To Munich we go

 10/2: We took the train from Salzburg to Munich (1.5 hrs).

Bye Salzburg!

Hello Munich!

Our new home at the Residence Inn was a short walk away. We dropped our bags and went straight to the Hofbrauhaus for beer and lunch.

 We left the brewery and met our group for the Nazi third Reich walking tour. Our guide did a great job of summarizing key historical events and landmarks. There is so much more I want to learn, but it was a great starting point.

We took the train back to our part of town, made a quick grocery stop for an easy dinner at home, and settled into our new place for 4 nights.

Our first impression of public transport in Munich is that it’s not as easy as it was in London! The signs in the stations are not as well marked, and buying tickets was not straight forward. London was so easy! We figured out later that buying tickets were basically an honor system - that if someone came to check you better have a ticket or get a fine. But we haven’t seen anyone checking tickets yet…

10/3: We all enjoyed a workout in the hotel gym, and then the included breakfast was a treat! Bob and the kids met some new friends in lobby from the States who invited us to their table at Oktoberfest. Fun! We explored a few iconic Munich sites on the way.

Marienplatz

Oktoberfest! The rides were enormous! Quinn wanted to go on some of them, but we were all excited to meet our new friends at their table, so we decided he could do them later (turns out it was raining later, but fortunately Quinn didn’t mind skipping them - I didn’t mind either as I would’ve been nervous to have him on them! They were SO huge and not permanent rides).

Outside the Hofbrauhaus tent

Our new friends - they brought all this schwag with them.

Chickens and potato salad - yum!

OMG! Largest cokes EVER! 1 liter!

We all had a blast!

The guy on the right just finished lifting the Dinnie Stones in Scotland. They have a combined weight of 733lbs! These 3 couples travelled together to watch him lift them.

10/4: We took the train to the Olympic Village, and checked out the BMW Welt on the way. We had hoped to take a BMW factory tour, but we would’ve needed to buy those tickets 2 months in advance. Dang!

Super cool building

She likes it!

I told her never to get on one of these, no matter how cute he is :-)

We all enjoyed the former Olympic grounds (1972) - turns out the Munich buildings are some of the most used former Olympic sites.

It was Friday night, and we decided pizza was a great idea. There was a place right around the corner from our place, and it turns out it was an amazing experience all around!

10/5: A rainy day prevented us from visiting the English Garden, so we “enjoyed” our workouts and travel planning (our upcoming Turkey trip has been a lot of pieces for Bob to put together). Certainly not complaining here - we’re just finding that we need to slow down a bit if we are going to have enough time to collect our thoughts on where we currently are, and plan where we’re going to next. Bob has and continues to do the lions share of all things travel, and when I sit next to him to help in the process I fully realize just how much planning is constantly going on!

My little student working in the Residence Inn lobby. She looks so grown up!

10/6: Today we checked out of the Residence Inn. We loved the breakfasts!

Quinn in awe of the enormous Nutella machine! It had a pump on top with little edible cups to pour it into.

Earlier in our trip Simone noticed at the local grocery store, Lidl, that you can return cans and bottles for recycling. After she said that, I noticed on our receipt that we paid a deposit on each can and bottle we bought. So, before we left Munich, she and I took our 4 cans to return them and see how the process works.

We walked the 5 blocks to the Lidl to find it closed. What?! Is it another holiday? (Everything was also closed a few days ago for reunification day) Nope - it turns out it’s just Sunday again! Argh! We laughed at ourselves as we carried our cans all the way back to recycle them at the hotel…

The Sunday closure of everything in Germany goes back a long ways in their history. They very much value having people spending the day relaxing - I read a post by someone who said, “would you want to work on Sunday?” While I understand how one might think that way, it seems very foreign to me having always worked in healthcare, where we work 24/7. It’s also really great to have days off during the week when you work on a weekend - maybe I should tell the German grocery store workers!

I ran across an interesting tidbit about robotic controlled grocery stores while researching the Sunday closures in Germany. Apparently there are some grocery stores that are like huge vending machines with 1000+ essential items that are open when traditional grocery stores are closed (including Sundays). They are stocked/serviced by humans, but do not need to be serviced on Sundays, therefore respecting the peoples' rest. But - there was a recent decision by the German high court to require even these robotic controlled stores to close on Sundays. The reason I saw for this was the possible future extension to require traditional grocery stores to be open on Sundays. It will be interesting for me to watch German policies over the years to see if this ever changes!