Munich in 7 hours

 I don't recommend Munich in only 7 hours.  It's a big city, it's an OLD city, so there is a LOT to see.  We planned to do about 24 hours in Munich- that's probably not really enough time either, though.  Friday I go to the train station and buy tickets- fine, no problem. I go to the travel office to get help with a hotel reservation-Big Problem. It's the last weekend of Oktoberfest. Oh. Finding a hotel room on Friday for Friday night is hopeless. Oh. You REALLY didn't know it was Oktoberfest?...no...
    Luckily our train tickets are very flexible. We actually bought tickets and seat reservations (unbeknownst to me). The tickets could be used at any point for the next month. We simply lost the money for the reserved seats (10 CHF for both of us) if we didn't get on that train and we could always make new reservations for a different train. You don't have to have a reserved seat, but when dealing with Oktoberfest, it is wise to reserve a seat.
   So instead of a Friday night departure, we left Saturday morning. Maybe we'd be able to look for a hotel once we got there, and if not, we could just come back on our reserved seats Saturday evening. Apparently it is way more fun to go to Oktoberfest in costume, because that is how the majority of people were dressed on the train. Many were also already drinking (this was at 8:30). We arrived in Munich 3 hours later to a PACKED train station. And that is about the best way to describe Munich during Oktoberfest- packed.  Also very jovial since most everyone is hammered, or buzzed at the very least.
  Oktoberfest: a tutorial.
It's amusing that I'm writing this since we never made it to the actual Oktoberfest, but this might explain why.  Roughly 6 million people visit Oktoberfest over 10 days. We were there over the last weekend. The actual Oktoberfest takes place within a certain area-basically like a state fair. In this area there are several beer tents with tables. You need a reservation a year in advance to get a table in one of these tents. Everyone else tries to get into the beer garden. When they can't get into that, or when they have had enough of that, they head back to town to one of the 6 beer halls in Munich or just a pub or restaurant. We shared a table at dinner with some Americans who had been to Oktoberfest for the afternoon. They said it got crazy at 3 pm so they left. I can only imagine what 10 pm is like.  The crowds on the street were enough to convince Kenny and myself that we didn't really want to make the effort to go to Oktoberfest.
(I happened to catch
    So what did we do? As mundane as it sounds, one of our main goals was to do some shopping because things are cheaper in Germany than in Switzerland.  We didn't do much of that, but we did get boots. What we really needed was jeans for Kenny, but it will have to wait.  We also did an English walking tour of the city. It was a nice little introduction to the major historical sites.

 This is the glockenspiel (I know, it is really hard to see- but kind in the middle is a little scene- think cuckoo clock). Everyday at 11am, Noon, and 5pm a little scene plays out. The top scene is a marriage feast of a king and queen with joisting and dancing. The bottom scene is barrel makers dancing to celebrate the end of the black plague. This is one of the things that my mom remembers from being in Munich on her honeymoon and something she highly recommended we check out. It was definitely neat to see.

 Eli is "steering"

 Yes, that is someone surfing on a teeny tiny river in the middle of the city. My first reaction was "how Swiss, to be surfing." (to find some kind of exciting outdoor sport to do) Kenny said "how German, to engineer the river so that they can surf." There were signs up encouraging the surfing, although suggesting only very experienced surfers participate-and that is definitely not American. We would have had signs forbidding it.

I don't even remember exactly what this building was-something government, but the middle part is original- it withstood the bombing during WWII. There were lots of pockmarks on the pillars to prove it. The wings are obviously redone. The architect said the glass walls stood for transparency in government- nice.

   I mentioned in the Grandma post that we got to drink the Pope's favorite beer. The Pope used to be archbishop of Munich.

 Near Munich there is a monastery that brews one of the last beers still brewed by monks. According to our tour guide, he has it imported to the Vatican monthly. Just before we left Munich we snagged a shared table at a little pub that served this beer.

 There is the new haircut, but it doesn't look right in this shot-too much wind

  A note on tipping: Tipping in Europe in general is not like it is in the States.  It is not an expected thing. It really is a tip- I see that you went over and above in your service and I am going to give you a little something extra for that. I think Euro servers like Americans because tipping is so standard for us.
 And speaking of restaurants and paying, it has been my experience while over here that we always pay the server, who is carrying a large wallet with him/her. The server will make change right there. If you want to use a credit card they will bring a small machine to the table. I don't know if that's very interesting but just a note on differences in customs.
  It would have been nice to stay longer in Munich, but not with those crowds. Kenny and I are not big crowd people. It was definitely nice to get away for a day with just one kid (who slept a good part of the day).