Branden: “Let’s go to Munich to visit Pete during our birthdays.”
Brian: “Sounds like a plan.”

Ok, maybe that isn’t exactly correct, but close enough. A couple of months ago, Branden Moore and Pete Rijks convinced me to go on a birthday trip to Munich, Germany, the current home of Pete. I needed a vacation and getting out of the country seemed like a good idea. While you won’t read it until I’m safely on the ground in Albuquerque, I write this log of the trip while at 37,000′ over the North Atlantic in a United 777 in desperate need of an interior refresh, but safely cruising at 470 knots. During the trip, I’ve drank lots of really good beer, had a traditional Bavarian breakfast, lost a game of Risk to a Brit, driven 200 kph on the Autobahn, and remembered just how allergic I really can be to cats. A more detailed review requires rewinding to Wednesday, March 28th…

Pictures of the trip are on my Gallery.

Wednesday, March 28th

In my limited experience, the worst part about any trip to Europe is getting there. For this trip, I’d be taking the 9:55 United flight from Albuquerque to Dulles, then a 4.5 hour layover, then the 19:55 Lufthansa flight from Dulles to Munich. In typical fashion, United was unable to get me a seat assignment on the Lufthansa flight, even though they code share and the flights were bought on United.com. I later found out they also screwed up the tickets somehow such that I didn’t have a confirmed seat and only by the heroics of Lufthansa did I get on the plane at all. No problem, I’ll deal with that in Washington, DC when I get there. Flight from Albuquerque to Washington was uneventful. The United 737 had the feature where passengers could listen to the flight deck during the flight, so I tuned that in for a while. Before I became a pilot (and even early in my training), I had done this a couple of times and been totally lost by what they were saying. Now it was completely different — I could visualize where everyone on the radio was and why ABQ departure was moving us where they did. ABQ center was quiet as always, so I plugged in the iPod and started thesis writing. Soon enough, we’re descending through 10,000′ into Dulles — time to shut down the laptop.

Arrive in Dulles and find I can’t deal with the lack of a seat for 2 hours so Lufthansa can deal with earlier flights. The Dulles international terminal, unlike the domestic terminal I last spent a layover in, is very clean and modern looking. $8.00 buys me wireless internet through AT&T and I find a seat with power in cord’s reach, so time to catch up on thesis work and download some data I realized wasn’t on my laptop. While I hate paying so much for internet access, in this case it allowed me to grab some data I’d need for the a section of the thesis proposal I need to get written by end of the trip. The food selection appears to be greasy fast food, expensive big sit-down, or subs. Not wanting a huge expensive meal or fast food, I go for the subs The place is called Potbelly’s and it appears the Italian sub is their specialty. For the price it gets about 2.5 out of 5 stars on the airport restaurant scale. After writing more on the thesis, I manage to time the line just right so that I’m 3rd in line for our flight (as the previous flight finishes boarding). The Lufthansa gate attendent was able to straighten things out and even managed to get me an aisle seat.We board (late, as usual) and get push back from the gate. An Airbus A340 fully loaded with passengers, luggage, baggage, and transatlantic fuel has a really long takeoff run, but we make it and are now airborn. After a mediocre pasta dish for dinner, I nod off for the night with the help of some Tylenol PM…

Thursday, March 29th

After 5 hours of mediocre sleep on the plane, I wake up as breakfast is being served. The breakfast was a small roll with a piece of meat, a slice of tomato, and some lettuce, which is apparently a standard breakfast sandwich in Germany. It wasn’t too bad and the accompaning caffeine helps to wake me up. After a smooth landing and a long deplaning (I’m in the back of the plane, after all), I quickly grab my luggage, clear customs, and find Pete and Branden waiting for me in the airport terminal. But I’m now in Germany and almost awake. Woo!

On the trip from the airport to Pete’s apartment, we stop at a little grocery store to pick up some more Coke Light, some snacks, and some fresh bread for lunch. The grocery store was entertaining, although it didn’t take long to realize that I was going to be able to read next to nothing for the next five days. Becoming functionally illiterate overnight is a frightening prospect, but at least I had Pete to translate. After arriving at Pete’s very nice apartment, lunch is had, I take a quick shower, and we’re ready to conquer Munich.

