Day 57: Munich, Germany

Our tour today was a walking tour to important historical Nazi and Hitler places throughout the city (Munich was the birthplace of the Nazism). We heard the story of Hitler's life and his part in the Nazi Party. When the tour ended we went to the store to buy food for lunch then went back to our hostel to eat.

After relaxing for a little bit we went out to find the opera house because we heard on our first tour that they sometimes have cheap student priced tickets. We wanted to see the ballet that had been advertised on the side of the building, but it wasn't playing until the weekend and we would be in Paris by then. The lady at the ticket booth did tell us that there was a symphony playing that night. We both enjoy classical music so we decided to go. We still had several hours before the show started so we walked around the open air market (like canal days) and ate dinner before going to the hostel to change into dress clothes (and this time we weren't going to do laundry in them!).

We walked to the opera house and were able to get front row(!) seats for only 10€! The performance was first accompanied by a pianist and they played "Konzert für Klavier and Orchester N.1, d moll, op.15 by Johannes Brahms" (Yes, that is the German title - "moll" is "minor" in English). Not only was the name of it long, so was the piece - it took nearly an hour to play that along with a shorter solo piano piece. After the two were played, we clapped for about 10 minutes and then the entire audience cleared out. We thought that the concert was over since the entire place cleared out and the stage hands began moving and stacking chairs. Christine was very disappointed because the ticket lady had mentioned earlier that they would play a piece by Dvorak, but was convinced that they hadn't played it, thus feeling cheated. We lingered in the waiting area and watched what the others did. Some went outside. Some drank beer and water.

We decided that we better ask somebody if it was just an intermission or if it was over before we left. Kim elected Christine since Kim does the map reading and Christine does the talking and questioning. The first lady wrote 22:00 on a paper, which meant there was a whole additional hour. We reconfirmed with another German woman who did speak English and went back in once the doors reopened.

When we went in, the piano was gone and more chairs were added to the stage. The orchestra for this half included a larger variety of instruments and more musicians as well. They played Anthony Dvorak's Symphony # 8, G - dur (major in English), op; 88. It wasn't the Dvorak song Christine had hoped for; but liked it nonetheless. Kim enjoyed the concert as well.

After the concert, we walked back to our hostel very slowly since Kim's dress shoes scraped her heals on the way to the opera and Christine's dress shoes are not good for walking on cobbles. When we got back to the hostel, we made nutella sandwiches to take on our day tour for the next day and packed our bags.

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