Recently in Europe 08 Category

Miles Flown: 9,982
Stimulus Refund Dollars Spend Overseas: 1200 (ha ha)
Pictures Taken: 774
Miles on Train: 467
Height in Feet from 2nd Level of Eiffel Tower: 377
Hours in Planes: 23.5
Days Gone: 15
Beers Tried: 9
Churches Visted: 8
Airports Used: 7
Cities/Villages Visited: 7
Flights Taken: 6
Countries Visited: 4
Shot Glasses Purchased: 4 (for my collection, not use)
Museums Toured: 4
Currencies Used: 3
Train Trips: 3
Surprise Wake-Up Calls Given By Maid: 2
Blisters Gotten: 1 (poor Carrie)
Minibar Items Consumed: 0 (harder than you'd think)

I didn't take any pictures of our travels home, so I think the best way to do this is by time line.  The first time you'll see is the local time of wherever we were.  The second being central time here in the states.

9:00a (2:00a) - We get up to finish packing, get ready for the trek
10:30a (3:30a) - Start walking to the metro station and head out for the airport
Noon (5:00a) - Arrive at Munich airport, I try to do an automated check-in and am having trouble.  I get my own boarding passes but none for Carrie.  We head to the clerk and are told that she can only get Carrie's boarding pass to Frankfurt (at which point we take United instead of Lufthansa).  We are assured that we can get Carrie's boarding passes at the gate in Frankfurt.  We kill time reading and checking out the duty free shops.  We also enjoy coffee and chocolate doughnuts.
2:55p (7:55a) - This is when our first flight is scheduled to take off, we are on board waiting.  Carrie and I aren't able to sit together to do check-in snafu.
3:20p (8:20a) - We finally start taxiing to the runway.  We enjoy some very rough turbulence during our assent to cruising altitude.  I'm talking about the stuff that feels like you just dropped 10-20 feet.
4:20p (9:20a) - Arrive at Frankfurt airport, we have 40 minutes before our next flight leaves.  We have to haul it across the entire terminal.  After running up and down escalators and stairs, taking a tram, going through security again (don't ask me why) as well as two other passport checkpoints (and convincing them that my wife's boarding pass was waiting at the gate), we make it to our gate.  My favorite part of this experience--I'm asked at a passport control if I purchased anything in the airport.  I answer with three words, "No. I ran."
4:45p (9:45a) - Have our boarding passes and are getting onto the plane.  The doors close on us about 5 minutes later.
5:05p (10:05a) - The plane takes off five minutes late.  The flight was nothing special (though I did have to ask someone to move so that Carrie and I could sit together).  I had finished by second Stephen King book in the Munich lobby, so I had nothing to read.  I watched some of Smart People (not good at all) and Drillbit Taylor (good stuff).  Otherwise your typical 8+ hour flight.
7:15p (6:15p) - Arrive about half an hour early in Washington DC (Dulles).  Get some food from Five Guys.  I have a double hamburger and it's just about the best thing I've tasted in a while.  We then stroll around and check out the stores that Dulles has to offer.
9:45p (8:45p) - Board our flight to Kansas City.  It's a small, regional jet so we get to walk out onto the tarmac again.  I think this is awesome.
10:05p (9:05p) - We are five minutes late from departure and are told it could be a while.  There are several reasons for this.  1) The lavatory hasn't been serviced.  Apparently that guy had the night off (I'm not even kidding about that).  2) The luggage hasn't been put on the plane.  That might be helpful.  3) There is no one to push the plane back from the gate.  All the while, two girls behind us (in their late 20's) are chatting incessantly and being really annoying.  We just want to sleep.
10:30p (9:30p) - We finally start to taxi away.  As our flight attendants go through the safety info, they are much too enthusiastic.  They ask us to give ourselves a hand for properly buckling ourselves in.  Way too many people do.  We just want to sleep.
10:50p (9:50p) - We're well in the air, the girls have, well, shut up, and we're sleeping.  Good times.
Midnight (Central time now) - We are making our descent into KCI and are enjoying more turbulence.  Sleepy time over.
12:20a - We are waiting in line at the baggage claim.  The flight gets in around half an hour later than scheduled.  We find our baggage, find our ride, and are heading back to the McGranaghan's where our car has been parked for two weeks.
12:45a - Pick up our car and make our way home.  Driving feels a bit odd having not done it in two weeks.  (Sleep deprivation also helps).
1:25a - Finally arrive at our house.  It's raining buckets at this point.  We wait in the car about 2 minutes before deciding that if we do so any more, we'll fall asleep.  Make our way into the house through the rain.  :(  But at least we are finally home.  We check to make sure everything is good and then start unpacking and taking care of a few things before bed.
2:00a - Go to bed 24hrs after our day began...

