A short wet trip to Copenhagen. I am beginning to wonder if it ever does not rain in mainland Europe.
My first night's dinner in Munich. It could have been all of the travel, but man was this place awesome.
This is an awesome sculpture close to my hotel. It is fairly new and was built in the middle of a small grass plaza after the road was moved underground.
It is a Nick Schnack. Maybe I took some liberty with my camera angel to cut off Sch.
As I left the subway on my way to the Marienplatz, this was one of my first sights.
Whilst I get bringing your kids to Oktoberfest (seriously, there are so many rides and things to do besides drink), I was still surprised by what I guess is a field trip lined up to get in.
The excitement was welling up inside me, waiting like child on Christmas morning.
The first views of our tent (the giant stein).
"Skater USA" could not be complete without Britney Spears wearing a communist hat?
The lion on top of that massive pole, slowly rotates. Reminder that that entire thing is temporary and is disassembled a few weeks after I was here.
A closer look at our tent for the afternoon.
A towering statue in front of the Ruhmeshalle (hall of fame with numerous busts) at one end of the festival grounds.
This was inside the largest tent I had ever been inside. It had two stories and can hold 11,000 people.
The tent is starting to fill up at this point, but is still fairly empty. This was not even that full at this point. During the evening and on the weekends, it is much fuller.
From our view point, you can look down and see a lot of what is going on.
It is four o'clock in the afternoon of a Thursday and it is slowly getting more and more crowded.
In the morning, there are a lot of people. By the afternoon, there are way more. In the evening, there are substantially more people.
So many rides. So many kids. And to think this is all put up and torn down every year.
My first rollercoaster of the day. Not the best idea after having had a large lunch.
There is bar on a boat on a bridge.
The bar itself is multiple levels as you navigate around the boat. It was a wet evening, so it was slick on outside areas.
The boat itself is fairly large. When a friend told me about it, I assumed it would be a smaller boat and not such a large boat, at least compared to the street it was over.
This is one of a few standing waves on the Eisbach. Directly after a bridge, the wave is formed and a number of surfers queue up to ride the wave for as long as they can or until they decide they have gone long enough.
The water itself is incredibly cold and everyone has to weat a wetsuit, even in the summer months. Surfers on either side take turns surfing and many will start on the opposite side when it is their turn again.
The manmade river is fairly fast moving where it enters the
Althought river surfing was originally banned and then allowed, swimming in the river is still banned due to how dangerous it is due to the temperature and how fast the water is flowing.
I had never seen a Mandarin duck before and they were absolutely magnificent.
The tower was originally built in the late 1700s but burned down due to an air raid in WWII. It was rebuilt in the 1950s, though most of it is closed off to anyone besides bands that play there.
A picturesque street outside the Englischen Garten. Everything was clean and the buildings were all amazing. Most of the buildings have all kinds of businesses located in them.
The triumphal arch was built in the mid 1800s. It was restored after WWII and now sits as a reminder of peace.
The Old Town Hall is much smaller than the current town hall in the same plaza. Four floors of the old town hall are now a toy museum.
In the middle of the Marienplatz is a column that has a statue of Mary. Everyone lines up in front of the column to watch the clock tower's show. The first night I was here, there was a few different large demonstrations.
The new town hall is in the same plaza as the old town hall and has a clock tower that has a small show a few times a day.
The striking difference between the sky on either side of the rainbow.
The fact that I could see both ends of the rainbow was awesome.
I have seen a lot of things being sold in a shop window, but I have never seen fur covered Birkenstocks before. They had a few different fur colors as well, so it was not a one off pair.
These were the greatest calf warmers I saw the entire time I was in Munich. It was late at night, so I will not judge the fact that he was wearing tennis shoes, socks, and his loferl down so low.
I ventured out on the above ground rail and managed to get technically outside the city limits of Munich. There was a bit of farm land and a large shopping area, but otherwise it was still beautiful.
On an adventure day, I took the train pretty outside of Munich, just to see other random sights. I had zero plans other than to hop on a tain and just go for the day. As the train stopped at this station, I hopped off to see what I could see. A massive lake did not disappoint.
The clouds had started to settle in over Starnberg Lake, but it was still an amazing sight to behold. The lake is large and the houses on the lake were massive. There were not a lot of boats on the lake, but it is getting later in the year.
The city itself, was a smallish city and felt relaxed. It was the last Sunday in September, so I am sure that kept a lot of shops closed, but even if everything had been opned, it would still have been a smaller city.
Leaving Munich for a random trip to see what all I can see in a day.
I am always taken aback by the beauty of mountains that are green all the way up vs baren on the top.
I love how green everything is, from the fields below to the mountain tops above.
These awesome snow covered mountains peaking (see what I did there) out over the stop of the tree lined hills was incredible. This was also when I realized I was about to leave Germany... on accident.
One of the first things I saw when I got off the train (in the wrong country), was this awesome fortress that I had no idea was even here. This made my little mistake so worth it.
The water may not be clear, but it was still pretty. The castle in the background may have given it a lot of bonus points.
I wonder what Sega thinks about sharing a name with a bar.
I would love to see what this looked like a few hundred years ago.
There was a small sidestreet that has a bust and small monument to Matthäus Hörfarter.
I had been under Max Weber Plaza tens of times on the subway but had never gone up to see what it looked like. I was not disappointed.
Unfortunetly I was here on a Sunday and therefore the market was not open. I can only image how beautiful this plaza looks during Christmas.
Yet another narrow, but amazing looking Munich side street.
This building looked cool with the creeping vines, but I wonder how much sunlight gets through some of those windows.
As much as Germany is not like the US, farmland is still farmland.
