Europe Day 13- Munich

Our last city! We started out our morning by having to move hotels. We originally thought we would only be in Munich for Thu-Sun, but had found such a cheap flight for Wed, that we came a day early...but then our hotel didn't have availability to extend our stay a night earlier. So this took up a couple hours-- we took the metro to the stop by our new hotel, which was more out in the suburbs. We get off at the stop and seriously feel like we are in the middle of nowhere and have no clue where to walk to get to our hotel. It is in a somewhat residential area and then there is also just some abandoned areas and areas with factories. We ask a couple people and no one can help us. Finally a taxi shows up to drop people off at the metro so this kind girl offers to go speak german to the taxi driver to try to get us directions...well it ends up the driver is from the US, so we talk to him and decide to just pay him to take us there. And thank goodness we did cause it was quite a walk to the hotel and dustin's suitcases had a wheel in the process of busting off. So we get all checked in and then head back to the metro to go sightsee.

We went to Marienplatz, which is like the town square area. We watched the Glockenspiel for about 5 minutes since we were there when it was set to go off-- it was some music that played and these little puppets that would twirl around. You can see it best in the second picture and if you look closely in the first picture, you'll see it in the tall spire. We went in a few churches and of course climbed one to get a view of the city. You can see the city overall just has more modern buildings. Marienplatz is the open area in the center-ish part of the picture.




We ate lunch at Spatenhaus and it was very good.


We then went to Residenz and I really enjoyed it-- it was amazing how much of it you got to tour! Unlike the other palaces, we got to view over 100 rooms! The palace was built back in the 14th century and where the Wittelsbach rulers lived. Much of it was destroyed during WWII (as was most everything in Munich), so a lot of the palace had to be rebuilt. As with any palace, you'll see it has it's own chapel...of course!




One of the rooms had the flat ceiling painted to make it look 3-D. I took a picture of it cause it looked pretty amazing-- this is all just on a normal flat ceiling, but appears as if it is much taller and ornate!


For a part of the tour, you got to just see a few rooms that contained all of the family's royal jewels and belongings. It was amazing cause I believe they said this diary belonged to one of Charlamagne's grandson's. That means this book is from around the year 1000 or even before-- just befuddles me how ornate it is and that it could be that old! This was one of several crowns that I'm not sure how old, but believe it was from waaaaaaaaaay back then around the year 1000 or so too. I'm just amazed how people created stuff like this!



By now it was late afternoon, so we went to the Hofgarten and English Garden. We were somewhat idiots and decided to walk to this English garden cause Rick told us there was a nice beer garden area to sit and have a drink. We walked FOREVER and come to find out, this park is larger than central park! It was cool though cause on the way to find this beer garden, we stumbled across a stream where people were actually surfing! This was the start of the stream through the park, so the water was rushing out and making waves and they would just take turns surfing for like 20 second stints.




We went to Augustiner for a small dinner and sat with 2 really nice girls from NY- Gina and Marian. It had been a while since we had made some friends, since most of the time in Paris we just ate and kept to ourselves! We ordered some appetizer that was traditional for German's-- I can't remember what it was called, but is basically some bread with raw onions and a cheesey-butter spread. It was okay. The city was hopping that night and we were glad that we did Hofbrauhaus the night before...there was such a mammoth crowd outside of it, you didn't look like there's a chance to get in.




Ok, this post was way too long-- what happened to trying to cut back on my trip recap?!

Europe Day 12- Paris/Munich

Today will be a short post!!

Our last morning of our routine of stopping for breakfast and riding the metro.



We had until about 2 or 3:00 before we had to be back at our hotel to go to the airport for our flight to Munich. There wasn't anything we were dying to do in this short time. We walked to some Palace, but they were having an exhibit and charging some outrageous admission, so we left there. Then we just walked along the Seine, where dustin got scammed-- Rick had warned us about this, but Dustin was too cool to read any tour books. A guy came by and drops a ring on the ground when you aren't looking, then pretends to find it and insists that you keep it and then asks for money. So I'm busy taking a picture of another couple and I can see this happening out of the corner of my eye. So the guy puts the ring on dustin's finger and then dustin gave him money! I'm like- no more of that- quit being so stupid and nice!


We had tried to find a lock cause wanted to put it on this bridge where people just hang out and picnic on, play music, etc. Locks were too expensive for Dustin to spend the money on, so we didn't end up doing that. So everything was just not going our way so far today!


We stopped for lunch in the Latin Quarter again and went to a different place and just ordered 2 cheese fondues-- it was SO MUCH CHEESE!!


We then took our flight to Munich and got to our hotel there. We dropped off our stuff and took the metro into downtown and went to the Hofbrauhaus. I had the BEST cheese spaetzle ever there. They used swiss cheese and carmelized onions to really give it some flavor! The beers were enormous and Dustin was in heaven. The place was HUGE and had to have held thousands of people-- you can see in the picture it's just a room full of long tables where people gather...then there are just many, many areas like this upstairs, downstairs, outside.

Europe Day 11- Paris

It's Tuesday and our last full day in Paris. We didn't have any set plans for this day, but a few options. One option was to take the train to an outlaying area and go to wineries...but that just seemed like too much hassle. So we stopped for our usual breakfast to select something from the MANY good-looking items.


