Inter-railing again.
Arriving at München Hauptbahnhof with large backpacks, we went to the tourist office to find somewhere to stay. We were told to walk up a particular street, where there were lots of pensions. True enough.

We went into one, the Monopol, as I remember. It was cheap, reception was smart enough, and so we asked to see a room, and were shown to a decent enough place. Three beds, clean, nice carpet, little pictures on the walls. Would this do? Oh yes, here's our Deutschmarks. And so we were left alone.

For 5 minutes. Then the reception-Frau came in and said sorry, there had been a mistake and this room was already booked. Could we move? No problem.

Except there was a problem. We were shown up to a dingy room with a depression in the middle of the floor, a fridge which sounded like a diesel locomotive and a window which didn't close properly, and led onto an external fire escape. Realising we'd been fleeced, we decided to grin and bear it, given that we had stayed in worse places during the trip for more money.

The most bizarre thing though was the pile of clothes on the fire escape. It was a full set - shirt, trousers, underpants and socks, and was lying there like its wearer had suddenly evaporated. I got my penknife out and fashioned some sort of means by which the window could be at least semi-secured in a closed position, just in case the chap rematerialised and wanted in during the night!

In order to get some sleep, we turned the fridge off during the night. This of course resulted in the freezer compartment defrosting and leaking a puddle of water which collected in the depression in the floor, and into which my mate Simmy's rucksack fell in the early hours. When we got up, we found a soggy rucksack having no obvious cause for its wetness, which had us confused for a while!

Oh, and the place was in the red light district. So when we went out for a pint that night, we had to walk a fair way before we found a pub which we deemed 'safe'. We were a bit naïve in those days...
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 13:03, 2 replies)

Interrailing
I'm planning on doing this in the summer! Hope it wasn't all this bad!
(Soulman87, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 17:11, closed)

No, it wasn't all that bad
Some of it was worse.

But to be fair, most of the places we stayed in were pretty decent youth hostels. You'll love it.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 18:27, closed)