Munchin in Munchen

When we checked in for our flight to Munich (Munchen in German), Wendy was worried about having to pay extra, due to the weight of her bag being over the "limit" (50 lbs).  So she goes first and puts her luggage on the scale.  She sees that it is over by at least 20 lbs but the ticket lady had not said anything about it being too heavy.  Doug and I could only look at each other in wonder as Wendy asked, "Does that weigh too much!?"  We quickly shut her up with our heavy laughter as we imagined the very few ways she could've handled that worse.  One of which was her taking out her wallet, opening it up wide as if to offer it's entire contents and saying, "Is this enough to cover it?"  It's gonna be funny for a long time to come!  The flight was pleasant and we got our new favorite airline candy bar, Balisto.  I saw someone throwing their's away and I almost snagged it for Wendy, THAT'S how good they are!

We got a nice little surprise when we went to get all of our seats together for the Munich to Chicago flight!  They had overbooked it and were offering $900 plus hotel for the night and also dinner and breakfast for each of us!  We debated if it was doable but quickly came to the realization that we couldn't pass it up.  So we got over $3000 collectively which, using Doranian mathematics, paid for our trip entirely!!  Plus, we got to have a night on the town in Munich and Wendy and Doug had never been to Munich before.  I was really excited myself because Munich was definitely a close 2nd in the ranking of favorite cities I visited in my backpacking trip with Shane in 2003.  We were put up in the Airport Sheraton Hotel, which was a 5 min shuttle ride from the Airport.  It was a pretty nice place actually, not overly posh but not dumpy in any way.  We all tried (fruitlessly) to call home using Doug's calling cards but none of them worked.  We just paid with a credit card or room charge instead and then took a much needed nap.  After the naps, we went to our buffet dinner which wasn't too bad and the Paulaner Weiss Beers were money on the spot!  We liked them so much, we ordered another round.  I was loving the chance to enjoy some hometown German beer.   We caught a cab back to the airport, got a train ticket and headed to the Marienplatz (Main Square).  There were several beer halls around the area and after checking out the Marienplatz at night we strayed into Donisl and had some Hacker-Pschorr Pilsners.  They were tasty but we decided to move on and experience another hall.  As we walked, Doug noticed a sign for Kilian's Irish Pub so we stopped in for a pint of Black Velvets (Guiness and Hard Cider) and Irish Car Bombs, Wendy had a Red Snake (Cider, WiessBier and Blackcurrant juice) which she loved.  There was a birthday party going next to us and some of them looked like they were way too young but the legal age for beer is 16.  Either way, everyone looked like they were having a great time, their wings and onion rings becoming very appealing despite the fact that we had recently eaten.  Time was ticking away on our night so we moved on once again, bound for the legendary Hoffbrau House!  On our way there, we saw a few people gathered around a telescope.  It turned out that there were 2 telescopes actually and they were much bigger than any I had ever used before.  One of the guys that I assume owned it said that today was "World Wide Astrology Day" , of which we had never heard that before in our lives.  Celebrate the assassination of the Civil Rights Movement's Leader by looking at some stars.  What I saw when I looked into the first one totally blew my mind!!  It was aimed at Saturn and you could not only see the rings with your own eyes but you could see the moon of Saturn as well!  I actually asked if it was real.  The other telescope was aimed at the moon and this was even more amazing than the view of Saturn.  I have never seen such a clear, live view of the moon in my life, it was breathtaking.  I liked them so much I had to go for second look on each.  

With uranus (I mean Saturn) on our minds, we got back on track only to be sidetracked again by a Japanese restaurant.  Our intense desire for some food variety kicked in and turned us towards the entrance.  They were closing but directed us to a different Japanese restaurant, Toshi, a few blocks away.  We went all out and got some Edamame, and one each of California Roll, Spicy Tuna Roll and an Alaska Roll along with a couple bottles of Asahi Beer.  Everyone was in heaven!!  I've never tasted Sushi so good!  I'm not sure that it was actually THE best (though it could be!) Sushi ever but it was more about the timing and desire that made it great.  I could've eaten a couple more rolls myself but we went on our way once more, this time to the Hoffbrau House for real...and they were closing at 11:30pm.  We gleaned from the locals that they deal with drinking lushes all day long and they sort of say, "Ok, we've had enough...get out!"  Rejected, we scuffled on to find one more beer hall to enjoy before our night's end.  On our way, we happened upon a little Kabob joint (think Gyros, not meat on a stick) and even though we didn't need more food we all split one Donner Kabap, which was frickin fantastic!  It was so good that, for a second, I forgot about the awesome sushi we just had.  We were talking about all the beer halls closing so early and Doug was trying to say how they go to the Pub first and the to the clubs but instead he said, "Well, I'm sure they're all planning on Plub then Cub".  Wendy and I had a really good laugh on that one!  Future beers were not in the cards though as it had gotten late and we didn't want to miss the last train back to the hotel.  Factoring in the half hour train ride back, we needed to go anyway to even get a chance at 4 hours of sleep.  All in all, it was an exciting and unexpected addition to an already amazing trip and I was glad it came about.