Travelogue – Arriving in Munich

I forgot to bring along my Blogger password, so I had to declare I had forgotten it and had to suffer through the reset instructions in French (I'm in Strasbourg at the moment, details in the next post).

Thursday, August 1
The trip got off to a slow start. Shortly after everyone had boarded the plane the pilot announced the weather radar was not working properly. The parts were nearby and easy to install. The delay should only be 40 minutes. Well, there was another 40 minute delay while another part was replaced. Then the paperwork needed to be filled out. Then the adjacent plane had to be pused back before ours could be. Then ... Whatever it was, we took off three hours late. With that much time passed the plane was not able to make it up.

Because of the delay supper was served after 10 pm.

Friday, August 2

I'm sure my brother was glad of the extra sleep since he didn't have to meet me at 8:30 am. Instead, I got to the Munich airport about 11:30. He met me outside of customs and we took the train into town – the airport is quite a ways outside of the city.

I met my niece in my brother's apartment. She was not feeling her best, so in the afternoon Brother and I left her to rest and we walked along the river for a while. We met some of Brother's cycling friends at a Greek restaurant for supper. These are two English couples who have lived in Munich for decades. I was amused at the choice of restaurant because Brother had just returned from a lengthy trip with his elder daughter and family that included a couple weeks in Greece. Brother definitely found the food to his liking.

Brother doesn't have a car anymore so our adventures around town are by public transport and by foot.

Saturday, August 3

Both Brother and Niece were in recovery mode this morning, so I did a walking adventure by myself. I had printed out a map of the area neighborhood then forgot to take it with me. So I made sure I spotted landmarks so I could return the way I came. I walked to the main train station (because that was at the end of the street I was on) and over to a church I could see down a side street. In the church I saw yesterday and the one today, both Catholic, I noticed something unusual – there was no crucifix at the front of the church. In yesterday's church it hung to the side of the nave. In today's church it wasn't there at all.

Back at the apartment and after a tiny lunch (didn't want a big one) Brother and Niece talked about an afternoon bike ride. A couple rainstorms later we agreed bikes weren't going to work. Niece had been talking about a shoe store on the opposite side of town. We saw that to make it there before it closed at 4:00 we would have to skip the bikes and take public transport. We got to the store seven minutes before it closed. Niece decided they didn't have what she was looking for.

The rain held off, though the weather was cool (70F). This was considerably better than the heat Brother and family endured while traveling in Italy and Greece. We walked over to the English Gardens (I'd have called it a park). After walking the north half of the park we stopped at a beer garden for supper. Then another walk back to public transport and home.