Tuesday, October 7

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  Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Although we both slept well, we were out of bed by 0630 and out of the apartment by 0800.

We walked south on Oettingenstr. to Prinzeregentenstrs., then west. Plenty of traffic on bikes and in cars. Watched a couple of fellows surfing at Englischer Garten. Followed the street, which became Van Der Tann str. to Ludwigstr., which we took south.

We had breakfast (2 Greek burritos (feta & spinach) and a blueberry muffin) at San Francisco Coffee Company. Although it had rained overnight, the weather cleared, and we had a mostly sunny day.

We took pictures in the Hall of the Generals, and walked down Theatinerstr. to Marien Platz, arriving about 1000. Our first goal of the day was to see the 1100 glockenspiel show, so we wanted to stay in the area. We took the elevator to the top of the New Rathaus and enjoyed marvelous views, even to the Alps in the south. We went back to Marien Platz and RC set up to camera on the tripod to do a video, and JG went to get still shots. There were lots of people there for the 1100 show. RC caught the entire performance on the camera's video mode.

We then walked down Kaufingerstr., Neuhauserstr., and Bayerstr. to the Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) to complete some more of our goals. We located Radius Tours and got our tickets for Dachau on Saturday; also got some postcards and a refrigerator magnet and directions to the Eur-Aide office.

We got to the Eur-Aide office just before their 1230 closing and got our tickets and reservations for Vienna, our round-trip tickets for Salzburg, our Gray line tour to Neuschwanstein and Linderhof, and Grand Circle tickets for today. We picked up a quick bratwurst lunch from a cart in the station, then went upstairs and sat at a table by Coffee Fellows. We were asked to move since we hadn't purchased our food from them, so we went and sat on the benches at the wi-fi hot spot to eat our sandwiches.

We crossed Schillerstr. to the tour gathering spot in front of Karstadt department store. We did the Grand tour, which took us through Königsplatz, by Löwenbraukeller, to Nymphenburg Palace. Then we went to the Olympiapark/BMW area. The next stop was by the University, after passing through Schwabing and seeing the Walking Man.

We returned to Karstadt's via Odeonsplatz. At the store we changed to another bus for the second part of the tour. This took as by the obelisk, the Pinakothek museums, back through Odeonsplatz, across Van der Tann and Prinzregentenstr. to the Fredom's Angel statue, south to the Bayr. Landtag (Bavaria's parliament), down Maximilianstr. to the Residenz, back out Maximilianstr. to the Thomas Wimner Ring, south to Isartor where we turned west on Tal, one of Munich's oldest streets. We passed by the Viktualienmarkt (EC: by JG: there is not an "E") with its maypole, saw the Nene Synagoge and Sendlinger Tor before returning to Karstadt's.

We headed to the Viktualienmarkt but saw an internet cafe above a Coffee Fellows so we went in there and JG spent the next hour and a half making an entry to the travel blog.
There was a German keyboard, and the positions of some of the keys were different than what she knew.

That task successfully completed, we made it to the Viktualienmarkt and had a hamburger, saurkraut, and cold potato salad for dinner.

We then located the Hard Rock Cafe and got a T-shirt for Matt.

Back to Maximilianstr., east to Widenmayerstr., north to Rosenbushstr., then back to the aprtment.

JG changed her dressing and showered. RC polished off JG's leftovers from last night's dinner and tried to rehydrate himself.

We both journalled.

JG off to bed at 2130, RC at 2200.


Okay folks this is JG's take on the day.

Well, here it is 8:00 pm and we are back at the condo. Richard is doing his journaling so I figured I'll do mine before taking my shower and changing my dressing. He got the remote and is looking for weather reporting.

Let's see, what do I remember for today? Hop Off Hop On was two bus tours. We did the outer loop first and then the inner city loop. The top deck had a plexiglass edge that made it hard for me -- shorter than RC -- to take pictures.

The Nymphenburg Palace. It's not the fanciest castle in Europe, however, it is the longest. It was long, really long. To my uneducated eye I estimate six football fields at least long. It was a long, long, long place.

RC took a snooze for about 20 minutes. My head bounced up and down a couple times.

Richard warmed up my left over dinner from last night and went back to writing.

Tonight's dinner was a hamburger patty, potatoe salad and saurkraut disguised as coleslaw. We each ate an apple we just bought for dessert.

We took photos of the courtyard and the colors first thing this morning as we left for the day.

We went up into the tower above the Glockenspiel. Great view. Lots of the clouds had moved on. I could barely make out the Alps. Richard commented on there not being any foot hills to them. The identifier in the tower ID'd all the peaks. The gargoyles were interesting also. I was remembering to look up as "Uncle Martin" advised us to do when we were in Great Britian.

Sure flat land out there.

On the Hop On Hop Off , the narrator pointed out the one hill in the city near the Olympic Park. When the rubble from rebuilding Munich after WWII was cleared this is where it was dumped. All the dirt from building the subway system was also dumped here. The subway was built for the Olympics in 1972.

We took umbrellas with us this morning. Didn't need to use them.

Caught a couple of surfers in the river --- ? a branch off of the Isar? They go back and forth in this one area. They tied the board to their leg like the California surfers do. They also had wet suits on. Thez seemed to skate board on the water. Speaking of which, I haven't seen any skate boarders. Saw a business man on a handled scooter like we got AJ several Christmases ago. He was in the bike lane propelling himself along.

