The Ultimate Escape

With its inescapable lashings of pork, liters full of beer, and cheerily oblivious nude sunbathers, Germany might be the perfect antidote to Abu Dhabi.

We spent a week in Munich, visiting Nick's college roommate, before Margaret trundled off to Leipzig for a conference, and Nick trundled back to Falconcity of Wonders (well, unfortunately, not quite there -- but in driving distance).

We found wonderful places....a tiny, exquisite games museum - five rooms stacked, one on top of the other, connected by a dizzying spiral staircase. 

....shops willing to supply doners for pocket change....

....parks galore, with spring flowers beginning to bloom....

(This bloom was from a rainy trek up to Andechs Monastery to see their lovely church, and to sample their beer. Rumor has it that liquid bread was acceptable during fasting times, and so the monks amped up their Lenten ales accordingly to deal with fast days like Ash Wednesday. Anyway, we were glad to get a liter or so each on a drizzly spring afternoon, before catching our train home.)



...favorite German words...

....and beer gardens, brimming with people, even on work days. 

Nick also discovered lederhosen, though he quickly returned the outfit after some sheepish modeling.

 

We went on long runs through Olympic Park, through the English Garden, along the canals, out to suburban palaces, and down by the Isar.
 

We even tried out a sauna (though figuring out the proper etiquette was a major challenge for our German skills). And we were delighted by the novel possibility of going to real museums. We spent hours in the Deutsches Museum, a labyrinthine science & tech museum on the river, which boasts a model train so massive and intricate that the 20 minute show we attended felt far too short. Each room was gorgeous, and fascinating, even given our poor German and wobbly grasp of all things technical. Here is the museum's room full of planes....

And here is Residenz, a huge castle in the middle of the city, replete with its own theater, multiple chapels. Just walking through it once felt like doubling our mileage for the day. 

It was very sad to send Nick home....

 ....but home he went, back to a world of sun, (slightly more inhibited) sunbathers. No doners in sight, though.