After a wonderful trip home in April, Mom & Dad came over to this side of the ocean for a couple of weeks in May. The weather was a bit iffy, but we had a great time! Here they are, sleepily coming through customs:

We had a few days, power walking through Munich – both to stave off jet lag, and to stay warm!

Mom & Dad surrounded by a bike tour in front of the Hofbräuhaus

Here S, Dad, and I celebrate our finds at the Haidhausen Hofflohmarkt with Bier/Pop and a pretzel at a biergarten. Instead of garage sales, neighborhoods have a once a year day where everyone opens up their courtyards and unloads all of their unwanted items. We got a nice wooden (hmmm…. not sure of the word. Little a-frame structure with dangly things that you plop over a baby) and a wooden block set.

Mom and Dad also had the good timing to be here when Bayern München won the German Championship. There was a huge rally on Marienplatz & free beer in the Viktualienmarkt.

View of the rally from the top of Alter Peter

After a few days in Munich, we took the train south and spent a few days in Italy. First stop was Verona. Verona is very old – many Roman bits and pieces still remain, including one of the most complete Roman Coliseums.

Hanging over this walkway is a whale rib. It has been there for 500 years and will supposedly fall when a truly just man walks under it. You can see S looking hopefully up, but nope. Still there.

From Verona, we went to Padua, or Padova as it is known in Italy. Padova was a really interesting city and I’d like to go back. One of the largest and best universities in Italy is there and it is also home to St. Anthony. So, between the pilgrims and all of the students, it feels like a real, living city and not so dependent on us tourists.

We used Padova as a base camp to make the short train trip into Venice. The day started out cold and rainy, but by the afternoon it was sunny and hot.

Here are Mom & Dad in front of St. Mark’s. The floor of St. Mark’s was one of the more amazing things I have ever seen. I think I could have stayed in there all day staring at it.

The Grand Canal. We splurged a bit and bought day passes for the Vaporetto. Pregnant ol’ me just couldn’t take another whole day of walking. We took the boat down the Grand Canal, but stayed on past St. Mark’s and enjoyed a ride through the lagoon to some of the less frequented, and more actual-life feeling, areas of Venice. Venice is gorgeous, but so crowded. I’d like to go again sometime when it is a little more off-season. I’m so glad we got in one last trip before our family of 2 becomes 3!

S and I finally went on our Honeymoon in September – our first real vacation! I’m going to share it in reverse order, just because. Our last stop was Salzburg, Austria along with Steve’s sister M and her new husband A – also on their Honeymoon. What a pretty little city! And so close to Munich – 90 minutes by train if you catch a fast one!

We got in late at night and made out way to our hotel – Gasthaus Hinterbrühl. It was very inexpensive and clean. A little old-fashioned and smoky, but the price and location can’t be beat. The Inn is located in part of the old city wall and the shared bathrooms remind you of that – there are little tiny windows in the thick walls and you can just imagine crossbows sticking out of them.

Our first day there, we decided to head over to an old salt mine (salz in german) located in the hills outside of town. There was a little recreated Celtic village to demonstrate how the first settlers in this area would have lived. Apparently, this mountain is one of the longest continually habited places in this part of Europe – because of the salt. There was also a truly horrifying animatronic robot child in one of the huts that scared the bejeezus out of me.

Then we went down into the mine. And we got to dress in theses spiffy duds:

The tour was pretty interesting, but the highlight was getting to use some of the wooden slides that the miners used to descend. I think the longest one we went on was 60 meters long.  Wheeeeeee!

That night, we ate dinner at the Rupertkirtag Festival that was happening that weekend. The Altstadt was filled with rides, candy, roasted nuts, carnie games, and, of course, a Biergarten. Being Salzburg, there was also a lot of music, too.

The next day, we decided to head up one of the hills and visit Hohensalzburg Fortress. It was huge and old and interesting, but most of all, it had a great view:

Then we hiked along the ridge of this mountain and ended up (as we tend to do) in a Biergarten at the Augustiner Brewery.

That evening, we celebrated M’s birthday and went to a concert at Schloss Mirabell. It was a stunning location and a small, intimate concert. Four musicians and maybe 40 in the audience. Lovely!

The next morning, we headed back to Munich – without even visiting one of Mozart’s houses! S and I definitely will be back. It was a great (but short) visit and it seemed like we barely scratched the surface.

Bastille Day in paris with an old friend…

And just generally enjoying summer in Munich! Today, fall is in the air and the city is starting to get ready for Oktoberfest. S and I are finally planning our honeymoon and heading off to Italy in a few week and also getting ready for visitors. I’ll try to be better about writing here. It always feels like too much and not enough is happening to write anything worthwhile.

Most people on our train were headed to Innsbruck, but we only had a 30 min ride.

more after the jump…

It was a really lovely day, weather-wise, and so nice to leave the city behind for a few hours.

The view from their balcony

According to wikipedia, Starnberger See is the fourth largest lake in Germany. It is long and narrow and, besides the Alps, reminded me of good ol’ Cayuga Lake. Tutzing is located about halfway down the western edge and is mostly a holiday destination. Starnberger See is also famous for being the place where King Ludwig II was found dead, floating in the lake in somewhat mysterious circumstances.

