Beer and Sausages in Munich

J had to make a quick trip out to Munich for work so I decided to take advantage of the free hotel room and tag along. He was staying for less than twenty four hours, but I decided to extend my trip to three days so that I could make a proper visit of the city.

We both had very early flights, and I discovered that it's all business people flying first thing on a Tuesday morning. Of course, I lucked out sitting next to the only two kids on the entire flight. They were adorable, but a bit too loud for me to get the nap I was planning on. Them's the breaks.

J's work is pretty awesome, and they arranged a ride for me to the hotel, and I prayed that the room would be ready so I could take a nap. Nope. J and his colleagues had gone straight to the office from the airport, and we decided to meet up at the world famous Hofbräuhaus for lunch.



I arrived before they did and got hassled by a very sweet three year old boy who decided to latch on to me. He wouldn't leave me alone despite his parents' pleading, and I very awkwardly extricated myself before he decided I was suitable for climbing. I decided to slip inside and explore the building. The beer hall is on the ground floor with a posh restaurant on the first floor. The top floor is a giant dining hall, complete with long trestle tables and a stage for an oompa band or two.  I don't think I was actually supposed to enter the hall on the top floor, but the people using it were Asian and I guess I fit in? In any case, no one said anything as I walked around and took a gander or two.

The main beer hall on the ground floor was beyond chaotic! We couldn't find each other, and the place was boiling hot from all the heaving bodies.

We decided to meet up at the restaurant across the street, the Bayern Ayinger, and it was a good thing we did. The food was fantastic, albeit meat intensive, and we all got treated to the requisite pretzel basket. I tried a Radler, a beer mixed with lemon soda, which was better than I expected!

J and co left for the office, and I began my work as a tourist. The weather was a bit chilly, but I warmed up as I made my way to the heart of the city at Marienplatz. You can see the New Town Hall, the Old Town Hall, and St. Peter's Church all from one spot. Munich was bombed during the war, so there is a slightly jarring juxtaposition between the old and new. Fortunately, Munich decided to rebuild much of its city in the old style so the city retains much of its original flair and flavour.

The Rathaus (New Town Hall) was pretty stellar to look at!

The Old Town Hall isn't bad to look at either. My guidebook described it as Disney-esque, but I'm not sure I agree.



I especially liked the detail on the zodiac clock mounted on the tower! It's aries o'clock!

The weather made good on its threats of rain, so I ducked into St. Peter's Church to check out the interior.



There was very fanciful and pretty art installation of white paper birds floating over the pews. You don't often see art installations in churches, but I found out that Munich is a very artsy city, and there's loads of such installations dotting the city streets and plazas.

I walked a short distance to the nearby Viktualienmarket, a local outdoor food market, and I had a great time browsing the stalls. The pole with the figures is located in the centre of the market represents the different market stalls, including the beer, of course.

I had never seen so much white asparagus in my whole life! Pretty much every fruit and veg stall was selling it.

It began to rain in earnest and since my umbrella was stowed away in my luggage back at the hotel, I decided to pack it in and finally take that nap I had been lusting after. 

It took a bit of wandering about, but I finally found myself back at the hotel. I peeled off my soaking wet clothes and passed out for an hour or so. I felt loads better after my nap and my clothes had dried, so I decided to head back out into the city, even though most of the sights and shops had closed for the day. 

I ended up walking around the major shopping streets just to see what the fuss was all about, and it didn't matter that the stores were shut since Chanel isn't exactly in my budget! The kind of terrible thing about globalisation is that shopping abroad is so boring because it's just like shopping at home. It's the same chain stores selling the same things, the only thing that's different is the currency.

I made my way to the Odeonplatz, which was the site of Hitler's beer hall putsch, and Hitler had put up a monument there for his first joiners when he came into power.



Everyone was required to salute the monument so the clever citizens used a nearby street, Viscardigasse, to detour around the monument. That's a pretty good reason for a street to exist.

There wasn't much else to look at and it started to get dark so I decided to return to the hotel. I popped into a grocery store on the way and picked up some snacks for the following day. One of my favourite things to do in a foreign city is to check out the grocery stores and pharmacies. I know it's weird, but I love seeing all the different packaging and food items and what the locals really buy on a daily basis.

Anyway, I showered and relaxed until J finally returned to the hotel late in the evening. He had spent all day at the office followed by a client dinner. The poor thing had to be up at five in the morning to catch the first flight back to London for more work, so he pretty much zonked. I woke up for a quick second to kiss him goodbye and give him the breakfast snacks I bought for him at the grocery store in case everything at the airport was closed. Then it was back to sleep for a few more precious hours before I had to get up early to start my castle touring!

Earthquake Fundraiser

Pretty soon after I returned from Amsterdam, there was some horrifying news coming out of Nepal of a huge earthquake that had killed thousands of people. I suppose as a defence mechanise, it becomes necessary to maintain a distance from all the horrible things that happen in the world. It's too easy to become hopeless and feel helpless in the face of never-ending tide of bad news.

However, I had been there. I had visited Everest Base Camp and Kathmandu. I had hiked the Kathmandu Valley rim. I had seen the remarkable buildings before they were reduced to rubble, and I remembered the beautiful vistas of a lush country. It was impossible not to do something.









I decided to try to raise money by holding a bake sale. J's office has always been so generous, and they agreed to let me bring in some things for an in-office fundraiser. It was on a "take what you'd like, leave what you can" basis, and we managed to get around £500 in donations over just two days!

 

J and another partner agreed to match the amount, which meant we got a total of £1500! I was genuinely stunned with how generous people were, and I was so happy to donate that money to the Humane Society International. Their aid workers were already on the ground in Nepal and ready to assist with animals in need as a result of the earthquake. I remembered seeing how important animals were to the lives of the locals, especially those that lived out of Kathmandu. They needed the mules to get goods through the rough terrain to their homes that were otherwise unreachable, and their livelihoods often depended on their goats and chickens in addition to their farming.





