// JSpot //

Saturday morning arrived all too soon, or rather ended too soon. Sleep was cut short around noon by the arrival of four more guests - Jessy’s brother Patrick and his friends Jenni, Ramona, and Timeea .

After eating Weißwurst for breakfast (lunch?) that Jessy had so kindly prepared, we geared up and set out for another day of adventure.

The first stop: the Englischer Garten. On the Eisbach river here, some crazy Germans had found a rip tide in the river that created an infinite wave suitable for surfing on. And that’s exactly what they were doing. I’ve never seen anything like this! There is snow on the ground, the air is about 30 degrees, and the river is certainly frigid as well. They wore wet suits, but they must have been on the lower extreme of what a wet suit is capable of insulating you from. Any colder and they would need dry suits.

http://www.jcuga.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mvi_0370.flv

After some photos were taken, we strolled on through the park, which was thoroughly snowed in, and came to another Christmas market at the Chinesicher Turm (Chinese Tower). This was a quaint little market with so many delicious things to smell. Homemade soaps, Glühwein, waffles, roasted nuts…

We walked quite some way on this outing - about 6.5 miles in all, according to the GPS, which I handily brought along this time, and as a reward, it produced a fantastic log for us!

Brian received word that his boss would need to change plans for Sunday. Instead of driving to Göttingen as planned, we would be bound for Bad Kreuznach. Most likely, then, on Monday, I’ll pick up a train to Köln or Frankfurt for the day/night. It might be nice to get some solo time and do some shopping and sight seeing on my own. But more than likely I’ll just be hopelessly lost and confused!

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We go for sushi in Munich. L-R: Brian, Jessy, Me, Natalia.

By 20:00, we met Jessy back at her place to gather ourselves for the evening. Sushi tonight! I didn’t take the GPS, so I have no idea where we were, but we found a little sushi joint and ate sushi, drank sake, and had a great time. Jessy’s friend Nataliya joined us up for dinner as well.

After sushi, it was bar time. Another friend of G’s, Benny, met up with up with us and came along for the evening. We made our way to a bar, but I don’t remember the name of it. We didn’t stay long, and instead went to a salsa bar called Cohibar. There we drank mojitos and other such “exotic” drinks and I pretended to be a good dancer. Being a stiff American, this of course consisted of an awkward shuffle, and little else. It’s hard to hide your lack of talent when you’re surrounded by a country full of people who dance regularly for fun and don’t care what they look like. Maybe I should take a lesson. My pictures here tell the story.

Brian and Jessy at Cohibar

It has been fantastic seeing München with a native who can show us all the great places to go and party - it’s nice not feeling like a total tourist the entire time and just relax like I have nothing to do - because I don’t. Naturally, Jessy is the best guide in all of Germany!

We left the bar around 03:30 and it was still hopping like mad. When we reached home, I convinced Benny to cap the night with a round of the Glenlivet that I had brought from duty-free in Atlanta. Thereafter, I didn’t last long and called it a night.

Brian and I found a little fun place called BMW Welt

Sheiße! We seem to have overslept. Or perhaps we subconsciously changed our minds. We had a Barcelona moment, but since we hadn’t purchased our tickets to Austria, it was no loss to us. Except the Augustiner Brewery!

When we did finally wake up, we decided that rather that trying to race to Austria, we should look for something “touristy” to do in Munich.

And we found it: BMW Welt.

An enormous tribute to Munich’s biggest auto-maker… or a multi-million dollar advertisement for BMW. You can even pick up your new car here at the factory and they make a weekend of the experience for you. Wow. The exhibits they had were mildly biased, but they spared no expense on the presentation. Entire three-story walls were made into fluid animations with rear-projection screens guided your way. 100-foot long touch-sensitive tables with interactive overhead projection laid out the history of BMW. Enormous picture books with visual recognition queued a recorded voice over, filling in the details the picture couldn’t convey. So much technology!

