welcome to the wombat
Getting from city to city in Europe can sometimes be a bit of a freestyle mission, and this was no exception. I had about 36 hours to get from the middle of Germany to the airport in Munich. The afterclash party left me with a solid 30 minutes of sleep before we started the drive, so I was a bit miserable on the autobahn. My friend Flo was driving, and Viola was along for the ride too. Once in Munich, I stumbled across the Mercedes showroom near Violas house, and dropped in for a look. I’m not a big car person, or much of a designer, but this place was really intriguing. The venture ended up with about an hour of me wandering around the place in awe of all the industrial design that went into it. Hundreds of cars all indoors, multiple levels, suspended in the air, on platforms connected with just stairs…I’ve always liked the German architecture. Around this time I started to wish I had a small camera for snapshots, so for now i’ve resorted to pulling images off other websites to give you a glimpse of the place.
On the way to get some dinner I was walking down the road there listening to some music and had one of those “wow life is great right now” moments. It’s hard to explain, but it’s kind of a reflection I’ve had several times before when I start thinking about the recent days, current situation, and all the factors that played out in order for me to end up at that particular spot, and then add an epoch song on the ipod at just that moment, and everything just feels right.
Well without getting too deep, I ended up in line at Subway, since everything else was closed on Sunday. It was a bit awkward being in line, asking to order in English. I’m far from the city center, nowhere near any tourist attractions, and you can feel everybody thinking to themselves “Is this guy lost or something”? Regardless, one of the “sandwich artists” spoke english and I had some dinner thanks to the recent Kendama funds. (for the record, selling Kendamas in Europe has been the only time i’ve gotten the good side of the dollar/euro conversion rate)
There was still lots of time to kill before my flight the next day, and we got a phone call from Jon Julio and the Valo Team who were in a similar “mid-travel” situation and staying at a hostel next to the center station. This was my first introduction to the Wombat. It was a nice surprise, since Alex, Erik, Oli, Jon, and Brandon are all good friends and there was some room in the hostel, and Jon threw me a free breakfast ticket … things were getting better and better.
The Wombat is one of the nicest hostels i’ve ever stayed at. The location is perfect, it’s affordable, and kept up very well. There is a lounge area with hammocks and giant pillows, plus they run their own bar, which doubles as a breakfast room … or maybe the other way around? I should have shot a little bit more, but I snagged a few of these from Brandon’s blog.
enter the wombat. photo b-smith
hammocks are prime. photo b-smith
nice rooms. photo b-smith
juice!
ze vinner of ze vinterclash vith hiz moneys
We spent some time walking around center station, which has people coming through 24/7. This was the first place I came to on my first trip to Europe, and have probably spent the most time here of all the stations I’ve been in. I went through the archives and found these old photos from the 2005 trip. These are all shot within a few blocks.