Knowing that the next day would bring us lots of travel and little sleep, we decided to sleep in a final time.

Our first stop was to see if Birkenstocks were cheaper over in Germany.  It turns out, that a few years ago they really were, but with the exchange rate as it is, they weren't.  Sorry Carrie.

To make up for that, Carrie had a wonderful espresso drink (I don't recall what at the moment).

Our second stop was to get some of those chocolates that were north of Marienplatz.  On our way there, I saw this shop that sold antiques.  What you can't tell from this smaller picture, is that this beer stein is from 1760.  Yeah, it's older than our country.  I wanted it, but 850 euros ($1300+) was a bit out of my price range.

Carrie had another caramel truffle, but I did not get more whiskey truffles as I was still a bit choco'ed out from some chocolate muffins for breakfast (which crumbled in my hands as I tried to eat them - why can't I get a good breakfast around here?).

We then went out east a little bit to see the Maximilianeum, the seat of the Bavarian parliament.  They were doing a lot of construction, though, so I found it hard to get a good shot.

This one isn't bad.

This is what I had to work with.

I tried to get another river shot of the Isar, but it just doesn't have the same effect as the Seine.

Our next assignment (can you tell we knew what last things we wanted to do?) was to go the English Garden and get some lunch.  Along the way, we stumbled onto some other sights.  Here's the Ludwigskirche.

There's a matching tower behind this building on the right...

Here's the Siegestor, built in 1843-50 and is based on the design of the Arch of Constantine of Rome.  It honors teh Bavarian army and its role in the victory over Napoleon.  How interesting to see this Arch and the Arc de Triomphe in the same trip.  (Can you tell I'm returning our guidebooks to the library today?)

Another street shot as we make our way to the English Garden.


The English Garden is known for lots of things, among which is the fact that people can sunbathe nude if they like.  We didn't personally see any naked people, but there may be a few in this shot I took from a distance, you never know.

Within the gardens is the Monopteros, a Neo-Classical building set on a hill.  Here are shots of the Garden from this site.  This is looking back toward Marienplatz.  The two towers closest together are from the Frauenkirche.


Looking more westerly (I think)

Here's the structure a bit.

As I get to this point I have realized that my day counting is a bit off.  I should actually be day 12, because that first day we spent trying to get over jet lag and chatting with my relatives a bit.  No matter, just thought I'd let you know I caught the mistake.

Continuing on...

We were doing this as a day trip with a tour group, so we had to take our little pre-paid voucher to their office in the main train station.  (Here's a snippet of the station)

Our tour was schedule to depart at 9:15, and we were asked to be there 15 minutes early.  If you know me, you know what I did--show up an hour early.  Unfortunately, this meant that the office wasn't even open yet so we just wandered around for a bit until it did.  An hour later, we met our tour guide, a 29-year-old guy from Minnesota.  He's been living in Munich for four years (came over for a girl), and just recently got married (to that girl).  Funny fact about him: he's not bothered to take any classes in German, even though none of his in-laws speak English.  I find this odd.

The train ride over was 2 hours long and rather uneventful.  The interesting thing was that we were sitting right across from our tour guide.  Normally, this would be kind of awkward (he isn't particularly talkative), but one of his friends was tagging along on the train (on her way to Vienna), and she was constantly asking him questions about getting married, his relationship, etc.  So we actually learned quite a bit about our tour guide.

