Munich Madness

And yet another month has passed us by. Whenever I write a new post, that song from Rocky Horror Picture Show pops into my head "Let's do the time warp agaaainnn, let's do the time warp again....". Time passes so quickly here and we have made a vow to do one BIG trip per month to try and cover our list of places to see. Unfortunately, the more places we go, the more we hear about other places and the list grows. We will definitely have to learn to prioritize and organize our travel wish list. But, hey, I'm not complaining, I live in EUROPE! What a wonderful dream come true and an amazing gift from God. We have been learning so much about ourselves, about others, and about God here. This has definitely been a test of our marriage, ourselves, and our faith (in a good way). But I've never had much test anxiety anyways.

We went to Munich (Muenchen), Germany for New Years and James' birthday this year. Our NY's city selection was a small bit of frustration with our own stupidity. We used a local airline to do a "Blind Booking" where you select a list of cities to visit, pay your ticket, and the airline chooses a location for you. We we're so excited to see where we were going. Of course, we were not smart enough to remove "Munich" from the list, considering it is only about a 6 hours drive from here. So, who would have thought the airline wanted to save some money and send us the shortest distance. And so, Munich it was and it was a BLAST. James had visited about 5 years ago and had a lot of good places picked out to show me.

We flew in, checked into yet another awesome Marriott (thanks Mom!), and spent our first full day touring the city (thanks to the great subway system), and stopped over at the famous Hofbrau house for pretzel and liters of beer.

We love the subway, it is so easy and useful!

Inside the Frauenkirch (church), not sure what it means though..

The Kings Funeral Procession Carrier

Hofbrau House

We spent New Years Eve at a cute little pub on the main bar strip in the city. When the gal at the bar told us the fireworks were right outside, we didn't take it literally. Well, we should have...We stepped outside a few minutes before midnight and as we were counting down realized that everyone around us had bags full of fireworks and lighters....what would they need all that for?  Midnight struck and World War III began. Well, not really but if it had, I imagine it would have sounded like that. There were Roman Candles, fountains, poppers, sparklers, crackers, mortars, drunk people with fireworks, kids with fireworks. Fireworks in the trees, on the street, under the bus. Fireworks in the sky, on the ground, blowing up in front of us, behind us, above us and below us. We had to dodge out of the way all the while cracking up (he he, pun intended) and this went on for the next hour at least. (Did that all sound like the next Doctor Seuss book? 1 firecracker, 2 firecracker, red firecracker, blue firecracker). It was totally exhilarating, scary, and a BLAST!!

The next day we went to the Dachau Concentration Camp. I am going to make a separate post about this because it really does deserve its own.

Our 3rd day in town we continued touring the city and spent the afternoon at the Residenz museum and treasury. It is the old home of the royal family in Munich and is immaculate. Most of it was bombed in the war but has been rebuilt to it's original glory.  We saw the royal treasures, the gold leafed halls, and even holy relics.

This clock does a dance jig everyday, it is called the Glockenspiel

Theatrekirche (Theater church)

A very old traveling altar

The King's Jewels

Holy Relic.....

Covered entirely in seashells

The statue hall, amazing and beautiful

Mary's chapel, extravagant

The Ancestral Hall with portraits of royal family members

The Royal Family Tree

We spent James' Birthday dinner at the delicious Ratskeller restaurant and spoiled ourselves to a 3 hour dinner!

Our final day in Munich was beautifully sunny. This is a rare thing here since we haven't seen the sun in at least 8 months...wait we haven't been here that long...but anyways, it was nice so we ventured out to the huge Englisher Gartens to enjoy the sunshine. We finished off our day at the Deutsche Museum and to a beautiful sunset.

Munich was overall an amazing city. There is sooo much to do there and it doesn't seem as touristy as some of the other places we've been. There is a LOT of history there and a lot of reminders of the war.  It is a city that has been through lot and has come back strong than ever.

James and I look forward to a new year filled with more travels, adventures, and learning! We are so blessed for this amazing opportunity and thank God everyday that we can adventure together.