Day 2 - Munich

There was not much sleep to be had by any of us. Jet lag combined with the  house party next door and the sex shop rave activities equated to maybe 3 hours of sleep each if that.  So we had an early start to our day complete with a full German breakfast.

It was a very brisk 32 degrees as we started our walk to Marianplatz. The first thing we did was head over to the Apple Store where I taught Mom how to “borrow” Apple’s wifi. We checked our email quickly before starting our walk of the city sites. The 3 of us walked all around Munich from 9am-2pm visiting churches, gardens and various historical sites.We popped into Starbucks for a bathroom break and was told that we had to purchase something and then we would see a bathroom code at the bottom of our receipt. I looked around and saw a table being vacated. They had left behind the receipt, so I nabbed it. Score one for us!

We decided that Mom needed to experience the famous The Hofbräuhaus and actually stay for awhile, so we had some lunch there and warmed up over soup, sausage and beer. When I asked the waiter if I could have a .5 liter of the dark beer instead of the full liter, he said, “Ya, I could give you a child-size glass,” than walked away. The beer I wanted was only served in the huge liter glasses, so I can’t tell if my request was considered insulting or if the waiter was just joking around. It was a fun lunch complete with their in-house The Hofbräuhaus band playing all the traditional Germany drinking songs. Everything in Munich was closed, so the The Hofbräuhaus was the place to be.  

After lunch, we attempted to see an afternoon concert in one of the big churches, but it was still filled with incense smoke from the earlier masses. Now, this church was HUGE, so I can’t image how much incense they burned in order to make such hazy conditions.  With the air quality at a low to rival LA’s smoggiest of days, we quietly back out of the church. Bummer!

By the evening, we found ourselves returning to the downtown sausage cabin for dinner. The bratwurst were so good, there was not a second thought about having them 2 nights in a row. I tried the hot mulled wine. It was very good and magically made me not feel so cold. Each mug of hot wine comes with a 5 euro deposit. If you return the mug, they return your 5 euro deposit. As I went to return my mug, Matt ran up to me to prevent me from doing so. After a bit of round about sleuthing, I finally figured out that he wanted the commemorative mug since it was dated and only available for 6 weeks out of the year in Munich. So now, I was carrying around a mug in my backpack.This is not something I would normally do.