Day 7 -- Munich, Germany

Munich, A.K.A. the city that never sleeps.

Okay, I'm making that up…I have no idea what Munich is called, other than the very Germanic-sounding "München."

First off, I will speak on our hotel. We're staying at a place called the "Hotel Uhland." Now…going from the dark, stinky alcoves of the Hotel Horse d'Or (oh, wait, I get it now – Odor of the Horse! I was such a fool!!!) to the wondrous clean of the Hotel Uhland was enough to make a man wrap a sandwich in foil and put it in the fridge for 2 days, then after that 2 days was up, take the sandwich out and eat it, because he was really going to enjoy that sandwich.

Which is another way of saying that the hotel is awesome. Clean. Bright. Full buffet breakfast included. Friendly staff. Spacious bathroom (relatively). German television with German channels (full of grodey childbirths, apparently). A mini-bar with reasonable prices (I don't think that Europe has caught on to the "mini-bars are only there to bilk your guests" craze that's rampant in the US). And Mirrors!

Okay, I'm getting carried away. The point is, if you ever happen to find yourself in Munich, do yourself a favor and stay at the Hotel Uhland. And tell them Tyler sent you. They probably won't know who Tyler is, but I've always wanted someone to say "Tyler sent me." Seems very classy.

Our room at the Hotel Uhland. Small...sure...but everything is small in Europe, apparently.

After our free breakfast (I know it's not really free, since it's included in the cost of the hotel…but I'm going to call it "free"…since our hotel budget and our food budget are two separate columns on the Excel spreadsheet) we did our typical first-day-in-a-new-city tradition. We went on walkabout – Dundee style.

First stop was the Glockenspiel, in the Marienplatz. The Glockenspiel is on a big ol'…I'm gonna' say "building" (even though it looks like a church from the outside) in the middle of the city. One of the towers contains a bunch of little...statues?, that spin in a circle several times a day. That show, which is a marvel in medieval engineering (actually finished in 1908), was attended by, probably, several hundred people...all craning their necks to see the little things turn in a circle. More fun for us than the actual "show," was the reactions of the crowd. When one of the jousting knights was un-horsed, there was a gasp of approval from the crowd, followed by a smattering of applause. It was adorable.

This is what everyone was looking at.

Next to the Marianplatz were two big ol' churches. The first is the Frauenkirche, which is German for "Kirch of the Frow." It's notable because there are two big towers that (Sharla, plug your eyes here) look like two big ol' boobies. Or, at least the tops of them do. Or maybe I'm just imagining things. Or maybe I should just stop talking.

Anyhow, our first stop was the sanctuary itself. Very pretty – it's always interesting, because you feel a bit sacrilegious popping into an active, catholic church and snapping photos of the cool artwork in the different naves (representing the different saints that are prayed to by Catholics…or some-such…I'm not totally sure how it works, being the Protestant scum that I am). Plus, occasionally there will be a mass going on, as tourists rotate around the outskirts of the cathedral…taking pictures…gawking…et cetera. It's very strange.

In the back of the cathedral was something very interesting – photos of the church from 1944 to 1949. See…apparently the Allies pretty much bombed Munich into oblivion. I read that 71 air raids hit Munich during the war…and much of the city was destroyed by allied bombs. Munich was one of the birthplaces of the Nazi party, and the allies seemed interested in blowing it up. The two main churches in the square were no exception – they were pretty massively devastated…and the photos showed the rebuilding efforts, ending in the restoration of the church to its original state. At least, I think that's what happened – my German isn't all that great.

So, underneath the main pulpit (my church terminology is not so great – would that be the sept?) was a little shrine, and I saw the best painting I'd seen since my trip to Europe. It was another retelling of the passion (we've probably seen several dozen at this point…one thing about European artists – they loved painting the Jesus), but it wasn't the expression-less retelling that the Romantics seemed to favor. It was almost done in the style of "The Scream," where the picture was abstract…showing the massive suffering and ugliness of the event. It gave a tragic humanity to Jesus (because he was "made man," as I recall), and to those around him…and it really moved me. This was the kind of art that really reaches me – something shedding the banality of stoic heroism and showing the true gut-twisting fear of real heroism.