And of course, the cars. Every make and model that has ever bared the BMW emblem was here. The Bond cars, the first BMW production car, even the original aircraft engine that got the company started.

After spending most of the day there, we stopped on our way home again at Marien Platz for a snack and then… the Hofbrauhaus! That famous touristy trap that no touristy day would be complete without! Interestingly, though, the Haus was filled to the gills with Germans! Rick Steves must have got it wrong. It took over 10 minutes to find a bench to plop down on, but when we did, the consumption of large quantities of beer began, served, of course, in the traditional one-liter mas!

At about 18:45 we tracked back to Jessy’s apartment, where her roommate, Martin, greeted us. He was cool, and my thanks go to him for putting up with us. Then, Dr. Jessy “G” Gunold herself made her entrance. I had no idea she was such a looker! And I would find soon that she was a sweet and nice as she looked! Where are the Jessy’s in America?

We soon departed again, bound for the Hofbraukeller, not far from the apartment. Like Americans are trained from their birth to do, I engorged on entirely too much food.

When dinner had ended, we boarded a subway bound for a part of town that only my GPS could tell me where it was. We arrived at what was known as Tollwood, which Jessy described as being “like a Christmas market, but different.” It was! They had live music, many bars, more Glühwein that you could drink, and more. It was more like Oktoberfest, but Weihnachtsfest.

Along the way, we discovered that Mitch Parks was somewhere in München, as evident by this car with it's window left open to the snow

The night went on, and the beers went down. We left Tollwood, and Jessy, having to work in the morning, left us. Brian and I went in search of a bar down in the University section of town known as Shamrock, which we found, but found it to be boring and empty. This was a University area, there were bound to be gorgeous University co-eds out and about near by. We thus headed for a local place that was brimming with just such young beautiful co-eds as any guy might have desired. I desperately wanted to be back in college, carefree and fearless of bad decisions.

Unfortunately, we were total tools. We knew nobody, and everyone else already knew each other. So while we mellowed in the corner of the bar, we watched the dozens of drop-dead-gorgeous 20-somethings get their evening on. It was enough for us.

Contented, we made for the U-Bahn to start our way back home before the last train. Too late, though, it had already gone. We hailed a cab and headed home. Once there, Brian proceeded to snore a storm, dreaming no doubt of all the things we should have been doing to those ladies in the club. I wrote and left Jessy a note, thanking her for letting us crash at her place.

Good times. And tomorrow we planned on a day trip to Austria!

At the Gunold residence, I have made myself at home.

The morning came. Ted awoke first and made for the train station - he flew out at 09:00.

Brian and I made our morning a bit more leisurely as we woke, packed, and boarded a 09:15 train to München (Munich). The ride would take us through some fantastic snow fields. The country side of Switzerland and Germany under snow is a sight to behold. Sadly, it was a bit too difficult to photograph from the train.

Once we arrived, we set out looking for Jessy’s apartment. This was an interesting task because it was certainly not in a tourist area. We purchased a three-day transit pass and headed east to Max-Weber Platz, where from it was another six blocks walk. Uphill. In the snow. With no shoes.

After schlepping our bags up the five flights of stairs to Jessy’s, we went back out to explore the neighborhood - Jessy would not be home from work for several hours, and we were hungry, thirsty, and in need of an ATM. We found a kiosk a few blocks away and helped ourselves to some Lëberkasen. We then took the U-Bahn to Marien Platz to see the Weihnachtsmarkt. Though I didn’t know it at the time, over the next three days we would become very familiar with this area of town. We had been here before in 2005 - the Hofbrauhaus is here - but the Christkindlmarkt made everything different. The streets were packed, even in the early afternoon! This was a sight to be seen. And then, it started snowing!

With the snow and the cold bearing down, Brian and I found some Glühwein and candied walnuts for warmth and sustenance and continued wandering around the immense market, investigating what wares the merchants had to offer. We even made a short break in Bayerischer Donisl - our old favorite bar for beer and schnitzel.

GPX Log from Zürich to München