München

I went to München for the weekend! (That translates to “Munich,” for those of you who got hungry reading the German name.) Micah and Corey are living there (lucky ducks!) and working at BMW. Corey made a pilgrimage to the Vatican over this Easter weekend (to see the pope!). But Micah was still there, and he and his roommate (absent for the weekend as well) were nice enough to let me, Bridget, Joey, and Justin shack up in their apartment for the past three nights. Ganz toll! It was originally supposed to be only me, Bridget, and Justin, but as we were all converging on the city Thursday night, I get a call from Micah saying “About 30 minutes ago Joey decided he wanted to join in on the fun this weekend. And guess what?! He’s bringing a car!!!” Haha, awesome! How completely random, but AWESOME! Micah went grocery shopping for us all Thursday, since the grocery stores would be closed the ENTIRE weekend. He got us a lot of food, but he didn’t get nutella! So of course, yesterday when I returned to Nürnberg, what did I make for myself? A breadslice slathered with nutella.... NOM NOM NOM

Micah's apt. His closet is the one empty of photos, haha

I was first to arrive at the hauptbahnhof Thurs. Munich’s hbf was totally different than Köln’s or Frankfurt’s or Nürnberg’s, in the sense that everything was on one level. It was cool! The trains come into the station and stop, empty passengers, load passengers, then back out the way they came in, which enables all the shops to be on the same level as the trains! At the others, the train tracks went straight through, so passengers had to use a set of stairs to get to and from the platforms and the stores in the main station. I just had to wait 15, 20 minutes for Bridget’s train to arrive, and when it did, she found me and we talked incessantly for about 10 minutes. Then the excitement from seeing each other for the first time in a month wore off, and things were back to normal. So then Justin’s train got there finally, then we went on our way. Once we were all at Micah’s apartment, we went to Hofbräuhaus. Man, it was hot in there! But the food and drink were DELICIOUS.

Justin and Joey. Hofbräuhaus, München!

Goodness, I guess I should just rent Music Man from iTunes or something... my music selection keeps eliciting a strong urge to see that movie.

Walking in Standard Formation.

Then for some reason, for the following hour and a half, all we did was walk. Those boys were in the lead, and they walk FAST. Bridget and I had no idea why they were walking so fast, but they did so for the entire weekend! Goodness, just slow down and enjoy everything! It really was a relief when Bridget got an ache in her foot Saturday evening, cuz then she and I had an excuse to stroll at a more reasonable pace lol. I’m not really sure if the boys got frustrated with us or not, but they hid it well. We all ended up in sort of the same standard walking formation, too, over the entire weekend: Justin and Micah in front, Joey behind them, and me and Bridget taking up the rear.

Friday morning, we walked to the BMW Welt (BMW World, not the museum. The “world” didn’t cost anything, while the museum did.). There were motorcycles outside! I sat on one! They were soooo cool. But no way in the world would I ever be able to control a motorcycle at all, other than those motorcycle arcade things. Sigh.

The reflection was pretty cool.

Apparently Munich is on the cities to be considered for the 2018 Winter Olympics? There was a big sign outside of the BMW Welt counting down to July 6 2011, which is when I assume the announcement will be made.

Olympiapark was gorgeous. We ate lunch by the lake, then climbed the hill in the middle of the park. I don’t think the path we took to the top was the smartest one to take, since it was straight up the steep side of the hill, AND it was gravelly. But hey, we scaled that hill pretty quick, and there were benches up at the top, so I’m not complaining. Sitting in the sun on top of the world made us all realize that we were exhausted, so we headed back to the apartment where I checked my email while everyone chilled. After three minutes Micah asks “So, are we ready to go?” and I’m like “No! we need a break!” and so it was mini nap time.

Steep climb! Definitely not a park-sanctioned path...

Exhausted!

We found MLK in Olympiapark!!

Bridget and Micah. And my shadow. And the castle.

Then we headed out to Nymphenburg Castle. Unlike when I was there before, in 2005, the front of the castle was under construction, so we just walked around to the “back yard,” which was only this humongous park. Stayed there for about a half hour, then walked to Hirsch Biergarten, which covered about two acres, no lie. All the waiters were in Leiderhosen, it was pretty sweet. Well, after dinner there, it was kind of cold, so we voted to go back to the apartment so Joey could pick up his jacket. At the apartment, Bridget and micah tipped over for a bit. Eventually I was like “sooo, are we going out again or what?!” that stirred Micah into action, but Bridget was done in for the night. And I was thusly abandoned! So me and the boys headed out once again. Joey made the comment “I wasn’t sure we were gonna rally there, for a minute. Almost looked like the end of the night!”

These stupid pictures won't behave. >:( It's hard to see it, but the beer I'm consuming is "König Ludwig Weissbier." I figured that a picture was in order. And yes, the biergarten was THAT BIG!!

Deutsches Museum

Please note that the number did not
translate well from German to English....

We got going a little later on Saturday. Drove to the Deutsche Museum. HUGE museum with 7 floors PLUS a basement. We spent maybe two, three hours in there, and barely saw a quarter of the exihbits. There was a sundial exhibit on the roof! Most of them were way too complicated for me to understand, but I really felt like I achieved something when I could interpret the others. One was just as easy to read as a wristwatch. One told us that there was one like it in the courtyard of the museum, and a person could be the stylus, so once we were done, Bridget and I checked it out.

We're not really sure if she was allowed to be there... But
it was beautiful! I wanted to spend all my time there, listening!

Human stylus!

The museum closed at 5, and our dinner reservations weren’t until 7:30. Ugh. So we walked along the river, with Marienplatz as the goal, but we paused at a bridge to see some sort of inlet underneath the bridge that was sucking the water in. It was funny seeing the ducks swim against that pull. Then we look up and Micah and Justin were gone! Well, we saw them go, but they didn’t say anything to us, so we didn’t really feel the need to follow. Plus, our feet were KILLING us, so more walking definitely was not appealing. I made a beeline for the nearest river-side parking bench. Aahhh! Lovely. Then Bridget and Joey joined me there for the next hour. I wasn’t bored, because it was so beautiful outside.

The pizza place we went to made thin crust pizzas, the kind where you can just eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and never feel completely full.... By the way, every single pizza I’ve had over here has been pretty much perfect.

So then we get going again, and that’s when Bridget developed that ache in her foot. AWESOME! An excuse to lag behind the boys!! We headed out to this ice cream place near the hofbräuhaus, which had a Whiskey Cream flavor. Which was delicious. With that under our belts, we headed to the apt to watch Harry Potter 5 auf Deutsch. It was FUN!! :) and I mean that. Well, besides all the voice actors sounding annoying. Plus there was the fact that everything english that’s dubbed over in German is odd. German uses a lot more words in their sentences, on average, so most of the actors’ lines were squished and very quickly spoken.

Aaaaahhhhhh, attack of the Dandelions!!!!!

Bridget and I went to church Sunday morning, which was held in a converted movie theater! After lunch, we drove to yet another park, and walked around until 4 (ate crepes and pretzles), then drove to the hauptbahnhof, just in time for Justin to catch his train back to Passau at 4:21. It was perfect timing.

Sooooo, sorry for all the pictures... I just realized I took about 240 pictures over the entire weekend.