Auf Wiedersehen Germany

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We sadly had to leave Rothenburg this morning and drive to Munich where we will spend our final hours before heading to the airport for our 11:20pm flight to Moscow.

Once we arrived in Munich, we went straight for lunch at Munich’s famous Hofbrauhaus, which was founded in 1589 by the Duke of Bavaria, and is one of Munich’s oldest beer halls. It was the perfect way to end our trip as it was totally classic. Huge wooden tables that you share, years of people carving their names in the tables, liter beers, pretzels the size of your head, and best of all a band playing traditional music! We enjoyed our final sausages and kraut and just sat there enjoying, swaying and bobbing our heads to the music.

We walked the old town of Munich afterwards and even jumped on a hop on/hop off bus for awhile (until it made us too sleepy and it was best to get out and walk again). We probably would've enjoyed Munich a bit more had it been at the beginning of our trip, but after visiting so many wonderful, small quaint towns we were just not in the mood for a big city. We hit the Hofbrauhaus again for our dinner before heading to the airport.

Germany has been such a warm and friendly country to visit, and as we’ve said over and over in the blogs….majestically beautiful. As we like to do at the end of every overseas adventure….recap some observations….some are funny to us, some are annoying, some are just plain facts that we find interesting:
**Walking sticks are a big deal here - and by walking sticks, I mean ski poles. People walk with them everywhere...and they have 2. At first we saw it at Neuschwanstein, which makes sense because there is hiking, but no....even in towns with flat roads they are walking around with them??
**All of Germany seemed to have a big fly issue. They were everywhere, in all of the restaurants inside/outside. So bothersome....everywhere you ate all you saw was people swatting away.
**We have this big issue with plastic bags here in the US. We need to do what Germany has done and just eliminate them. From every store....period. And you know what? People just acclimate...at the grocery stores, they had their own reusable bags or baskets to carry their goods home. See...problem solved.
**Their street signals are neat. The light goes back to yellow right before it turns green, very handy.
**The Germans are fantastic drivers and very aware. On the Autobahn they truly only drive in the left lane if passing or if they are a super speedy person. Everyone notices if cars come up behind them and immediately move over it's great. America is just too full of oblivious drivers. Driving there seems efficient and quick...(Kudos BTW to my husband who did a fantastic job of being my chauffeur the entire time. He maneuvered through some tricky situations)
**At all restaurants, you seat yourself no matter what. It still amazes me how the waiters and waitresses kept up when it was super busy and all of a sudden you choose a new table, but somehow they just knew and brought you your menu.
**We saw some funny names out there...my favorite was "Krispier" on a woman in a shoe store. Matt wonders if anyone still names their sons Adolf?
**All beer for the most part at restaurants and pubs are the beers that are produced locally. There is no real national brands per se, or what seems to be brand loyalty like we have. Wherever you are, that's the beer you drink...whether it's light, dark, or wheat.
**Their beds have no top sheets, just giant poofy down comforter with duvets. There were all very nice and cozy except I don't like my the occasional issue of your feet poking out the bottom.
**Some of the cutest moments of the trip are Matt and/or I just randomly breaking into song in the car or wherever. You can imagine it was always either Edelweiss or a Sound of Music number.
**We still can't believe the smoking in Europe, the numbers haven't slowed down and we will certainly not miss the cigarette smoke everywhere you go...especially when eating outside. Bleh....

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