simply just lederhosen, for this event. Munich was full of life.

The Roman style temple like structure at the head of Odeonsplatz made for a great place to view the bustle and preparations for the weekend’s festivities.

And in the Dianatempel in the Hofgarten, a man was playing the violin.

The high, gilded ceiling of the Michaelskirche. I didn’t know this, but Bavaria is traditionally catholic, and nowhere does this become more apparent than in this boastingly decorated, incredibly high and wide church.

A facade on the opposite side of the street from Michaelskirche. There were many houses in downtown Munich dressed in red flowers. I liked it.

One of the more luxurious places to shop in Munich is Fünf Höfe. From the outside, it looks like just any kind of building – but on the inside, the corridors and halls are all decorated in a modern fashion. Just the kind of geometrical decor that I love taking photos of.

The guide book said that Münich is a perfect mixture or high culture and beer. So, this is one of the more beer related Munich sights: the place of Oktoberfest. Now in June, it was only a huge empty space in the middle of the city. Very wierd.

Hofbräuhaus, the most famous beer hall in Munich, was more lively, with live music and tourists drinking buckets of beer for lunch. I only took a peek – drinking beer all by myself isn’t really my thing.

But just outside the beer hall, by a pharmacy, I found this little sign, next to a hook in the wall. Cute, but poor dog, having to be parked.

In Munich, I was staying with Max, in an area called Laim. He is a geography student, really into urban planning and also a passionate photographer and cook.

Max and his Canadian friend Shelayne couchsurfed with me and Lina in April. They were supposed to stay for three nights at first, but then some stuff happened that made them have to stay in Stockholm for a fourth night – and there was never a question about letting them stay in our livingroom. I’ve had five couchsurfers staying with us (I’m forcing this on Lina, but I think she’s fine with it, I really hope she’s fine with it), and Max and Shelayne were my favorites. Even though, Marla was wonderful too. Ah, there are so many great people on Couchsurfing!

Anyhow, on this extra night that they stayed with us, they decided to do something nice – so they cooked a lavish dinner for us. And seriously. How a 21-year-old has had time to develop such cooking skills, I don’t understand. Max is vegan, and I guess you have to be kind of into cooking and willing to experiment with stuff if you like food and live in such a meat and milk centered food culture as the German. The night after they left, Lina, standing in front of the fridge trying to decide what would be the fastest way to get some calories into her system, half jokingly said that we should have couchsurfers stay with us more often, so that they could cook for us. Unfortunately, I think Max was an exception rather than the couchsurfer rule. His food was amazing.

And the first thing that happened on my first morning waking up on Max’s couch was that he started setting this incredible breakfast table, with bread and spreads and juice and tea and soy puddings. I’m not usually that into breakfast, I eat oat porrige without anything on just to get it over with. But with this setup, what could I do but eat? It was delicious.

And this just continued. I spent four mornings at Max’s, and every morning he did something new for breakfast. We ate vegan pancakes and a really delicious vegan omelette made with nuts and vegetables. I was out all day and in the evenings we usually met up downtown and did stuff, so we didn’t get a chance to cook any other meals together. But Max’s breakfasts could have convinced me to stay in Munich for weeks. Because, his cooking was just one example of his generousity as a host.

Yet again, I find myself really liking a city I’m visiting, but at the same time knowing that that feeling might be impossible to separate from the people I met there.

Tonight, Tuesday July 9th, is my last night in Sarajevo, this beautiful city that I’ve totally fallen in love with. As always, I’m way behind with my overly ambitious blogging (more than 10 days, in reality I’m about to round up day 25 of the trip, but have only posted things until day 13). I have loads of photos and notes, though, and will keep on writing too much – because that makes me feel like I’ve actually experienced the things I’ve encountered and seen.

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to catch the bus to Belgrade (they closed the railway line between Sarajevo and Belgrade last winter), and late in the afternoon I will hopefully arrive there and be met by Hanna and Kirke at the bus station. Excepting for a slight lack of sleep, things could hardly be any better.

I’ve arrived in Munich and am lying on Max’s couch, FINALLY in my silk traveling sheets and blue sleeping bag. It’s not as if I haven’t been allowed to use them before, it’s just, I’ve been provided guest rooms and futons and bedding, and it would’ve felt silly unpacking my sleeping bag in all that generosity.

