Turning lemons into lemonade...or wheat into beer

(Unintentional) DAY 17
 After another late night out yesterday, J and I woke up, packed up, ate breakfast, and headed to the airport to head on back to Chicago. We were flying from Dubrovnik to Munich and had a one hour layover until our flight to O’Hare. As the time kept getting closer to our boarding time, there was no one at the gate and nothing was happening. Boarding time came and went and we started to get anxious. Having a one hour layover in a big airport is cutting it close enough, but now time was getting real tight. People eventually started lining up at the gate to board, including us, even though nothing was going on. The time on the flight board said we were delayed 20 minutes, but no one from the airline said a word. Some people went up to the airline attendant, including me, to ask what the deal was and they had no answers. The girl, who was now hiding behind the counter, assured me we’d make our flight and it would all be fine. More time came and went and I didn’t believe all would be fine. I was getting very anxious (and that’s an understatement). It was now almost 40 minutes past our take-off and we still were waiting. More people kept going up to ask what the deal was because there were people who had connections to Boston, DC, Newark, and Vancouver, all within the same time frame as ours, more or less. We were all panicking with zero information and no communication from anyone from the airline. Finally, they started the boarding process to the shuttle bus and then on the plane. Once on the plane, we sat some more. Again, no information. At this point, J and I had figured we were going to miss our flight. We were taking off about 5 minutes prior to when our connecting flight was supposed to leave. This clearly wasn’t happening for us. 

Our flight to Munich was very short and when we landed the attendants listed all the flights that had been rebooked, and there were a bunch, including ours. We all then had to wait in line to get our new plane tickets and our hotel and food vouchers. BUT, we couldn’t get our suitcases unless we wanted to go through the hassle of re-checking them tomorrow, which we did not. I had no clothes in my carry-on to wear tomorrow, but J said she had a pair of leggings that I can borrow. (And I’ll just have to sleep in a towel tonight too because no pj’s either. Ugh.) This has legit never happened to me ever before, but now I’ll know to always carry a spare pair of clothes. 

Anywho, we got all the information for our hotel and meals and left the airport to find our hotel shuttle bus. On the way out, there was an awesome BMX show going on with them going up ramps and over a high jump. We watched for a few and then waited for our shuttle to the hotel. We figured as long as we were in Munich, we’d make the best of it and head into town and explore a little and even try to make a visit to the famous Hofbrauhaus. 

I’ve been to Munich before, on my first European vacation, and thought I remembered it pretty well. There was the main square and church and the beer hall. I looked up my blog post from that trip and some of it came back to me. Unfortunately our hotel was close to the airport and not to the city center at all, but we made due and took the hotel shuttle back to the airport and caught the train into town. Yup, more local public transportation. Not a problem. Waiting for the shuttle, we met a couple from New York that were my parents age and all four of us just stayed together and did the damn thing in town. We arrived in the Marienplatz around 9 pm and it was still light out as the sun was finishing setting. We walked up the subway stairs right into the square and were immediately blown away by St. Peter’s Church. J let out an audible gasp, I yelled OMG, and we all just stopped at stared at the beauty of this church. I honestly didn’t remember how big and pretty it was and really appreciated being able to come back and see it again. The sheer magnitude of it, and all the gorgeous flowers and detail were unbelievable. So different to what we had been seeing in Greece and Croatia.

The four of us walked through the square and all around, just admiring and generally being grateful that we made the best out of an annoying situation. We walked all around, in and out of side streets, taking it all in. We stopped many times for photos of great old buildings and a really cool fountain. Our final destination was obviously Hofbrauhaus, the very famous beer hall. I had been there before, but it’s obviously a must when in Munich. We had planned to get beer and a pretzel there, but unfortunately we didn’t have any euros left because we used them up before going to Croatia, knowing we wouldn’t need them again. We were able to put the beer on the credit card, but the pretzel lady only could take cash so no pretzel for us. Bummer. 

We had been in town for about two and a half hours before finally heading back on the train to the airport. The last shuttle had left at 12 so we missed it and had to take a cab back to the hotel. The couple was nice enough to treat us to the cab ride since we didn’t have any euros and the guys said they didn’t take credit cards (although we think they were lying). We got back to the hotel around 12:30 and got ready for bed. 

What could have been such a terrible ending to an amazing trip ended up being such a fun opportunity to see something different. We really turned lemons into lemonade, or should I say, wheat into beer. Even though I had been to Munich before, J had not and it was another country checked off her list. We definitely turned a bad situation into a good one (although I wish I had clean clothes). Hopefully tomorrow all will go smoothly and we will be back to Chicago. I hate that we didn’t make home the way we we’re supposed to, but I definitely can’t hate on the fact we basically got an awesome free night in another incredible European city.