Friday, June 8th (Munich)

We decided to kick-off Munich with a Mike’s Bike tour; a tour designed more for single backpackers from Amsterdam than 30 year old expecting parents. That said, we had a blast. The tour gave us a pretty good overview of the highlights of the city and left a little time for sightseeing at each stop. The highlights included the Theatinekirche, one of the most beautiful churches we’ve seen here. Sparkling white interior throughout with endless decorative touches. We stopped to say a few prayers, in particular for my mom’s friend Sue, our friend Lindsay and Dan Woehrle.

To conclude the tour we visited the Englischer Garten (a big park, like Central in NYC) where we a took a chilly swim in the rapids running through the park then relaxed in a nearby wading pool (yes we were not prepared for this so we adlibbed with what we had on). This was a blast since you jumped in and let the river take you downstream. We stopped for lunch at the 2^nd largest biergarten in the world at the Chinese Pagoda where we ate a two foot wide pretzel and a I sucked down a liter of beer (it’s kind of odd to count my beer consumption in liters, seems like a lot, but they go down surprisingly smooth). One the way out of the park, we stopped by a section of river where the rapids were so wild that people were actually surfing them. This would have been hard to believe had I not seen it for myself, but these guys were really tearing it up!

After the tour we got to see the famous Glockenspiel (clock tower) in Marienplatz which is like a giant coo-koo clock on steroids. At 5pm every day wooden knights joust, a Pinocchio band plays instruments and life-size mannequins dance in an effort to ward away the evil spirits that brought the plague to the town over 25 times. It seems to be working, at least for the last few years.

We finished off the night with a stop at the HofbruaHaus, famous as the center of Oktoberfest debauchery. We stopped by early before the table dancing got going but we did get to see more than a few old German’s in their lederhosen (leather pants topped off with a feathered cap). We actually ended up sitting with a couple from LA who were really nice and also were headed to Salzburg the next day. They were both actors (he’s been in some CSI episodes) and we offered to give them a ride so they wouldn’t have to take the train the next day.