At Max’s, I’m not really a couchsurfer, since he isn’t a complete stranger (he couchsurfed at my place for four nights in April, after all). But it feels real enough. I’ve interrailed for eight days. I’m in the fifth city of my trip. I’ve experienced delays, missed my connecting train and had some long, odd conversations with some fellow travelers. And now I’m lying on a couch in my blue sleeping bag. This is the real thing.

I’ve been traveling from Amsterdam since 10. Now, it’s almost 5. I changed trains in Düsseldorf. On the train from Amsterdam, the conductor had to throw out three people who didn’t have tickets. It turned into a little argument just when he took my interrail card and I guess he had other things on his mind, but he just punched a hole to the bottom of my ticket, returned it to me and went on arguing. He was not supposed to do that, non of the other conductors have. It’s not that kind of ticket. I hope it doesn’t create a problem for me later on. I would hate to be thrown off a train in a small town in, lets say, Hungary, just because two junkies and an old man hadn’t bought their train tickets in Amsterdam.

The Düsseldorf train station was nothing special, but it made me think of the Regina Spektor song “Düsseldorf” (that I won’t be able to listen to, because nothing after M was transferred to my phone during my travel preparations).

In Düsseldorf, I caught the next train, that actually will take me all the way to Munich. A guy from Chile got on the train some time after me and sat down on the seat next to mine. And then he wouldn’t stop talking! But it was nice. He had many stories to tell, he had just been to Gothenburg and he was so young and excied about everything.

He got off, like, half an hour ago and now I’m suddenly feeling extremely tired. Like, can’t-keep-my-eyes-open-tired. I was supposed to read the Munich guide book chapter, but seriously, I don’t think I could take anything in. I’ll simply have to take a nap, and hope that the sleepiness will pass before we reach Munich in one and a half hour.

In Amsterdam I stayed with Alison. A friend of friend of my mother’s. I remember meeting her once when I was nine or something, but don’t think I have met her since. But when I told my mother’s friend (Morena – I grew up playing with her daughter and she still lives in the same neighborhood as me, she’s almost like an extra mother for me, beside my three aunts) that I was going to Amsterdam, she asked if I wanted her to contact Alison. And I thought, why not. It wouldn’t hurt.

So, thanks to that kind of spur of the moment contact interchange, I got on tram 17 from the Amsterdam train station and went south to Oude-West.

And, turns out, Alison is an amazing host. She didn’t only provide me with a bed, but also with food, maps, directions and a movie night in her seriously amazing home cinema, somehow geniously set up in the tiny but very neat apartment of hers. We saw Warm Bodies, a romantic comedy/zombie movie. Super cute. SUPER cute. The footage, the uplifting story, the incredible soundtrack.

Alison introduced me to both Indonesian and Morocco food, after I asked her about the tyical Dutch food and she said that it was nothing special – but there are many immigrants in the Netherlands from Indonesia and Morocco.

I realize this small text contains a lot of superlatives, indeed, that the things I’ve written about Amsterdam in general are almost too positive. And at least some of it is probably due to the very warm and generous welcoming I had from Alison (and her son Bo – don’t forget Bo, who managed to be really nice too, despite being a teenage boy and all that that entails).

It can do so much to a visit to a new place, the kind of people that you meet. And for some reason, I’ve met so many good and interesting and just awesome people when I’ve traveled during the last couple of years. It’s not as if I don’t meet any cool people when I’m back home, but it just happens so rarely. It’s probably because I’m much more open to the new when I’m traveling. Maybe I should try to get in to the traveling state of mind in Stockholm too. Because, despite all the good meeting people while traveling brings, having to say goodbye to all these incredible persons that I meet on the road is frustrating and painful. It forces me to start planning new trips as soon as I get back home again.

The front of the 19^th century house in Oude-West, where Alison lives.

I almost expected there to be more cool and innovative stuff. But, I guess, with a city that actually spends money to put up statues and other kinds of art pieces made by local artists, painting illegally on walls and the pavement might not seem as appealing.

Almost everyone seems to bike in Amsterdam, everywhere. With beautiful vintage bikes and flowers in their baskets. And I understand why. Amsterdam is a city that is very easy to bike in. It is densely built and the roads almost seem designed for biking on, narrow and picturesque, rather than to drive a car on. And I like bicycles. So that’s just another reason to like Amsterdam. All the wonderful bicycles.