Pete hadn’t thrown a football since coming to Germany last year, so we went out to the English Gardens along the river and find a field. The gardens is a huge park that runs along the Isar River for most of the city of Munich. Some strange looks were received while we stupid Americans threw around an odd-shaped ball, but it was definitely entertaining. A quick light rain shower ends the game, although we were probably ready to quit already anyway. Next came finding an air mattress, as Pete doesn’t usually have to sleep three guys in the apartment. The store used to be a WalMart, but is now a German company. Apparently, WalMart tried to run the place like they run the American stores and the results were predictably unsuccessful. The concept clearly works in Germany as there are many super-store style stores in Germany, but the implementation was just a little off.

For dinner, we wander into the center of Munich, which like most of Europe has some really old architecture. Moving around the city is trivial, thanks to a wonderful public transportation system. We have dinner at the Augustiner restaurant on Kaufingerstraße, a beer hall that is in the tourist books and fairly popular. My dinner is a plate of different types of sausage and potato salad. While I was expecting boring food in Germany, I was pleasantly surprised. But I really like meat and potatos, so maybe I’m just not picky. Oh, and dinner, like most of our activities in Munich, involves beer. In this case, a nice half-liter glass of a Dunkel. Sara, Pete’s good friend, joins us for dinner and is definitely fun. After a fairly long meal of catching up, we head back to Pete’s apartment to crash. I fall asleep in no time.

Friday, March 30th

Friday was Munich tourist day. We started with the Olympic Park from the 1972 Olympics, which is still largely in place. Munich worked very hard to make sure all the infrastructure created for the Olympics was later usable for the general populace. Part of the Olympic park area is a large hill which was created after World War II from the rubble that remained after the frequent bombings of Munich. The hill allows an amazing view of the city and is a reminder of just how devastating the war was. Not quite as much as the US cemetary in Normandy, but still staggering.

How does one follow up a walk around the top of the hill and the beautiful view of the city? With a stop in one of the beer gardens in the park, of course. Fries and Weisen beer are consumed. Both are yummy. Weisen beer in Munich is available in liter or half liter mugs — I go with the half liter, as we haven’t even had lunch yet.

One of the sights nearby is the headquarters of BMW. It’s a beatiful building, with the white and blue logo visible from the top. Nearby is the BMW museum, which we decide is worth a trip. The history of BMW is actually quite amazing — it started as an airplane engine company and grew into cars after World War I. The BMW engines were so good and the allies so fearful of Germany rebuilding an armed forces that they forbid BMW from building airplane engines. BMW started with bicycles, then motorcycles, and eventually cars and was generally successful. The cars at the museum were impressive, although the collection was pretty small. A much larger museum that will have a much larger collection and much more history of the company is under construction, in a crazy looking building that looks to be about 1/3rd complete.

Having seen Olympic Park, we start wandering again. Pete takes us to a huge desolate field with nothing but parking lots on the outskirts and a subway stop. It’s the location of the Oktoberfest. During Oktoberfest, it would be jammed with over a hundred thousand people, all drinking large amounts of beer in what must be the largest beer garden ever created. But today, it’s empty and we quickly return to the subway in search of a more active beer garden (read: one with beer being served).

We head back to the English Gardens, this time closer to the city center. There’s a beer garden there at the Chinesischer Turm, or Chinese tower. During the weekend, the beer garden is packed, but today it is lightly populated. We grab beer and pretzels and sit down for a break. This time, I believe we went with a Helles, which is amazingly smooth. Pete promises a return on the weekend, when a oompa band will be playing from the tower.

There’s a small restaurant / beer garden, Sankt Emmeramsmühle, next to the English Garden near Pete’s place, and we head there for dinner. I get potato soup, salomi, onions, and cheese “salad”, and a weizen beer. It’s all wonderful. The meat salad is especially entertaining, and royally defeats me — there was no way I could finish all that food.

The day was long and full of beer, somehow we decide that we should watch Josie and the Pussycats before calling it a night.

