In which Andrew falls in a vat of barley at the Heineken museum.

Just because you don’t particularly enjoy the taste of Heineken beer doesn’t mean you can’t go to the Heineken Beer Museum and pretend like you are its biggest fan. Andrew and I took full advantage of this fact yesterday. But before that, we happened upon an open air market, and consequently this:

(there is supposed to be a video here of a singing doll that's really terrifying. 

I hate that Blogger won't let you experience it)

We also ate really large salmon omelettes for lunch. As in, bigger than my head omelettes.

But back to the Heineken museum. Did you know that hops were originally used as preservatives? Did you know they smell horrible? Are you aware that Heineken beer used to be delivered by Shire horses? I know all this now, and more! I also had the “brew you” experience, where I got to stand on a vibrating platform, watch a fun video of a guy swimming in a vat of barley, and get sprayed periodically in the face with water!

Stirring that barley like a champ.

Look! A picture of BOTH OF US IN THE SAME SHOT!

I don’t want to give too much away, in case you want to visit yourself someday, but disco balls were also involved. We really did have a good time, and by the end, when we received our two “free” glasses of Heineken, we both agreed it tasted better than we remembered, aka it had a taste.

That night we boarded our overnight train to Munich. Exhausted from our long day and delighted by how far our seats leaned back, we stared out at the passing landscapes and started to drift away… Only to be awoken by an angry German attendant snapping at us. We appeared to be in trouble. She demanded that we gather our things immediately and follow her to another compartment. Very disoriented, we shuffled in line until we were quarantined in a sleeping car with a British couple, a German guy with bad allergies, and a dude reading Mockingjay. Sitting awkwardly with our bags still on our laps, we wondered aloud as to what we had done to deserve this. When we asked Angry German Lady, she said, simply, “Too cold.” Very cryptic. We asked if we could go back to the car where the seats leaned back. She said no.

Thanks to her stern tone, it took us about twenty minutes to realize we had just basically been granted a free upgrade.  At this point we stopped grumbling, moved the seats up into bed positions, and ended up getting a lot better sleep than we ever could have otherwise.

Welcome to Germany! Where good news sounds like a reprimand and pretzels are everywhere. Also, one of the train attendants was bald and had a tattoo of an eye on the back of his head. I kid you not.