Surfers in Munich

We eventually arrived in Munich. Stefan's aunt and uncle offered to let us stay at their place for a couple of nights and we enjoyed our time with them. Stefan's father's family comes from the Munich area, so another aunt (Ingrid - so funny b/c my sister is also Ingrid) was there to greet us with a typical Bavarian dinner of Leberkaese, Kartoffelsalat, green salad, and beer. Stefan's uncle, Klaus, married Mihoko, a Japanese woman he met while working in India back in the 60's/70's. Mihoko works as a tour guide for Japanese tourists so she was a huge help in regards to sorting out what we really want to do, where things are, what's worth a visit and what's not.The next morning Klaus joined us as we walked to the commuter rail and rode into town with us. Here's Stefan and Klaus and the train pulling in just behind them. The Munich trains and subways are just SO clean and nearly all of them are brand new (thanks to the World Cup taking place here 2 years ago). For 9 euro we got an all day pass that's good for up to 5 adults, awesome! (each ride is 2.20 euro, do the math)

Once downtown we caught the Glockenspiel on Marienplatz in full swing. I think it's overrated, but hey, we saw it. The last time I was on Marienplatz was in October of 2003 with Floyd, Rich, Zak, Evie, Rachel, and a few other folks from Lanesville. We had an 8 hr layover in Munich en route to Romania and took the train in on the last day of the Oktoberfest, another story for another time. In addition to seeing Marienplatz we also saw swarms of tourists, lots of whom were Americans - seriously we are SO easy to spot, pretty embarrassing, yet oddly comforting at the same time! -- Tip: wearing athletic sneakers to walk around in, acting goofy or weird, talking or giggling loudly, and wearing baseball caps and baggy anything are sure ways to not blend in with the Europeans. Some people don't want to blend in, but if you do, heed the tip above.

That being said, Stefan and I decided to indulge in Starbucks since they have one in Munich. So here's some shots of a German Starbucks. Guilty American pleasure.

Then we met up with Sönke -- who, for all the hours we spent with him I didn't manage to get a picture of - goodness! Sönke is an old roommate of Stefan's back in university days and is currently wrapping up his PhD on something like the narrative approach to Biblical interpretation. He's getting married in August and since we're going to the wedding I'll get a picture of him then. In Munich he served as our personal tour guide.

In addition to the beautiful churches, he showed us the famous Hofbraeuhaus where we saw a little oompah band and the places where private club members will lock up their personal mugs while they're away from the pub.

Then we saw and heard a wonderful orchestra practicing for a massive evening concert. I thought mom and Ingrid would enjoy that. They were really good.We continued walking to the Hofgarten - which is the garden area of the downtown old royal Residenz. Very pretty. We took a lunch break in an Italian cafe under some shady trees. We each had fizzy apple juice and it looks like we each had our own bottle of olive oil! I had spinach knoedel (spinach-bread dumpling things) with a salad - wow, it was so good! Really light and yet filling. I need to find a recipe for those. Stefan had the traditional, heavier kind of dumplings with cream sauce, etc.Then Sönke took us to the Englischer Garten, which is Munich's Central Park. I thought it was fantastic - the perfect place to ride your bike, play frisbee, go for a swim, or surf. Yes - surf. It was pretty funny to see people in wetsuits dripping wet and carrying a surfboard in the middle of a huge city! Read a cool article about it here. Check out this video:

After the garden, Sönke showed us the university where he's been studying. As soon as we walked into the main hall I remembered it from a movie we had seen last year, Sophie Scholl, The Final Days (click link and enter to watch flash intro). I highly recommend it! So this is the hall where she was caught leaving anti-Nazi flyers. The movie used this location in filming this section as well. Outside the main entrance is this memorial on the sidewalk. Moving.

After the university we hung out at Sönke's place for a bit before dragging our tired selves back to Klaus and Mihoko's home. Lots to take in!