Saturday, March 31st

Saturday I wake up feeling like crap. I (rightly) assume that Pete’s cat has sent my allergies into overdrive. I forgot my meds, so we stop at a pharmacy on the way to breakfast. Unlike the US, almost everything in Germany is behind the counter, even the non-prescription stuff. I explain what I need, happy that the pharmisist knows English, and walk out with the equivalent of Claratin. It takes a bit, but I feel better as the day goes on and Ghandi the cat fails to cause further problems.

Breakfast was at Hofbräuhaus, a famous beer hall that serves Weißwurst, a traditional Bavarian breakfast of white veal sausage, a pretzel, and beer. I’m feeling really bad still, so I go with Orange Juice instead of beer. The scorn from the barmaid was as expected, but I wanted to be able to function for the rest of the day and that wouldn’t happen with beer. Breakfast was excellent, and Sara even showed up in a traditional Bavarian outfit, which made things even better.

The rest of the day was spent at Deutsches Museum, a large Smithsonian-like museaum in Munich. We were there for five hours and saw maybe a tiny fraction of what there was to offer. Their computer and technology wing includes some historic old computers, including a Cray-1. I now have a picture of me using the Cray-1 as furniture, which is somehow wonderfully geeky. There’s also an amazing demonstration of the power of electricity, including simulated lightening setting wires on fire and the like. Wish I would have had another three to four days to wonder, but there is more to see in the city.

Sara holds a game night for a bunch of friends on Sunday evening, and we are in charge of beer. For €36, we bought 20 liters of beer and three sodas, including about €6 of deposits. Unlike the US, beer bottles in Germany are reused and can be purchased in milk-crate-like crates of 10 1 liter bottles. Yay Munich beer prices! Sara makes lots of finger food and we goof around until everyone arrives. A game of Risk among four teams of two starts and consumes most of the evening. In the end, Sara and David (a Brit in Munich on an archeological post-doc) win after taking Australia, Africa, and South America. Branden and I manage to squeak out a second place finish by narrowly defeating Pete’s forces in Asia. Sometime after midnight we head home, as tomorrow is Palm Sunday and we’re heading to 10:00 mass at the cathedral in Munich.

Sunday, April 1st

Sunday was Palm Sunday, so we started with mass at Frauenkirche. It was a very long mass, over two hours, but was interesting to watch. Of course, since I don’t speak any German, I didn’t really understand most of it.

From there, it was off to Schloss Nymphenburg, a rather large palace built over about 200 years from the mid 1600’s to the mid 1800’s. It is on a huge amount of land, which is currently a free park that is popular for running and the like. Two geese got in a fight, which was mildly entertaining. The whole grounds were beautiful.

From there, back to the Chinese Tower to experience the Oompa band. The place was a mad house compared to any of the beer gardens we saw earlier in the week. More beer was had by Branden and Pete. Oh, and of course, there were pretzels. The beer garden was amazing with the number of people hanging out on a Sunday afternoon. I think I could definitely get used to that kind of a social scene.

Dinner was at Brauhaus zur Dicken Sophie, another traditional Bavarian restaurant. This was the only place we went the entire trip that did not have an English menu. Making it more entertaining, the menu used a lot of Bavarian words that Pete had trouble translating. So it was a bit of a surprise when we got our food — we thought we knew what we would get and were pretty close, but weren’t sure until it actually showed up. I had a really good steak with mediocre mashed potatoes. By the way, Dicke Sophie roughly translates to Fat Sophie.

Monday, April 2nd

My birthday. I’m 28. Ugh.

Today, we leave Munich and wander other parts of Germany. Our primary destination is Neuschwanstein Castle, in the Alps near Austria. The best way to get there is to drive and this is Germany, so we splurge and rent a Mercedes Benz E-class. Since we can, we put all three of us on the rental agreement and Pete drives us out of Munich. I start in the back seat, which will become known as the seat of sleep. Neither Branden nor I will spend more than 15 minutes in that seat and not fall asleep. I fall asleep before we’re out of Munich and wake up as we’re pulling into our first stop.