After dinner, we went for a stroll along the shore with some gelato.  (I had caramel and hazelnut). A lovely, lovely evening.

This week:
die Schneeballschlacht = Snowball fight
schnee = snow, ball = ball, schlacht = battle.
Totally not seasonally appropriate, but really, really fun to say.

We have an American-style mattress (one mattress). Most beds here are made of 2 smaller mattresses to make getting them up narrow staircases possible. They also don’t really have box springs, but rather wooden slats. The pillows are gigantic – 80x80cm. One thing I do really like here is that people usually have 2 smaller comforters, rather than trying to share large ones. S kind of hogs the covers sometimes (or rather, won’t let me hog them as much as I want to), so I think this is a permanent change to my bedding preferences.

My husband brings me home flowers way more often than my boyfriend ever did. If I had known that, I would have gotten married ages ago!!

It had to be done.

Hope you had a happy Easter!

This is the large school that is just around the corner from our apartment. It’s really handy because the bells chime on the quarter hours. We had been joking that we never see kids here from about 8-15. But now we know where they are! School lets out early here – at 1pm or so – and the sidewalks are filled with teens and preteens. It’s a pretty cool building with a lot of really cool stone carvings and features decorating the exterior.

Here is a shortcut I found that takes you from the quiet neighborhood we live in to the very, very busy Leopold Straße -one of the main roads into Munich. I like to pretend it’s secret, but the fact that it’s lighted and paved and that there are always people on it makes me think that I’m not the first person to find it!

More walk after the jump…

Leopoldstr.

We crossed Leopoldstr. and headed towards the English Garden, sure to be busy on such a nice day!

The Kleinhesselcher See. Just across the lake, you can see the buildings of the bier garten there. That’s our goal!

S is wondering why I’m taking so many pictures of him eating a pretzel. The day was lovely – the air soft and warm. And we sat next to the lake with our beers and watched ducks, swans, and row boats make their way past us. But, then the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in and it was winter again! brrrrr! So we made our way home.

But first, we stopped at a bakery for fresh brotchen to eat with our dinner.

Münchner Freiheit U-bahn station and Leopoldstr. We decided to cut through the station, rather than wait for the crosswalk.

]]> http://laraonthemove.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/new-neighborhood-yay/feed/ 2 Lara Gymnasium short cut Leopoldstr Kleinsee biergarten imgp0477-pola butterbakerei ubahn imgp0485-pola1 imgp0492-pola imgp0493-pola imgp0431-pola http://laraonthemove.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/krank-in-bayern/ http://laraonthemove.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/krank-in-bayern/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:07:50 +0000 Lara http://laraonthemove.wordpress.com/?p=128 ]]> I have a whole bunch of photos that I want to post from Fasching last week, but I’ve been laid out with a really bad cold. It’s been an interesting way to learn more about how health care works here. For one thing, you can’t just pickup aspirin or tylenol at any old convenience store. You have to go to an Apotheke, or pharmacy, and talk to the pharmacist who will decide what you need. I wobbled my way over there on Friday and was given an effervescent tablet that I’m supposed to take once a day and some capsules of pine, eucalyptus, lime, and I think linden oils to ‘reduce inflammation.’ Sunday, I was feeling worse and then we had a problem. Nothing is open here on Sunday. Nothing.  S headed out to find the nearest emergency Apotheke. On a rotating basis, pharmacies stay open late and on weekends. But it changes every weekend. Luckily, they had touch-screen maps to show him where the nearest was. Unfortunately, it was pretty far away. They gave him some effervescent aspirin tablets with an added decongestant and some throat lozenges.(What’s with the effervescent tablets?)

Today, he talked me into going to the doctor and he called a couple in Garching, the small town we’re staying in now, to find one that could see me today. It didn’t take him long, and soon I was trudging up Muenchenerstr trying to find the praxis. The doctor was a kindly older german fellow who spoke english. He rapped my forehead with his knuckles and prodded my cheeks, and listened to my breathing for a very long time. Then we went and sat in his cluttered office and he typed up his prescriptions. I asked if I needed to pay and he chuckled heartily – ‘Ha! Ha! This is not America! No, we will send you an invoice.’

I went to the Apotheke to get my prescriptions – an antibiotic, a nose spray, and a bottle of some sort of opiate drops to help me sleep. I’m pretty sure they don’t give out big bottles of opiates to new patients in the US. And, the antibiotics are only prescribed in 10 or 12 pill quantities, not the big bottles I’m used to.   The pharmacist threw in a couple of hot vitamin-c drink packets for me. I guess I look as bad as I feel!

Another interesting difference to me, is that all of the medicine so far has been pleasant tasting – the lozenges and effervescent tablets have tastes slightly fruity and not at all like ‘Medicine.’ I know they would have tasted horrible in the US – why is this? Because we don’t think something will work unless it tastes medicinal? So that kids won’t take more than they are supposed to? What ever the reason – the taste (mmm…! cherry!) and the quantity (‘here’s your big bottle of liquid morphine derivative and here 10 small antibiotic pills!) differences seem to speak to differing sets of values and worries when it comes to medicine.  Hope you all are feeling well!