Tuesday, August 26, 2014

thank you--gracias--danke

I'm pretty sure Laura and I walked all over the central part of Munich today. We partly followed a day plan from a travel book I brought and then just wandered around finding interesting streets as we went. To get to the center, we took a train and arrived at Marienplatz, which quickly became our home base of the city. We saw Neues Rathaus which had figures that dance to the clock chimes though we were not there at the right time to see the figures move. Perhaps tomorrow we shall catch them at the right time. We saw many beautiful churches including Frauenkirche (though the outside we under restoration, the inside was still gorgeous) and some neat gardens in the surrounding area. We quickly improved our map reading skills, as fun wondering sometimes led to ending up far from our next destination. We went back to Marienplatz where we went to the top of Neues Rathaus and saw the city from up high. Always fun! While we brought a sandwich for a snack, we also sampled some local food-a small baguette with some kind of pork-for lunch. We walked all the way down Maximilianstabe seeing expensive shops, crossing some bridges and ending at the government building. On the way back we saw one of the original doors of the city and another stunning church. Then we hiked all the way to the museum district until we realized that we didn't really want to see a bunch of museums. So we took photos with some cool modern art neat the museums instead! Getting a bit tired from all of the walking, we took the train to Marienplatz where we went on a search for Milka welt (a magical place filled with all kinda if Milka chocolate). Laura, with her amazing language skills that she'd been using all day, asked some people where it was and away we went to the land of chocolate (and luggage and shirts and lunch bags and pretty much anything else you can put the work Milka on). By this time, we decided to look for a place to eat. People in Germany eat much earlier than those in Spain, so it felt a bit early for us but we found a cool place and sat down for a yummy dinner. I decided to order snitzel and get another taste of a traditional meat. It was  a yummy albeit a huge dinner! After this, we took the train back to the apartment. Our location is ideal as the station is right outside of where we are staying. Being a bit sore from the days adventures, we have turned in early and are in jammies relaxing. Thus far, we have played MASH (both the Spanish and American versions), done some origami, and made a fortune teller.

 I also found out my family for my home stay in Sevilla today! I will be living with a woman and her husband. They live close to the cathedral of Sevilla, the university of Sevilla and the train station.
More about our time in Munich tomorrow.