And this was supposed to be the day when we give our feet a break...

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December 29, 2008

We broke our record for walking today. By late this afternoon my feet felt like they were about to fall off - we had 33,000 steps at that point. I had Matthew get us each a ticket for a short trip on the U-bahn because suddenly it seemed worth 2.30E a piece. Even with that, we ended up with 36,000 steps today. I told Matthew that next year before we take a trip I should get us some Dr. Scholl's inserts for our shoes because it doesn't matter how comfortable your shoes are for the first 10,000 steps, eventually they just aren't cushy enough (especially when walking on cobblestones - ouch!). We keep saying we'll have an “easy” day after all of this walking, but that hasn't happened yet. It probably will tomorrow, since we're buying transit tickets so that we can go out to see the Nymph Castle and Dachau, so we'll be riding a bit of the day.

After several days of being cut off from the news, we finally found the channel for CNN and I am getting my news fix. Right now we're watching big protests in London against some really horrible actions that Israel took (again) against the Palestinians. The protesters seem very peaceful but they're not getting good press. I really wish I had access to NPR so that I knew what was really going on in the world. It's a good thing that our trip is only a week - I'm too addicted to NPR to be without it for very long.

This morning we had a very specific plan to try and get as much sight-seeing as possible into this day. We realized we hadn't really crossed the Isar (river across from our hotel) and seen that side of town, so we went for a walk in that direction early this morning. We saw a small square that has held a market three times a year since 1310! This side of the river the town wasn't as nice, a bit more suburban and run-down, but with some decent park-like areas. So many people were out walking their dogs today! So maybe there are more dogs here than in Prague. The dogs are definitely better-behaved than any dogs at home (aside from guard dogs). Most aren't on leashes but never go up to strangers or get distracted by anything. One guy was out running and his dog came trotting behind him, carrying the leash in his mouth! I wish I could train Lotus to do that, but I am not disciplined enough (although as long as there's a treat involved she'll do anything).

Crossing back over the Isar, we walked down to a shop that I've wanted to pop into for several days. They advertised beautiful coats for really good prices - the one I liked was 69E, but they didn't have my size and it was suede, so not really practical for Oregon anyway. While in there, I did find a few good bargains, including a coat that I bought (and will have to wear as a layer under my current coat on the plane in order to get it home) - it's mustard yellow and a little too big but not too noticeably big, and only 15E!! There were plenty more deals if I had a bigger budget and a bigger suitcase to match, but we left the store and walked down to the Viktualienmarkt to look around since stalls were open. While there, we had coffee and pastry at Reichart (I had another chocolate croissant - yum!) and then decided to head up to the English Garden.

The art museum that Hitler built in 1937 is right on the edge of the entrance to the English Garden, so we passed by and took a couple pictures (this museum now houses modern art, which Hitler hated), and then entered the gardens. The gardens were designed by an American and are lovely, 900 acres, and filled with people out for a stroll. There's a small hill with a rotunda that offers a decent view of part of the city, a gigantic wooden pagoda that is part of the “Chinese beer garden” and a decent-sized lake, which was filled with swans and ducks trying to paddle around but being thwarted by the fact that most of the lake was frozen. We didn't walk farther than the lake because the gardens are huge, we had other things to see, and we wanted to make it to the Afghani restaurant in time for lunch.

We crossed the Isar again, this time farther north than we were this morning, and walked along some very pretty residential areas. Some areas had old villas that were now converted into businesses, some into up-scale condos. We also passed the British and Italian consulates, near Europaplatz, and saw a gigantic column built in Corinthian style celebrating the peace between Germany and France in 1871. From there, we walked by the Bavarian parliament, re-crossed the river, and headed toward the new synagogue, which we use as a landmark to guide us toward the Afghani restaurant. The restaurant was very nice inside, like an up-scale cafe with understated décor and the perfunctory National Geographic Afghani girl picture on the wall. The tables were about half-full, and most of the patrons were German. The notable exception being the two loud and obnoxious unwashed American men who had no clue that their colorful language and decibel level was not appropriate. It was another “God, I hope people don't see me that way” moments. We tried to ignore them, and I think were fairly successful. After all, we had to concentrate on the menu. It was all in German, so I couldn't read everything but I could get the general idea for each dish - I ordered a grilled chicken dish with saffron rice and almonds and apricots (the apricots being the word I couldn't decipher in the menu). Matthew had grilled lamb kebab with basmati rice and salad. The waitress spoke no English, and we used just about all my non-existent German, and all in all it was a pleasant experience.

After lunch, we ran back to the hotel, dropped off most of what we had been carrying (including my extra guidebook and the water bottle - it's too cold to actually drink water while outside), and then set out to find a couple little shops and Alt Schwabing, an area where people like Lenin and Trotsky and Tomas Mann lived. Sadly, our journey was a long one that proved a bit fruitless when we could not find most of what we were looking for. It was at this point that I suggested U-bahn tickets and we started heading back to the hotel. We did make a stop along the way to pick up most postcards and buy stamps (oy vey is all I have to say about that). My plan is to try and finish postcards before I fall asleep (which will be shortly because I'm so tired) so that tomorrow we can mail them while we're out and about.

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Photos

Graffiti
Sometimes graffiti can be funny.

This is to prove that we were actually in Munich together
I figured we should have at least one picture with us in it to show that we were here.

Der Walking Man
I am not kidding. That is the name of this gigantic statue, which was commissioned by an insurance company. Why? Who knows!