Today is actually Oct. 24th and today we visited a different church - North Sea Baptist. It is much more like what we are used to - more contemporary music, children's time, more relevant preaching...we liked it and will likely visit again. I ended up knowing quite a few people there and it was a very friendly place. From there, we made tracks over to Dan and Sheila's for a little gathering...several families came and smoked brisket was on the menu! Ahhhh, brisket, beer (for Spencer), traditional BBQ sides (beans and potatoes), dessert...what more do I need to say about that?
Now, on to the trip stuff...
Today was basically a "free" day to check out Munich and we decided we would try to walk through the town and get a closer look at many of the places we had driven by on the bus tour from that first afternoon. We set off in search of a beautiful church we had seen from a distance on the bus because it seemed to be the farthest point. With the help of a map and Spencer's uncanny skill at direction, we found the church and made our way all around. We saw the monument called the Eternal Flame that is dedicated to those who lost their lives during at the hands of the Nazis during WWII, statues and fountains of famous people in Bavarian and German history (Maximilian, for example), a famous outdoor market, beer halls, and the list goes on! We stopped in for lunch at one of the highly recommended beer halls called Schneider Weisse and had a delicious lunch. This was really the first time we had language issues as our waitress spoke no English and we obviously didn't know enough German...again, we took advantage of the kind gentleman at the next table who helped with some translation and Spencer shared a beer and a toast with them. They were quite friendly and we chatted with them a little during lunch. After lunch we continued checking out the sights and finished making our way around the city. There are many museums and buildings with interesting histories all over Munich - we enjoyed walking around and talking it all in. I have so many pictures from today it is hard to decide which ones to put in the blog!
In Marienplatz, we saw another amazing thing - a sidewalk artist had painted this entire scene on a canvas set up on the sidewalk that featured all kinds of characters from kids' movies, like Shrek and Ice Age. I am including a picture - it was amazing!
After a long day of walking, we headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit and figure out dinner - kids were hungry again...tonight, mainly for convenience, we went to a Mexican restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. We had to chuckle...Brendan ordered the "all-you-can-eat" ribs and chowed down! Kyla had a burger, yes, a burger. Spencer and I shared fajitas. Just so you know, they don't do fajitas in Germany like they do in the US...they were good, but different.
Tonight was our last night, so it was time to pack up the suitcases for the trip home. We arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport. We considered taking the train, but it was going to take twice as long and the taxi wouldn't really cost that much more and only took about half an hour. The next morning, the taxi was waiting for us out front and we headed over to the airport. We immediately asked the driver if he took credit cards because I had basically used all the Euros we had and didn't really want to get more if I could avoid it...his reply..."yes, if my machine is working..." Well, I am sure you can guess how that went for us...his machine wasn't working by the time we got to the airport and we frantically went in search of an ATM machine which we found. After 3 tries, we got money out and paid our driver, extra for the time...
The first leg of the flight home was to Copenhagen. We had a layover there and then made our way to Stavanger. The flights were blessedly uneventful and we caught a Flybussen back to the apartment. We were all tired and glad to be home, but we had a wonderful trip! Several days later and lots of loads of laundry taken care of, it was back to school, work, and routine. Oh, and we immediately started planning of our next vacation at Christmas time :) Looks like Prague is in our future! We have heard from so many people how awesome it is, so our awesome travel agent, Barbara is back on the job planning our next getaway! We said when we came here we would travel as much as we could and we plan to keep that deal! There are too many wonderful sights and places to visit and we are too close to pass up any opportunity we have!
So attached are pictures from that last day in Munich. Stay tuned for more blogs!