We went near the Olympic Tower on the Hop On Hop Off tour. We also were close to the BMW tower. BMW had a couple other buildings near by for museums. One reminded me of Seattle's Expericence the Music building such that I wondered if the same architect did them.

Lunch was four thin brats all in one bun with mustard, which we ate in the train station.

The glockenspiel started with the mechanical people ringing the bells. Music played and I wondered if it was the original equipment or if a more modern way of producing the music was installed. The top part went first. Eventually two horses with riders show up. The second time around the one "knocked" over the other. Then the barrel makers do their cooper dance. The two that are always in front have red coats that are faded. At the last the cuckoo spread it's metal wings and gave out this pitiful cuckoo, cuckoo. I could barely hear it, and Richard, who filmed the clock's performance at the corner of the subway stairs, didn't hear it at all.

At the internet cafe the keyboard is different. The Z and Y have changed places. The quote was on the 2 key and the dash was in the bottom row versus the top. I typed away on RC's notes for the blog and when I would switch Z and Y Richard would say something and I'd go back and fix the word. Good thing we read it over before posting as I saw two we had missed fixing.

Breakfast: a Greek burrito and split a blue berry muffin at San Francisco Coffee House (acutallz Companz I was told as I tzped this. Hee Hee.)

Lots of old buildings in this city. Lots of statues of Max.

We went by the University which the narrator said was the largest in --- now I forgot if she said Germany or all of Europe.

Iceland borrowing from Russia to help stabilize their economy. Pres. Bush explained the economic bail out to help the banks.

Well, that's it for now.

8 October 2008

7:30 am when I got up. I was wide awake at 1:05 am. Managed to get back asleep. Let's see what I get on the 20 items I wanted to mention from yesterday and one from Sunday. I was amusing myself with happenings that I forgot to mention.

1. Heard a robin chirpping when we were in the courtyard.

2. Bought two charms of cuckoo clocks for earrings.

3. I wondered if Americans would be better off with less laws that are protecting us from ourselves. Watching the Hop On Hop Off drivers with traffic and pedestrians. Sort of watch out or I'll hit you. On the pedestrian mall cars on a certain errand could come in and they would inch along with the attitude of here I come you better move. There are clearances of about six inches between person and vehicle. I saw a child in the front seat of a car between the door and "mother" --- "father" was the driver --- that had no seat belt on. I don't think the women had one on either.

4. Seen crows.

5. On train ride into the city from the airport, saw what looked like dandelions. I haven't seen any in the city yet.

5. (Hey I have two fives, what do you know?) Female TSA person at PDX. Going on and on about people. Well, the person she just wanded had commented "I have an implant." "You think that should excuse you from security? Shall we have a line just for implant people?" Her unspoken point was a terrorist could use that line to get through -- and whammy there we are in pieces.

6. Bought Matt's Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. The sales gal folding shirts to put in the T-shirt sizes slots said to us "That was quick." She was impressed. I took a picture of the logo and the iron work holding it looked like a prison fence in the picture which I commented to Richard.

7. In regards to communicating. Ran into one food sales person who didn't seem to know any English. She did know the word hamburger.

8. On the Hop On Hop Off bus tour, I saw this woman in a pink suit and pink shoes with her bicycle. It struck me as out of place to all the other bicyclists as they are mainly a jeans crowd. Took the picture through the plexiglass real quick like before the light changed for them and us.

9. Walking to the Hard Rock Cafe we turned down this street that had only one small balcony sticking out of this long apartment wall. The person living there had a vine maple type plant covering the railings which was a nice red fall color. I wondered if they had the balcony specially made for them.

10. Bicycles for rent spread here and there. Like the Zip cars in PDX.

11. Saw a scooter with a cover being driven. Got a pic b4 traffic got in the way. Later saw one parked.

12. The English language is used in several of the advertisments I saw with no German equivalent next to it. English seems to be creeping in to the culture.

13. Frei and Moroni. What are they? This morning looked them up. Frei is similar to available or free. Moroni looked liked cooked chestnuts; didn't locate the word in the dictionaries we have available to us.

14. Have seen only one recumbandt bicyclist and hence bike.

15. The pattern in the floor where we bought our tickets to go up into the glockenspiel looked different in/through the camera than to my naked eye. The curves disappeared when looking with the camera. The design did remind me of a quilt design --- a distant variation to the Druckard's Path or Rob Peter to Pay Paul.

16. Saw about three beggers/panhandlers on the street. Just sitting there wanting money.

17. While waiting for RC while he used the toiletten at the Internet Cafe, this dude was watching a sporting event on his lap top. They used a wide flat paddle of sorts. I wondered if it was cricket. This morning Richard said it was.

18. We saw this woman with black lacy paisley hose. They were eye catching. Later in the afternoon we walked by a store that obviously sold lacy hose since they displayed in two of the windows. No black, just sage and tumbleweed colors, but just as lacy. RC wondered if the woman we saw earlier had bought them there.

19. The two towers of the church St. Marien remind me of salt and pepper shakers, especially in the souvenior stores where one can buy one tower.

20. I touched on this briefly yesterday. It was the music that the glockenspiel played. I wondered if it was digtial or if it played chimes or bells inside, behind the wall.

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