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In Munchen
After a chaotic journey, we finally made it to the comfort of the Schindler's home. Thanks to their warm hospitality, we got to enjoy Munich in style. (*Note: Randy has the worst luck traveling, considering that he does not travel frequently per year. This time, his connection flight was delayed and held him back by a day, his luggage was lost for a week, and our flight to Munich was delayed because KLM is lame.)

Munich viewed from the top of Alter Peter - or "Old Peter"


The Neues Rathaus in Marien Platz - the impressive neo-Gothic town hall. Today, it is a popular meeting spot and a prime beer garden place. On the eve of WWII, it was where the Nazi party paraded in town.


Frauenkirche - what the locals call "the dome" & a landmark of Munich


When you first enter the Frauenkirche, most people overlook this peculiar footstep. For some reason, the one thing I remembered from the Lonely Planet was about the tale of this "Devil's footprint." It seems like the devil does not wear Prada - maybe he wears some loafers.

The story goes like this: Jorg von Halspach, the builder of the church, had financial difficulties in completing the church, so he struck a deal with the devil. The devil agreed to finance the project on the condition that Halspach build it without a single visible window. When the devil saw the completed church from the outside with its tall Gothic windows, he rejoiced and came to claim Halspach's soul. Instead, Halspach led the devil to the front entrance, where he showed the devil that no window could be seen from that one location due to the architecual planning. The devil stomped his foot in anger - hence, the legend of the devil's footprint.


But as you can see in this photo, you can clearly view the windows straight ahead (I took this shot with my foot on the "devil's footprint"). The church was completely rebuilt after WWII, so there is no longer a way to verify the myth.

Streets of Munich

(Come to Munich - they've got lions.) It's only appropriate that Munich has these lions around town, much like the creatively decorated cows in Budapest, Edinburgh, Hamburg, etc. I quite like the Bavarian coat of arms with the lion and the checkered sky blue and white flag.


Now, you may ask, "why the heck are you taking a picture of McDonald's???" But I found it sort of neat how "McDonald's" is written in English, Japanese, German, and Arabic. Munich caters a lot to the tourists, so it's no surprise, but it is still interesting.

I don't have any food pictures this time, but I guess it's because I was busy eating the food. Everything was delicious - from the very typical German weinerschnitzels to the tender pork kunckles and white asparagus (the white asparagus season is starting right now!), I enjoyed every meal. I also had weisswurst (white sausage), which is consists of 70% veal, and the rest made up of brains, hide, spleen, etc. (yummy). I'm not quite sure where it is, but I hear that there is a weisswurstaquator some where (the equator that separates the people who eat white sausage and the rest of the country). There are some excellent desserts and pastry too. What a delicious country.

If you have traveled in Europe, I'm sure you have said this time and again: "Oh... another church." You tire of seeing churches quite quickly, but some churches just catch your eye, because they are incredible in their own way.

Doors of the Asamkirche - built by the Asam brothers in 1746.


Asamkirche is a whole new category of gaudiness. I have never seen such an ornate and eyeball-boggling church.


Eguid Quirin Asam, a prominent architect in early 18th century, bought the real estate and decided to build his own private church. He commissioned the project to his two sons, also prominent architects of the time, and gave them freedom to do as they pleased. I guess the term for this style is 'Baroque rococo,' but in my opinion, it's a suffocating collection of angels, skeletons, and biblical figures coming at you from all sorts of directions.


Not your typical neighborhood church. There are sculptures of angels in chains and skeletons lurking from the corners.

Prost!
A trip to Germany would not be complete without having some of their amazing bier! When we first started planning our holidays, it was based on beer. That sounds pretty alcoholic of us, but if we were going to go anywhere, it had to be a land of good beer (Randy is a bit of a beer snob).

With nothing planned (our thoughts were pretty close to the mind of Homer Simpson: "Mmmm... beeeer...."), we decided to take a "Munich Beer Tour" to get some perspective on where to start. After all, Germany has numerous microbreweries and they tend to get consumed regionally, never to go beyond the Bavarian borders. Even if they did get outside of Germany, ingredients can sometimes change, so we had to try the real thing!

