New Neighborhood (yay!)

Well, we’re all moved in to our new apartment! We are still lacking in some fairly key furniture pieces and we’re living out of our suitcases still, so I’m going to save the tour until it looks a little nicer! Here is an afternoon we had a little over a week ago. It was one of the first warm days of the year.

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…

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Sunday in Munich

After several days of gray, gloomy, rainy, sky-spitting weather, it was sunny on Sunday! S and I took advantage by taking a long stroll through the English Gardens. As it is whenever it’s sunny, Munichers were out in force – faces upturned to the sun. I’m sure they could be used as a rudimentary sundial. Days are still short here and if there are rays to be caught, there will be many, many trying.

The park was full – families with strollers, bikers with mud-splattered backsides, dogs wearing faux-fur coats, young couples holding hands… Every 1/2 mile or so, a street musician would be squeezing out a sweetly sad tune on an accordian. Eventually, we ended up here:

The Chinese Tower, or Chinesischer Turm. Originally built in 1789, the tower standing today is a replica built in 1952 after the first was destroyed in the war. In the summertime, up to 7,000 can sit here and enjoy the late evening sun, beer, and conversation.

Now you see it:

Now you don’t!

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