knunndrum.com

UPDATE: 07/25/08 08:30BST

I have been severely chastised for not mentioning beverages.  Most of us had beer.  Yes, I had A beer.  It was the house light and was acceptable for a beer.  When in
Germany… I might have had more, but I was feeling a bit headachy and tired.  I didn’t want to tempt fate and get a major headache while traveling.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What a glorious day.  Munich is a beautiful city with very friendly residents.  I also believe there are more bicycles here than in any other city.  They are parked everywhere and people whiz by you on them.

I am staying at the Platzl Hotel and it’s a wonderful hotel with great service.  The room is comfortable and the view is charming.  I can walk to many sites and restaurants and in the evening there is the sound of the city coming in my window.  I never thought I would come here, but it has been a great experience and has reminded me how young my country is.

The hotel serves breakfast every morning from 6:30am to 11:00am.  We have gone every morning and the food is wonderful.  They have a buffet that includes eggs, bacon, sausage, various fruits and cereals, various pastries and fresh squeezed juices.  It is a great way to start the day.

After breakfast, we took a cab to the office.  We decided this was the best choice since neither of us knows the city and we aren’t familiar with the train system.  When we got to the office about 30 minutes later the taxi fare was 34 Euros.  I was shocked – we decided we would definitely be taking the train back to the hotel and to the office for the remainder of our stay.

Our meetings were productive and I learned some things I didn’t know that will help me with my own customers.  Lunch was provided at the Cafe at the campus.  I had pork with pasta.  It was delicious.  They have china and flatware and glasses for drinks.  Very different from our paper and plastic in the US.  When you have completed your meal you put your tray on a moving belt that Don would love to play with and watch going round and round.

The train ride back to the hotel was fun because you can watch the people and the scenery.  Both were entertaining.  Once back at the hotel I rested for about 20 minutes and then went over to the hotel of the group we are travelling with to meet our hostess for a short walking tour of Munich before dinner.

As we left their hotel we all mention the bucket of umbrellas, but of course none of us grabbed one.  We walked all over the city with our hostess providing some basic history.  The picture above is me standing on the stairs of the Feldherrnhalle.

As we finished up the tour and started to head to the restaurant, it started to rain.  Not Seattle rain where you don’t need an umbrella, but an honest to goodness downpour.  We stepped into a little shopping area to wait it out and discussed how stupid it was that none of us had grabbed an umbrella.  It finally slowed a bit and we went on to the restaurant.  When we got there, most of us were soaked.

The restaurant, Andechser am Dom Wirsthaus, is a typical Bavarian style restaurant that is (or was) run by monks.  The food was amazing.  We started with an appetizer plate that had huge radishes cut in spirals, an amazing cheese mixed with spices, and 2 types of breads with toppings.  The cheese was for spreading on pretzels.  Which they serve all times of the day here.  One of the breads had fried onions and the remaining grease from some cooking process.  It sounds disgusting but it was pretty tasty.  The other bread had chives and some sort of cheese spread – also delicious.  All of these items are definitely not good for you.   My main course was a steak with a traditional Bavarian sauce and fried onions on top.  It was served with grilled potatoes with herbs.  Sooo good.  Then we had a dessert sampler that was to die for.  It included streusel, chocolate cake, fried apples with cinnamon sugar, and a few other items that I can’t remember.  All were delicious.

We then rolled back to our hotel and went to bed.