Our first stop was to be the Dachau concentration camp memorial. Unfortunately, we can’t read and failed to notice that it isn’t open for tours on Mondays. This is both good and bad. On the bad side, we have to skip a reminder of a hugely important part of history, which still causes global conflict today. On the good side, it’s more time to drive on the Autobahn, and there’s no feeling guilty for being alive. So we start towards the Alps. Pete gets us further out of the city area and then hands the wheel over to me.

Autobahn driving is basically the same as travelling on the US interstate, but the “rules of the road” are more strictly enforced and actually obeyed. There is never any passing on the right and you are expected to get over for faster traffic. When in unlimited speed areas, spacing from the car in front of you is expected. Finally, the areas with unlimitted speed limits are maintained in immaculate conditions. Cracks are fixed by replacing large blocks of pavement, rather than patching the crack. The road is smooth and well marked. Contrary to popular belief, much of the Autobahn has a speed limit — today approximately 1/3rd of Autobahn roads have a speed limit (generally 120 kph, although lower where pavement conditions or traffic call for it). The rest of the EU wants to make the entire system limited to 120, although that is unlikely to happen in the near future. In fact, Germany is expanding much of the high traffic area to include an extra lane to remove the traffic condition speed limits in many areas.

For the first part of the trip, we’re in areas limited to 120kph (about 75 MPH). I get the feel of the Benz, which is large but very smooth. We get off the Autobahn between Munich and Stutguart to continue to Neuschwanstein, which is much less frequently used and has no speed restrictions. The Benz is comfortable cruising at about 160 kph (about 100 MPH) and that keeps me in the flow of traffic for a while until the traffic thins out. When we get to lower traffic, we start cruising at a bit over 200 kph (125 MPH), which is about as comfortable as I feel driving the rental car. After a bit under an hour, we find our turn off Neuschwanstein and resume more normal speeds. A quick drive through the countryside and we’re at the town at the base of the castle. The drive was a blast, and the GPS navigation system in the car convinced me I want one in my next car.

Neuschwanstein Castle was built by King Ludwig in the late 1800s and was intended to be the greatest castle in Germany. It is also rumored to be the Walt Disney’s basis for the castle in Disney Land. It’s about a 30 minute hike from the town to the castle, but the views are amazing the entire way up. Touring the inside of the castle costs a bit of money, so we elect to wander around outside instead. There’s a bridge with a great view from above. Technically, the trail is closed, but it’s pretty clear no one is paying attention to that, so neither shall we. The views are amazing, as were the paragliders hanging out on the thermals on the edge of the Alps. After a couple hours of wandering, we find a restaurant half way between the castle and town. Bratwurst, fries, Weisen beer, and fried doughnut like things for dessert. Very yummy, but time to head back to Munich.

Branden does most of the drive back to Munich, and Pete does the final navigation back into the city. We turn in the rental car (after forgetting to top off the last bit) and head back to Pete’s house to pack up for our departure on Tuesday.

There’s an Irish Pub, Gunther-Murphy’s in Munich that kind of acts as an expat bar, where English is still the expected language. Monday night is trivia night, so we head there for dinner and trivia. The Irish beer selection was Guiness and Kilkenney’s, so I opt for a Munich Weisen. Dinner, however, is a Sheperd’s Pie and it is excellent. Sara, Pete, Branden and I come in 5th out of 10 in trivia. We were in second going into the last round, but were crushed by “movie star birthdays” and dropped quickly. We decided we were proud we didn’t know those things. Headed home early because we had to be at the airport at 7:00.

Tuesday, April 3rd

Tuesday is travel home day. I caught some shut-eye on the first part of the transatlantic flight, so now it’s just staying awake until a reasonable time this evening. Coming home is definitely easier to adjust to than heading to Europe. Trip is fairly uneventful. United screwed up again, but made it reasonably alright after I got to Dulles. Flight from Dulles to Albuquerque is tiring and bumpy. I’m a zombie once I get back to my apartment, but refreshed from a wonderful trip.

Summary

It’s now Wednesday night and I’m finally recovered from travel. The trip was a whole lot of fun and I hope I’m able to go back to Munich to visit Pete again sometime in the future. If not for the whole extremely expensive to fly thing, I could see myself spending a couple years over there. Definitely a fun time, and recommend it to anyone who can go visit Pete for a week or so…