4/9/2010

Day Two in Munich...

The 2nd day had us meeting the woman who hired Chuck into Microsoft, Carolyn, in Marienplatz for dinner. I’ll be honest… I was antsy and edgy, as I wanted to SEE Munich and waste as little time as possible simply sitting around talking, which I was afraid would be what we would do… At first, my fears seemed justified. I watched forlornly as the sun set outside (all that awesome, photo opportunity, sunlight gone! Ack!) while we ate what I must admit was fantastic food and talked and talked. The waitress then abandoned us to wait for what seemed an eternity for the check (there’s a reason you tip only 10% or less in Europe for waiters and waitresses… the service is definitely compensatory to the lesser percentage… bleh!).


Carolyn, however, a former resident of Munich, then offered to take us on a walking tour of Munich. A lovely night, this turned out to be a lovely tour of the city and well worth the wait.

The first stop on the tour turned out to be one of my favorites in Munich. Odeonplatz, a square consisting of the Odeon (a large concert hall), Feldherrnhalle (an incredibly impressive arch with statuary dedicated to Bavarian generals), and the Theatinerkirche (Theatiner Church) among other things, is something to behold! These are all impressive in and of themselves, but make an awe inspiring sight when placed together… perhaps especially at night with the soft lights making everything appear simply beautiful. I was in love with the place!

We then walked on to see the Palace… actually, I saw a big poster façade of the Palace posted up in front of it on scaffolding… oooohhhh… ahhhhhhh…. Right? Like all of Europe, they are constantly reconstructing, refurbishing and otherwise attempting to save all of these National treasures… and it just so happened this particular treasure was under the scalpel getting a facelift while I was there… ah well. I suppose I saw what it was supposed to look like, right?

In terms of history, we were also to see the plaza where Hitler did many of those speeches so infamously televised (it looks so much smaller in reality…) as well as the original gates of the city, cleverly built into a host of other buildings now.

Other than that, it was simply dozens of fountains, statues, obelisks and the like… you know how Europe is, you can’t spit without hitting an enormous monument older than your own country’s Constitution… sigh… very impressive indeed.

Eventually, however, much to my regret, the day had to come to an end. It was quite late when it did, as we had a drink and further conversation with Carolyn before departing on the rather long train ride back to the hotel, and we had quite an early flight the next day to London, so for the 3rd night in a row, I was set to get less than 6 hours of sleep…