Wednesday, January 28, 2009

On the U-bahn



Here's just a few quick pics of us when we were playing around on our U-bahn line, the U4/U5. People were definitely staring at us, it's just considered odd to take pictures on public transit, but we didn't care.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Jessi comes to visit


Our friend Jessica Wegner from Hamburg came for a few days to visit us and see a bit of Munich. Unfortunately the weather was awful. We had what the Germans call "Schneeregen" or snow rain. So, what LOOKS like dandruff in the picture is actually snow/rain falling on us. Other than that, we look cute.

Basically we just shopped the January sales, showed Jessi the downtown area and enjoyed her company. It's so great having friends visit. Especially friends who are fully bilingual and bicultrual! We love you Jessi!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

City Museum

The Munich city museum was a strange compilation of Munich's history. It contained art and artifacts from the middle ages, replicas of apartments and foods from different eras, photographs surrounding WWII, and even weird 19th and early 20th century carnival exhibits. It was neat in a bizarre way, but very random.
Is that a finger?



Bavarian food


A photo of Hitler and Mussolini.



Now onto the creepy carnival items. That's me with the wall of doll heads................psycho! Despite my smile, I am actually very, very scared. And on the verge of tears.



And then of course the carnival game where you "Smash Hitler". Looks like he got it right in the kisser quite a few times. Guess these had to have been from after the war.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Weißwurst for Breakfast

On our first weekend back in Munich Nathan and I decided to take it easy. A leisurely traditional Bavarian breakfast, walk along the river Isar in the rare winter sun and grocery shop together.

First, breakfast. The traditional Bavarian breakfast is weißwurst (white sausage), a pretzel and weißbier (white/light beer).

We didn't have pretzels, so I just made toast. In this montage, Nate is demonstrating how one properly eats a weißwurst. First you slice it lengthwise, then remove the outer casing carefully (which looks really disgusting, I'd tell you what I think it looks like, but this is a family blog, not appropriate).



Slice and eat. Of course TRUE Bavarians say you must actually SUCK the meat out of its casing. We haven't mastered that yet, we'll get back to you.



Then came our walk past a portion of the English Garten and the river Isar.


And finally, grocery shopping. Saturday being the last day you can shop since the stores close on Sundays. I decided to document the "American" section.


Love that 6.59 euro Pam. Approximately $8.50.


And this random last picture is from the Underground. This is the ticket machine you use to buy tickets for the public transit. Can you count how many buttons? Germans like to complicate things. Thankfully, we had friends and colleagues help us figure it out.

Friday, January 16, 2009

January

Ah, January. What to do? It's below freezing outside daily, shopping is wearing thin and no one visits until March. Conditions are perfect for museums!

I intend to visit as many museums as this city has to offer! Well, at least as many as I can get to. And I will filter out the junk and take you to only the coolest.

Today I went with my friend Emily to the Alte Pinokothek, an art museum that is like Munich's version of the Lourve.
It contains many Rubens, at least one Da Vinci and other German and Flemish painters. I suppose in that last sentence I just gave away that I do not know that much about art. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it and enjoy myself at the museum!

Unfortunately, flash photography was not allowed so many of my pictures came out blurry. So, these are the ones that made the cut. Please do not ask me the names of the artists or the title of the painting. They were just ones I found interesting.








There was of course a LOT of religious art, that's a given. But it was even more fun when I recognized the story and got to share with my friend Emily. I explained the biblical stories and she identified and explained the Greek and Roman mythology ones. We were a great team making the experience all the more enjoyable.

This last picture was surprising. Apparently it's quite normal for artists to come into huge museums and practice their art! My friend Ella from NYC said that there are always classes and artists at the Metropolitan Museum. Call me a little slow, but I had never thought of that before. Anyway, it was cool to see it in process. Hope I didn't disturb the guy.



Stay tuned for more museums in Munich!