Munich

We slept in this morning and then had another wonderful German breakfast. I wasn’t even hungry since we had eaten dinner after midnight, but it was just so great that I had to have some yogurt, fruit salad and granola along with some bread with meats and cheeses. Wow. Stuffed again. Heidi and I then headed out with Sabrina and her friend to Munich while Maressa stayed and worked on her paper. Johanna had to work today so unfortunately, she couldn’t go with us. It took about 45 minutes to get there and it was still raining a bit. But we got a partner day pass thing and split between the four of us we only had to pay 2 Euro each! I can handle that!

Heidi and I went our own way and just walked around the city. After we went into this church that was all white inside, we came out and it was pouring like crazy. We just waited under the doorway and watched people running every which way with their coats and bags on their heads. We then took our luck and ran across the square to the entrance of the English Gardens. We saw people had Starbucks so we made it our mission to find one for ourselves. Luckily it was just around the corner and we got a seat right after our drinks were ready. Perfect! We chilled there for awhile until the rain stopped and then went out to walk around the gardens. There were lots of groups of people playing bocce ball and some of them had cool little magnet chain things that they picked the balls up with. Heidi had never seen that game before so we stood and watched for awhile. We saw people playing music in covered areas, but no naked people. Later Sabrina told us that they had seen people in another part of the gardens running around naked or in their underwear. How strange!!! I guess that’s one thing that garden is known for!

We made our way to the Hofbraeu Haus and saw a cool Folks band playing. My foot got stepped on, which hurt a bit and cut one of my toes, but I got over it. We didn’t have time to stay, but we did notice how the tiles in the floor still made a swastika symbol and how the pinwheels on the ceilings had been painted to cover up swastikas. Too cool. They only left the swastika tiles on the floor at the main entrance though. They had redone the floors in other areas of the building. Hitler had a lot of his meetings in the upstairs of the Hofbraeu Haus and I believe that’s where he gave his initial speech about what would become the Holocaust. Crazy.

We met up with Sabrina and her friend and they wanted to go to Starbucks, so since we had already been we decided we’d just walk around and meet up with them later. We went in a few stores and looked around and eventually made it to the end of the Fussgaengerzone where the toy store is. Heidi and I found a Steiff Giraffe for 695 Euro!!! Whoa. No thank you! It wasn’t even, as Heidi says, life-size! We walked back arm-in-arm to meet Sabrina again and then we all headed back to where her car was parked. Even though we didn’t do anything significant, it was still fun to just hang out in Munich for the day. I LOVE that city and could go back again, and again and again!

Of course we ate when we got home and it was once again delicious. We had homemade schnitzel, potato salad (a different one!) and it was fabulous. Our train left at 8:30, so we had to get all of our stuff together. I wish we would have been able to spend more time with Johanna and the family, but the timing just didn’t work out. We decided to go back on Saturday night so that we could go to church one last time together and try to get started on our stacks of work early in the day. We were awake the entire way, thanks to me, and laughed a whole lot. These girls just complete my life and I am so thankful for them!!

We didn’t make it back to Heidelberg until late at night and we were all really tired. What a great little trip, though! We had so much fun and I wish the three of us would have traveled more together throughout the semester.