Here is our first view of Salzburg, as we crossed the Salzach river.

Our first stop, after taking a short bus ride, was the Mirabell gardens.  If you've seen the sound of music, the steps I'm standing on for this shot are where they sing the "Do Re Mi" song.

Here's the Pegasus fountain seen above up close

The following are more shots from this garden.

We decided to sleep in this day, but we forgot to put up the "Do Not Disturb" sign.  At least the maid gave us a nice wake-up call around 11:30 in the morning.

Our second attempt at breakfast went well for Carrie, and not so well for Andy.  Carrie really enjoyed her cherry fritter, while I tried to go the safe route and got a croissant.  What I didn't know was that this had a filling of apple or something else that wasn't entirely appealing.  I finished it anyway.

Our morning trek was to the Deutsches Museum, which is the oldest and largest Science and Technology museum in the world.

On our way there, we saw this little restaurant.  It's only funny to us because there is a restaurant of the same name just off of 83rd and Mission.

The museum was really cool, and a definite change from the art museums that we had been hitting.

Some of the highlights were the planes they had on display.

It was a bit odd to see it from a German perspective, though.  Not too many Lockheed or Boeing planes around here.  There were also some cool exhibits on spacecraft, though I imagine the Smithsonian might be better in that regard.

One of our primary reasons for going was the musical instrument section, which contains one of the oldest surviving harpsichords (1561).

Here's the room of keyboard instruments.  (Please forgive the color, I didn't bother doing good adjustments to make it look pretty with the low light.)


Here is the harpsichord in question (I don't know where the lid is)


We also got to do lots of mini experiments with light, physics, sound, et al.  They just had these little things set up all over the place and you pushed a button or pulled a level and the particular property was demonstrated.  We didn't always have English translations for what was going on, so I felt pretty cool when I could figure out what was being demonstrated.

Here's a fun little one where you spin around and can put out your arms or pull them in to affect the rate of rotation.  (Carrie demonstrating quite well.)

We stopped for a quick snack and were shocked to see this sign:


That's right, Trumanites, Sodexho is international.  (They're also at UMKC but I don't have to bother with them.)

Another cool thing was a reproduction of Galileo's workplace.

Amazing what could be figured out with so little it seems.

Other things we saw included exhibits on energy technology, toys, and clocks.  I couldn't possible list all we saw in the three hours we spent there, though.  We were quite tired by the end.

The museum itself is situated in the middle of the Isar river (not unlike Notre Dame is with the Seine).  Here's a shot as we were crossing the river.

A street view in the area

For lunch we went to the Viktualienmarkt, which is just off of the main square.  There are all sorts of food and beer stands, and we opted for a pretzel, a braut, beer, a coke zero, and some apples.

It was all fantastic, save the coke zero, which aside from having a different flavor has the same problem that every other pop/water bottle around here seems to have.  I think it's best illustrated with a picture.

That security ring would never come off correctly.  I mean not even once.  What's going on here folks?

Oh, here's a picture of the market.

After lunch we went back to the hotel to rest a while, and I also apparently decided not to take any more pictures for the rest of the day, so you'll have to endure my narrative skills I'm afraid.

Later in the evening we decided to walk around Marienplatz a bit more.  This time we headed west in search of the oldest brewery in Munich.  It's the Augustinerbräu, and it dates to, get this, 1328.  Pretty cool.  I would have taken a picture but it was already dark by this point (we didn't get up till noon, if you'll recall).

We did some more window shopping and then went to our favorite pizza place and got a small cheese pizza and, for me, some more beer.  I actually tried an Augustiner brew, but it was what they call a light beer (lighter in color, that is), and I thought it was only pretty good.  Still much better than your average beer stateside, of course.

After dinner we went to get some gelato, of which there are many choices around Munich.  I had the chocolate and Carrie had the Stracciatella.  Good stuff, man.  After some more wanderings it was time for bed.  We did actually have to get up early the next day as we were heading to Salzburg via train.