We then just took the metro and did Rick Steves Montmarte walk. It is an area that is up on the hill just a short distance from the city.

The main attraction was seeing Sacre Coeur. They must not have allowed photographs cause I don't have any of the inside and there was a service going on, so our visit was pretty short.



It's a very artsy area, so we walked around the square where many artists have booths setup selling their work. Neither of us are interested in art/craft fairs, but we were AMAZED at the work being done! If we were rich and could easily transport the goods home, we would have loaded up...but instead came away empty handed. We got to see where Van Gogh, Renroir, and Picasso all lived...crazy that they all lived right here together!

We saw Moulin Rouge and grabbed lunch in the area at La Marmite and my food was awesome! It was a little more americanized, but was basically some sliced potatoes (seasoned and buttered up real good) topped with a salad.



Next, we left this area and decided to go do a few things from our Historic Paris Walk on ile de Cite yesterday that we didn't have time for. We went to the Archeological Crypt which is near Notre Dame. Here we just looked at a bunch of roman ruins-- it was pretty cool to see what all existed underground and where buildings used to stand.


Also nearby we went to the Deportation Memorial which is dedicated to the french victims of the nazi concentration camps. You can see behind the one set of bars, there was this long lit hallway with a bunch of tiny lights- each for one person that died.




We then walked over to Ile Sainte-Louis and got some ice cream, recommended by Rick....and it was awesome!!!! I got peach and was probably the best peach I've ever had- and that is saying a lot cause I am in love with Breyer's peach ice cream!



We then headed home and then back to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic-- this time sitting on the grass in front of it (instead of our hidden bench in the back)! We stayed for a couple hours, but once it got dark there were BATS everywhere and I was uncomfortable. They would swoop down right next to people-- I had my hood up on my jacket and sitting in a ball. So we then walked up a little close to the tower and noticed they have the whole thing secured off, police or military people with guns guarding it, and people all dressed up standing outside of this area (evacuated from the fancy restaurants in the tower)! So of course any one else that speaks english that we talk to, also doesn't know what is going on. So after a bit, we decided to just leave...and later found out there was a terrorist bomb threat.


We walked for a bit to a place that had boat cruises and took a tour of the Seine at night. It was a nice relaxing end to our paris nights!

Europe Day 10- Paris

Today is the last day of our Museum pass. We started out by grabbing some baked goods on the way to our metro stop. yum yum!


We did the Rick Steves Historic Paris Walk. It started at Notre Dame. Outside is a small metal disk on the ground that is called Point Zero- it was the center of Paris 2300 years ago and is the spot from which all distances in Paris is measured. We went inside and then waited in line for over an hour to climb to the top. Had we known it was going to take that long, I don't think we would have waited! The good news was there was a crepe stand across the street, so i got to eat a crepe while waiting!







The next main part of our sightseeing was walking around the Latin Quarter, although it looked more like the Greek Quarter cause there were a lot of gyro places that looked FANTASTIC! This was the first time we had seen a ton of restaurants advertising fondue, so we stopped here for some lunch and it was delicious.


That afternoon we visited the Conciergie which was an old prison and where Marie Antoinette was held. This is where they kept the prisoners before taking them to the guillotine. The building was really beautiful today.


Then we went to Sainte-Chapelle which was another really long line...probably an hour even though we got to cut into a shorter line with our museum pass. It was built in 1242 in just 6 years in a gothic style and had incredible stained glass which depicts over 1000 bible scenes. A lot of the glass was still original and was so dirty.


We then did Rick Steves Marais Walk, which explored an area of town where we had gone to dinner previously and really liked the area. The main thing we did here was the Holocaust Memorial-- which we wished we would have known that this was a HUGE museum and allowed for more time. Instead we had about an hour to rush through before they closed. It's something we would probably go back to if we went to Paris again and had time to spare.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were exhausted from a ton of walking and decided to just eat dinner near the hotel. We walked a block and went to Cent Kilo and it was decent-- not the best ever, but good enough! I got fajitas cause it was one of the first menus we had seen that had more American-style food that you would expect at most restaurants here. They were ok, but not sure how to describe them...just a little different than what fajitas taste like here.

Halloween update

Ok, gotta take a break from the vacation postings to get my halloween pics out cause we had so much fun! Friday and Saturday night we went to friends houses for parties. See if you can figure out what Dustin and I were...


If you guessed Tiger Woods and his enraged wife Elin, then you are right! Friday was almost like a trial run and we were able to greatly improve on his facepaint for Saturday night....and we surpringly won first place in the costume contest Saturday night! However, we didn't feel like we had the best costumes at all, but we'll take it!

Here are some other pics, Missy smurfing around the grocery store in costume, Lydia as Jem (cartoon from 80s), and Crystal as Batgirl. You can also see how decorative Crystal's house is for her party-- and this is just one tiny segment of what they do!






Then Sunday we visited Keenan and Liam to see them dressed up all adorable! We got Keenan this gun for part of his late bday gift and he loooooved it. He dressed up as a Transformer and Liam was a shark (as you can probably tell!).