A Day in Munich

This morning, we headed out to the viktuallenmarkt, which is the largest farmers' market in Munich (and maybe Germany).  It was raining, of course, but we bought some yummy produce to take back to the room and some pretzels and coffee to eat on the spot.

The cherries were everywhere as were white asparagus.  They were pretty cheap, so we bought a bunch and ate them out of the bag.

We also got some fresh carrots that were incredibly sweet.

There was any kind of produce you could imagine.

Plus, you could buy crafts.

The Maypole

All of a sudden, I just got exhausted.  We went back to the room, and I slept for a couple of hours.  About noon, I made myself get up and we ate and then went to see some sights.  We headed to Marienplatz because that is where the action is and we were entertained by some street performers. 

Marienplatz was full of German soccer fans.  Many were well past wasted by early afternoon and nearly everyone was wearing some form of yellow or red.  People had flags attached to their backs like capes.  Faces were painted.  Red and yellow leis adorned many a fan and flags flew off of cars, motorcycles, and bikes.  It started to get a little rowdy, so we took the kids and started walking around.

We saw some beautiful churches, most notably St. Peter's Kirche and Frauenkirche.  We thought we'd go to St. Peter's Kirche tonight, but ended up not.  We were hoping to go to the top of the tower at Frauenkirche, but it was closed due to stability reasons.  Kyle bought a cross necklace, and the girls got chapelets.

In the doorway of St. Peter's Kirche, we saw a man begging.  He was sitting on the steps with a can and wrapped in a blanket.  The kids all gave him some money.  He was pretty pitiful.

The owner of our apartment suggested we go to a street fair down on Leopoldstrasse, so we headed down to that area to see what it was about.  It was full of people and food and vendors.  We decided we'd stay down there and went to get something to eat.  The girls and I got potato salad and a HUGE pretzel, and Kyle got fish on a stick.

After dinner, we decided to go to mass.  Only problem was that the church was right next to the stage where bands were singing bad covers of American songs.  The priest even put down a huge woolen curtain over the doors, but during the consecration, we could still hear the pounding of the bass outside.  It was nothing if not distracting, especially with all of the gilt and statues and mass being said in German.  I was tempted to sing along to the music in the street instead of the music in the church!

After mass, we went back to the street fair. They had a booth set up for the European "NFL" team, the Munich Cowboys.  Seriously, the team roster looked like it could have been for St. X or Trinity.  The guys were so small!  They had a thing set up where kids could go in and try to throw the football through the arms of a stand-up/blow up receiver.  None of the German kids were even getting close.  Emily went in to try and almost got the ball through the arms every time! 

We watched people dancing in the gazebo in the gardens of the Nymphenburg Palace.  They were doing salsa, tango, waltz, etc.  They were awesome to watch.  I could have stayed there all night!  The sun finally came out, and it was warming up a bit.  Kirk and Kyle went to walk around more, and the girls and I stayed to watch the dancers (go figure!)

The street fair was an eco-friendly theme, and so Kirk decided to do his best impression of Mr. Incredible...

There was a place set up for people to try and walk a tight rope.  Not sure how this tied into ecology, but we decided to give it a go.  Take a look and see how well we did!

     

As it started to get dark, the girls were getting tired, but Kyle wanted to stay out.  Kirk took the girls back to the apartment via the subway, and Kyle and I decided to walk around some more.  We stopped at some booths and tried some of the sweets.  They were just okay. We had a really good talk about the trip and what we missed from home and what we enjoyed so far about Europe.  We discussed history and how things got to be how they are now.  We mourned the fact that all of these medieval buildings we were seeing were probably only 60 years old or so after the bombing of Munich during WW2.  It took us awhile to walk all the way back, but it was a really, really nice end to a very fun-filled day!