As luck would have it, we had an awesome tour guide. He was a university student studying music by day, but a beer connosieur & tour guide by night. He also had a swanky British English accent (rare for a German) and an extreme passion for beer.

We first stopped at a local Weissbier pub called G. Schneider & Sohn. If you happen to be in Munich, I hope you get a chance to visit it. It's where the locals go, and they have an excellent beer called Aventinus. It's smooth and caramel-like. At 8.2% alcohol vol. content, it can get you feeling pretty good after a couple glasses. I had the Aventinus Eisboch (11% alcohol vol. content), which is good if you have a sweet-tooth. These are both bock beers, which tends to have high alcohol content due to the malting process. The Paulaner Salvator is also an excellent double bock.

Germany has a unique beer history of its own. I have had many-a German friends quote the Reinheitsgebot, or the Purity Law of 1516, to me. According to this law, beer brewers in Germany are only allowed to make beer with 3 ingredients: barley, hops, and water. Fruit syrup infused beer, like Belgian beer, or (cheap) corn-based brewing, like Budweiser, are not allowed! Germans are very proud of their quality assured beer.

Weissbier had a dubious status in this, because it had a lot of yeast - so Schneider & Sohn had a good head start because they were the only brewer authorized by the royalty to make weissbier.

I loved hearing the story about the origin of the starkbier (strong beer). In Munich, beer started out as a substitute for food for the monks during Lent. The monks found that they quite liked beer. Afterall, they began drinking early in the morning on an empty stomach! The rumor that the monks were acting silly in Germany reached the ears of the Pope, who demanded an explanation. So the monks in Munich sent him some beer, but the beer had spoilt on the road by the time it reached the Vatican. The Pope spat it with one sip, commenting, "this is terrible. If they like it that much, they can do whatever they want with it." This started the commercialization of beer by the monks in Munich. They were making so much money from the royalty and the wealthy from the sales tax, that they eventually banned the sales tax on beer altogether.


And from G. Schneider & Sohn, we took a bottle - to the next brewery.


Ezzy (our tourguide): "Oh, you can leave the empty bottles on the street corner. Some homeless man will appreciate it. He gets .08 Euros per bottle."
(sure enough, the bottles were all gone when we came out from the brewery).


The Paulaner Brauhaus. We sampled a Weissbier, a Dunkle (dark weiss), and a lager here.

We also got a lesson on the right way to pour weissbier:
1. Get a bottle of beer (not a draught, because the keg pump pressurizes the beer and pushes it out of the pipes too quickly. And not a can, because it's not quite right with the metallic taste.)
2. Get a tall liter glass (long tube glass that opens up at the top) and wet the inside with water.
3. Tilt the glass at about a 40-degree angle (almost horizontal), and pour out 3/4 of the beer slowly so that you don't make a lot of foam.
4. Swirl the rest of the beer inside the bottle (once opened, there is a secondary fermentation occurring inside the bottle. The swirling helps this process.)
5. Pour the rest of the foamy beer to create the head. A brown, creamy foam indicates a good head. The liquid part of the beer should be level with the liter mark on the glass.
6. Say "Prost!" to the people at your table - always looking at them in the eyes and clinking the glass at the bottom of the glass (the top of the long liter glass is fragile). Enjoy!

I really like weissbier, which tends to taste a bit like banana and cloves. If in the US, some excellent beers are the Golden Monkey by Victory Brewery and the Long Trail Hefeweizen.


Unfortunately this is the only shot of the Hofbrauhaus. It is a popular tourist destination in Munich, mainly because of its Oktoberfest-like atmosphere year-round. We didn't stay long enough to see the entertainment, but I imagine that there was a noisy Bavarian band of men in lederhosen, drinking out of shoes.

We sat outside in the courtyard, underneath the balcony, where Hitler first made his public speach.

How many mugs can you lift in one go? If you're a waiter at the Hofbrauhaus, easily 6 or 7.

We visited Munich with little knowledge about it. It is a place of amazing architecture, deep historical ties to WWII, and a modern economic powerhouse. It is definitely one of my favorite cities in the world.

And our journey continues to the beautiful Bavarian Alps...