But I didn't get a photo…because I was in a church…and some guy was praying…and it just didn't feel right. Maybe if we swing by there later I'll get something…I just really liked the painting. That's all.

After our tour of the sanctuary, we went up in one of the boobs – sorry, towers – to have a look around. Something the Germans don't seem to have figured out are the intricacies of doorways. The French discovered some time ago that you have to let people off of the elevator before you can push yourself on. The Germans? Not so much. The French also discovered that those narrow stairs leading to the towers of cathedrals were not built for "up and down" traffic at the same time. Again…Germany must have missed that lesson. Also, the French know not to stand in doorways…because people use those to enter and exit buildings. Not so the Germans. I could go on…but portals seem to confound the proud German people. At least, that's been my experience.

The view from the top was all right – Munich doesn't have the famous landmarks of Paris, but it's got a pretty skyline. We didn't linger long, because we had a long day ahead of us that was only beginning.

View from the boob.

Our next stop was lunch…and Munich again scores a knockout against the weak Parisians. I had a bratwurst with mustard on a Kaiser roll…Erika had some kind of liver cheese sandwich, which contained neither liver nor cheese. What it does contain is a mouthful of magic in every bite. I would walk 500 miles to eat either one of those sandwiches again – in fact, sitting here in bed, I'm seriously contemplating sneaking out, breaking into the booth where it was sold, starting up the grill, locating cooking instructions, and firing up another one of those bastards. I'm totally serious. It was that good.

Lunch

Bellies full of sweet, sweet German food, we dashed over to the Deutsches Museum, which, I believe, is German for "Rabbit Squirrel Dinner on a Rose Rabbit Sparkplug." It's a huge museum full of technology, and "what-not." I could try to explain the what-not, but instead I'll leave you with an impression.

Erika and I spent a good 45 minutes learning about the history of metallurgy. Yes, the two lily-livered (is that the second time I've used that phrase? Blast!) Theater Arts majors read up on how medieval craftsmen separated gold and silver from raw ore (hint: they used a furnace). I know…it doesn't sound interesting…but durg-labbit, it really, really was.

All you will ever need to know about medieval met

Now, because we were crawling through the museum, reading up on way too much interesting stuff to ingest in a single day, we got about a little less than a third of the way in and realized that we were falling asleep on our feet. Not out of boredom, but out of good old fashioned exhaustion. So Erika sat on a bench as I got my "war history" on, and cruised through the airplane section of the museum. Too much cool stuff to go into, but the point is – if you're in Munich, leave a day to spend here. You'll learn a lot – there's English translations for nearly every exhibit that we saw (except, oddly, for the oil drilling and refining wing). Very cool.

An actual Me-262 -- my favorite WWII airplane. Can you feel my excitement?

We walked back across town, I got us lost (and I blame the map, because an awesome handyman blames his tools) but we found our way eventually, and I forced a nap into our dwindling itinerary.

Our dinner was at the world-famous Hofbrau Haus. Which, apparently, is German for "I'm Tired Of Translating German For You Tyler, Please Go To Bed." We had two one-liter beers each, and some more meat and bread – I'm sure Munich is giggling with Bavarian pleasure about the severe hit our "healthy eating plan" has absorbed. Full of a liter's worth of beer, we staggered around the Marianplatz a bit more, stopped in some restaurant somewhere and ate some Apple Strudel, then staggered back to our hotel and slept in a staggered fashion.

It was an amazing day, for sure. Tomorrow we go to the "Cinderella Castle," which is German for "Neuschwanstein." Should be fun – we'll see if we can actually follow through on our nightly pledge to "get an early start tomorrow." Until then…