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Published: September 1st 2008
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lacoste of capitalism Hey travelroos and travelrinas,
So I just finished my whirlwind tour of Bavaria with meine Mutter. I guess I owe it to you to describe a bit of what we saw. First stop Munich, or as the locals call it, München. Munich is the self-appointed heart of Bavaria, and likewise, we pulled into the left atrium ruddy with a rich red oxygenated hue.
Our modus operandi, which has yet to fail us, is to just walk around and look at things. On this mission, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and took off zu fuß (on foot) to Marienplatz, a wonderful little walking area with shops and the Munich Rathaus, which is the word for city hall. Unlike the city halls you may see on public access TV in Glendale, AZ, this city hall is a castle (see figure). This city hall also has a Lacoste store on the ground floor. By the commutative property of castles, this Lacoste store is in a castle. This seems to happen a lot in Germany, for the simple fact that, with this many castles and Lacoste stores, there are bound to be some inadvertent collisions.
We were pretty tired at
8 virtues
man check out those virtues this point, so we went and ate and drank at a delightfully touristy Bavarian restaurant in the platz. The food was wurst, cheese, and beer (which according to Bavarians is a food). I learned that the average daily beer consumption in Germany is something like 300mL. I speculate that Bavarians occupy the upper quartile of that statistic, weighing in with at least a pint a day. Anyway, it was good eats all around.
The next day we visited the Englishergarten, on the recommendation of a good friend/mentor. The English Gardens are 1254 acres of public park area complete with a couple of lakes, miles and miles of bikepaths, 5-6 biergartens, and oh yeah, nudists. Nude guys, nude girls, kids, old people, dogs just around playing frisbee, reading, sleeping, and bending over WAY too frequently. To be honest, as I struggled to walk the park with my restrictive t-shirt and chafing loose-fit jeans, I was jealous. Maybe next time, when I'm not with my mom.
Oh and there's also a place where surfer dudes come to hang ten in the middle of a river. No joke, see figure.
While we didn't run around naked as the day we
cowabungahangten
whoooooa blossom were born, we did rent some bikes and, clothed, biked around the entire park. That, along with a fair bit of walking, had us ready to take a rest at the Chinese biergarten. We had some bretzen (pretzels) and bier, and continued to walk the park.
In line with our sightseeing strategy of walking aimlessly about, we walked aimlessly about and ended up at another garden area. To one side was a Bavarian state building, which our guidebook told us was decorated with 8 sculptures representing the 8 Bavarian virtues: patriotism, freedom, hard-work, soft-serve, crème de menthe, Dopey, Sneezy, and Blitzen (see figure).
Munich was great, but there were other fish to fry, and these fish were Alpine mountain lake fish in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. This incredibly beautiful mountain town was the site of the 1936 Winter Olympic Games, and is nestled in the German Alps. We pulled into the train station, dropped our stuff off at the hotel (check out the view and the bathrobes), and hit the streets. Beautiful beauty everywhere. I wish I could express this better, but suffice it to say, if I see one more scenically and/or Medievally beautiful vista, I am
going to lose my lunch. Which would be a shame because it was delicious. In fact every sensory modality I have (and probably some that I don't) has at one point been overwhelmed by joy and pleasure in this town. We made the mistake of taking a ski-lift to the top of one of the nearby mountains. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful; the mistake was, my mother INSISTED we go to the top of the HIGHEST MOUNTAIN IN GERMANY, which this wasn't. So we went all the way back down and the next day, lived her dream ascending hand-over-hand to the tallest peak in all of Deutschland, the wonderfully named Zugspitz. Halfway up we stopped and walked around the Eisee, a crystal clear Alpine lake. I'll take this opportunity to say something that has continued to arouse my endless awe and admiration since I arrived in Germany, and that is the unbelievable youth of German old people. There we were, 2 miles into a 4 mile long ring trail around a lake at least 1500m high, and we were getting passed left and right by octagenarians (or more) with their walking sticks (read, canes). This is not true only of Garmisch, but of everywhere we've been. The city streets are infested with active-livers (not livers like, "ow my liver" but as in "life-ers"). On bikes, on foot, on the street, on the beat.
Well, I've already spent too much time on this, and I haven't even caught up to the present day. In short, I am now moved into the dorm in Würzburg and getting everything bureaucratic worked out with the help of my unbelievably competent and utterly indispensible tutor/guide Manuel. Next time... adventures in German banking! More updates later!
P.S. I should note that when I write about these pictures, I do it before I actually upload them. In some cases, the internet is too slow to upload, so I don't and forget to later. I'll try to avoid doing this, but I promise all of this is REAL.
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Kati
non-member comment
good first few days
I am also about to lose my outmeal (typo - pun not intended but it fits) what a disgustingly wonderful first few days! Do load up the pictures, how can we go another day without the visuals of the virtues? I think there was a later Olympics too in G. Partenkirchen, I remember it televised, and my mother was only 6 in 1936. New here: we submitted Chris's paper! It came back rejected in 24 hours but it was a clerical error and we have to re-submit it today. I will get to your class issue, promise. Not to top the Zug Spitze but yesterday we decided to go up Mt. Lemon to get Otto excited about something - he is pretty lonely - and it was spectacular. Because of the recent monsoon rains the air is incredibly clear - it like a kitschy postcard, the crystal clear air, fantastic blue sky, a few white, fluffy clouds, and the mountain is GREEN. There are pastures, lush grass undulating in the wind, and water dripping from the rocks, forming little waterfalls everywhere - I have never seen Mt. Lemon so alive. So, there, we have something to brag about too, global warming ot not. Talk to later, meanwhile stay clothed and semi-sober, Kati