München, J'arrive!

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I know that the title is Gerench (german-french). It's supposed to be. Also, I'm a tiny bit slap happy and sleep deprived from traveling for 14 hours straight and then being up all day wandering around the city. München, friends, is quite lovely. Rather picturesque even. This could be my sun and travel addled brain talking, but even on a rather warm day like today, it was lovely. Oh, and for the record they DO wear traditional garb (by which I mean lederhosen and the dress equivalent of lederhosen) to festivals. That is a thing. A fabulous, wonderful, glorious thing. Mostly due to my brain barely being able to process the anachronisms I saw wandering the street amongst the general populace all day.

Things I saw today:
Some fountain in the center of downtown Munich, which was quite lovely, if a little crowded with tourists seeking respite from the sun and heat.
The Munich town hall, which has some stunning gothic architecture, and a working gigantic cuckoo clock tower. A real working one. It rotates twice a day (maybe more). Like it popped out of a storybook and into real life in bustling downtown Munich.
We stopped for lunch at a little cafe on the street and had some traditional Bavarian fare - Viv had cheese drenched späetzle (don't knock me for the spelling on the German words, ok? I can't even begin to pronounce them), and I had fried potatoey things with salmon and dill and a chive spread. I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter what country you're from or in cheesy pasta and fried potatoey things equal deliciousness.
Explored some of the shops downtown. Went to an adorable tea shop, which appeared to be the EU's response to Teavana, and then onto a specialty coffee, chocolate and other items store. I had a mayan chocolate truffle. I didn't hate it. Not one bit. Viv had a white chocolate limoncello truffle, in true EU global citizen style.
Then it was off to the English Garden (yes, it sounds weird, but went perfectly with the rest of the town). There we witnessed one of the oddest sights to grace my ocular nerve. People surfing. In downtown Munich. In a canal. That's right, I said surfing. With boards and wetsuits and everything. It was both impressive and mystifying.
We took a refreshing stroll through the rest of the English garden, all the way to the biergarten. I know what you're thinking, Uncle Mark, but no, I didn't have a beer. It was too hot for that, and the only seats were in the sun, so I settled for a mineral water. The cure for what ails you.
People watching and playing "spot the tourist" are new favorite games of mine. Hint: tourists almost always are wearing athletic shoes and carrying an inordinately large backpack.

At this point in the day, we were both melting and my brain batteries from my four hours of sleep began to scream at me to recharge them. Therefore, we went on a short grocery shopping adventure, and now I'm writing this as Viv sets out a tasty looking smorgasbord of germanic foodstuffs for consumption of mass quantities.

There will be other things that occur to me after my brain reboots. TTFN, Ta-ta for now!

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Photos

There's a sad sort of clanging...
From the clock in the hall and the bell in the steeple too....

This is Munich's Town hall
Jealous, aren't you?