// when the trail is boring
Long term travel twists the traveller's moods back upon themselves constantly. Sometimes everything works in your favour; the sun shines, your wanderings take you to vibrant artists' squats, you find great little cafes that you'd never find at home and you meet people who suit your personality of the moment perfectly.
Other times, you are in a city who's underground is either very deep or non‑existent, where the most cultural thing you can afford to do is wander around the Weihnachtsmarks, and even if you could afford to visit all the museums, you've done it all before anyway. To cheer yourself up, you find a traditional looking pub and grab a beer, sitting down to write.
Then "Can't Fight the Moonlight" comes on the stereo and you find yourself in the deepest, darkest pit of despair. (Slight exaggeration perhaps.)
There are down days and up days, but in general for me the down days have been few and short. There's nothing wrong with Munich as a city, but I can't seem to find anything unusual here. The Hofbrauhaus, upon which Oktoberfest centres each year, is surrounded by extremely kitsch tourist junk. The buildings are cool enough but after 8 months it takes something pretty impressive to get more than a few seconds' glance. I wandered the Englischer Garten and visited the Chinese Tower but, again, a park is a park really. Nice enough though but not photo worthy. There are various other 'must‑sees' in Munich and I've seen them all while wandering around various Weihnachtsmarks. All in all, Munich has left me a bit underwhelmed, but probably through no fault of its own.
My couchsurfing hosts have been great. On my first night they bought a big christmas tree which sits in the living room where I am sleeping. The girls decorated it beautifully while the boys made Gluhwein and we all sat in the cosy house listening to christmas carols ‑ very christmassy! We also went to see Madagascar 2 which was hilarious even in a foreign language. Their apartment is decorated with a lot of cool ideas that I'm going to steal when I have my own place; so at least I have a great place to watch tv in when I'm bored with wandering around.
London in 2 days, and on to my hatmaking course. Home in just over 6 weeks ‑ luckily for the bank account! I'm not sad that the trip is coming to an end, but I'm still enjoying myself a lot ‑ the perfect balance that all my fellow travellers wish they could attain.
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