Munich, Germany - Day 1 (aka Adventures in Grammar-sitting)

Hmm it's been awhile here hasn't it? I should get out more.

This time the journey led to Munich, Germany. At first I have to admit, I was nervous. Travel that far out is new for me and this time it's to a country where language becomes a barrier, or an embarrassment as many in Germany speak English better than I do (and it's supposedly my native language! Ah the benefits of a public education eh?)

I digress. The flight was as I expected, long and boring. I amused myself with books and some writing to pass the time when the shrill siren's wail of the three year old child across the aisle from me serenading the flight. Hm little angel has the lungs I tell you.

Customs was not nearly as invasive as the UK or Amsterdam. I was grateful, nine hours on a plane is taxing. Arriving at the hotel, I waited for thirty minutes for my room, choosing instead to enjoy some space on a bed in my parents room next door. At some point I passed out to have three hours of blissful sleep.

After the nap, I went with my father out of the hotel. Munich! What a lovely place! Urban without being too irritating, yet not so rural with urban trappings to lean it in the opposite direction.

Munich is old, hailing as of 2008, a hearty 850 years of existance. Their main marketplace, the Marianplact, still is in use!

We toured through that but were not in time to watch the famous Glockenspeil. But instead we browsed shops and found a cafe where the employees and owners did not or would not speak English. Ah I do have the luck! Fortunately my father speaks German to an acceptable degree and this was just ample moment for me to stretch my own linguistics skills. This little enterprise proved to me that apparently I'm funny in at least two languages because my grammar is ... lets say 'bravely utilized' ... in both English and German. Thankfully the cafe staff sought to fix that so I've been corrected on many a sentence structure now.

After the cafe, we walked through st Michael's church. An impressive church, still in use today. The architecture had been recreated in many places as it suffered during the Allied bombings in WWII, but nonetheless, it was awe inspiring.

that took some time (though it was well spent) and then we wandered the shops again. Finally mom had recovered enough to join us and we tooled back along the Marianplact showing her around. I found a hardback biography on da Vinci (in German of course), so I bought it as a keepsake.

By the time we walked the Marianplact four times over, we settled on a place called the Ratskeller. The food was fantastic! Sadly I'm not sure I would ever have the skill to reproduce those meals, all I can do is enjoy them. But the meal is as what I've been told ... German restaurants are an experience not 'sit down, eat, leave'. it was quite relaxing and our waiter was fantastic to talk to and put up with my attempts to lay waste to his native language.

In the end, we returned to the hotel to rest for tomorrow.