I also remembered the sweetest dog that had followed us for a while we were trekking. All it took was a few scratches behind his ears to have him follow us before we had to leave him behind. I really wished I could take him home with me, and I hope he made it through the earthquake and is happy and healthy in a forever home somewhere.

I was really grateful to the partner that also agreed to match, so I ended up baking a few birthday cakes for her husband's birthday the following week. The birthday man was German, so I wanted to try a few new German items I had never tried before. I'm still not quite sure they came out right, but they seemed pretty happy with it so I'm going to chalk it up to a win.

Tulips at the Keukenhof

I was keen on checking out the Keukenhof, which is the second largest garden in all of Europe and is open only two months out of the year. It's about an hour drive away from Amsterdam, and we signed up for a bus tour that would take us there and bring us back with ample time to explore the gardens. 

The gardens were absolutely breathtaking.

It was still a bit too early for the outdoor plants to be in full bloom so it was a bit meh when we first entered the grounds. However, once we got into the greenhouses, the riot of colours and gorgeous smells were just stunning.

It was a lovely day of wandering from pavilion to pavilion, and the weather was absolutely perfect, a bit chilly but sunny.

The focus was on tulips, of course, but there were boatloads of other kinds of flowers and plants to examine and sniff. I discovered I love hyacinths! J treated me to a little boutonniere that I pinned to my coat, but I got mugged for it by a goat in the petting zoo.

Look at him, just munching away on my posy. 

We treated ourselves to some waffles and strolled around watching people crouching among the flowers to take a picture.

It's funny what beautiful flowers can bring out in people - grown ass men were revelling among the blooms and posing for selfies. Hilarious. 

We had just enough of the gardens when it was time to hop back on the bus and head back to Amsterdam. Once we reached the city, we grabbed a cab to head over to dinner at Blauw restaurant. Everyone had advised me not to eat Dutch food, but instead to sample the Indonesian cuisine, which was supposed to be phenomenal. I dutifully obeyed, and we sat down to a veritable smorgasbord of absolutely delicious Indonesian fare. I didn't always know what exactly I was eating, but it was all super delicious! 

We were both pretty bushed by the end of the day, but I wanted to make one more attempt on the Anne Frank House. No such luck, the queue was longer than ever. J promised we could come back and do it again, which is great since now we know where to eat! A friend of mine is running the Amsterdam marathon in October, so maybe I should go ahead and make the Anne Frank House reservations and restaurant bookings now...

Easter in Amsterdam

I was still sad about Kitty by the time Easter rolled around, but I was feeling a lot better compared to before she died. I stopped bursting into tears and managed to make peace with my decision to let her go. I realised that it was for the better, and the idea that she was no longer suffering or in pain soothed me more than anything else.

It was a welcome distraction when we took off for Amsterdam for Easter weekend. 

We landed at the airport quite late and hopped into a cab to the hotel, the Andaz, on Prinsengracht. I was glad we had paid a bit more for the canal view - I felt like I could see the essence of Amsterdam right outside my window.



We didn't have much time before it got dark, but J knew that I was itching to see the Anne Frank House so we walked quickly in the general direction. By the time we got there, the museum was near closing and the queue was so long that it was clear that we wouldn't get in by the time the museum closed its doors. We decided to try again on another day, but at least I got to see the same church that Anne looked out at when she was in hiding. I remember reading how its ringing would keep her up at night.

Disappointed and cold, we headed back to the hotel to have a quick bite to eat before settling in for the night. The hotel itself is quite beautiful and modern. It's got lots of modern artistic touches and little nods to its past history as a public library. For example, our room was stocked with books, and the lobby has a library. I love that!

We woke up the next day raring to go, and we headed straight to the Anne Frank House again before opening hours. You wouldn't believe the queue - it serpentined around until it was difficult to see where it ended! We decided to head back to the hotel for breakfast and try again later that evening.

After a so-so breakfast, we headed over to the Rijksmuseum, which had just reopened after a long renovation. The building was absolutely beautiful, and we had bought tickets beforehand, which meant we could skip the queue. Yay!



We went in and explored for quite a bit. We made sure to check out one of the museum's most famous offerings, Rembrandt's The Night's Watch, which had a large crowded surrounding it. It felt like trying to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre all over again. J and I love museums so we spent a good chunk of time here before we decided to break for lunch at the indoor café, and then we headed out to check out the streets of Amsterdam.



It really is true about the bicycles, they're everywhere and they will mow you down if you don't get out of their way!



We wandered around the more touristy areas close to the train station, and we got near the infamous Red Light District but didn't actually enter the area. It seemed like a depressing kind of place and a bit odd to ogle people selling their bodies on storefronts. We stopped by the Rembrandt plaza to check out a sculpture of Rembrandt looking over his most famous painting, which I thought was quite nice!

Later, we walked over to the famous tulip market sitting on the canal.



We ended up returning to our neighbourhood in Prinsengracht, which was a lot more peaceful, to walk around and take in the sights without the crowds.



There are canals everywhere, and it's quite peaceful watching the many boats just cruising along. There are also loads of boats moored alongside the street, and I spotted some homes and restaurants. I love the thought of living on a boat, but J, not so much.



It was a long day of sightseeing, and I think J and I were both happy to sit down at Brasserie Vlaming for one of the best meals we've ever had. It's a teeny restaurant with great service, and I'm serious when I say that we would come back to Amsterdam to eat here again!, 

And we got the added treat of a wonderful sunset on the walk back to the hotel. All in all, a pretty good end to a day that didn't start as well.