I took the train up over Munich on Friday and went ahead and checked into our hotel and then sat down to wait for Sarah and Kaley to get there. My train got into Munich about the same time Sarah's flight was supposed to land, but since they flew into the Ryanair airport and had to take the bus into the city to get to the train station to take the metro to our hotel.
The hotel was a few stops outside the main part of the city and pretty nice for what we needed it for. 3 beds, a bathroom, and a table and TV. Once Sarah and Kaley got there we went into the city center to find dinner and wander around a little bit.
We ended up getting dinner at a German Restaurant right on Marienplatz, the main square. It was pretty good. I had a salad instead of any actual German food because I was so excited to find vegetables on a menu, but it was tasty and I got the house wheat beer which was also tasty. The Germans like their beer. I got the "small" beer and it was a 1/2 liter.
From dinner we wandered around a little bit and found a cafe for coffee and dessert before heading back to the hotel to play Monopoly Deal and make it an early night. Kaley won some pretty epic games of Monopoly Deal, including one where she stole 2 full sets from me in one turn to win, and then one game where I was an idiot and handed over the two cards she needed as payment for a debt without even realizing I was handing her the two cards she needed to win.
We got up Saturday morning (my bday) ready to see the city. We started out wandering through the Viktualienmarkt, a big market area where we grabbed some fruit and pastries for breakfast. From there we really wandered in a big circle, hitting all the sights as we passed them: St. Peter's Church, Frauenkirche (which wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped), the Town Hall in Marienplatz, and finally the Royal Residence and Opera.
When we got to the Royal Residence we found an outdoor library in the square with hammocks and bean bags and tons of people just lounging in the square reading. It was seriously awesome and I want Atlanta to get one.
From the Royal Residence's Gardens, we realized we were right at the start of the English Garden and decided to wander through it. It is the largest urban park in the world (bigger than Central Park) so we definitely didn't make it through the whole garden. We did find the Japanese Tea House and the Chinese Beer Garden. The tea house was beautiful. It was closed when we walked past and from what we could tell, its only actually opened a couple of time per month. We wandered along the river in the park until we reached the Chinese Beer Garden and stopped for lunch. The area was pretty cool and we all got sausages for lunch (and a beer for me).
After lunch we decided to head out to the Olympic Park from the 1972 Olympics. When we got there we were pretty tired and decided that we really didn't care enough to pay to see anything in the park and we didn't want to just wander the park since we had just done that in the English Garden. The BMW Museum was right there as well so we walked in for a minute and played on the motorcycles outside.
Next we headed off to the Nymphenburg Palace. There was a wedding going on which was pretty cool, and we just wandered around the grounds a little and grabbed some water at a cafe (actually where the wedding reception was about to take place- we weren't dressed to crash it though...haha).
It was getting pretty close to dinner time by then so we headed back into Marienplatz to find dinner. We really had no idea what we wanted, but did know that we didn't want German food. We ended up finding a little Italian Restaurant with good pizza. From dinner, we headed to the Hofbrauhaus to really celebrate my birthday. I got, and finished thank-you-very-much, the BIG beer. Full liter of the Hofbrau Original beer. It was really good, and there was a ton of it. We split some apple strudel for dessert and just sat outside enjoying the night. Eventually, despite Sarah and Kaley turning my beer-drinking into the next sport deserving of commentary, which was absolutely hysterical and kept making me laugh, I did finish my liter of beer. I dedicated sips of it to my Dad and my friend Dillon, who commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the Marine Corp that day! (You're welcome!) We headed home after the Hofbrauhaus to figure out exactly what we needed to do for our Sunday Adventure to the castle and, of course, to play more Monopoly Deal!
Overall, it was a pretty awesome birthday! I'll update soon about Munich part 2, our trip to Neuschwanstein Castle!
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