Today was our day to go visit Susi, Emily’s German roommate from Arizona. When we first mentioned that we were going to be visiting Germany, Emily immediately said, “You’ve got to visit Susi!” So we dutifully got in contact, and agreed to meet in her town near Munich for a day.
We weren’t meeting Susi until the afternoon though, so we decided to do some more touring of the city first. Libby finally convinced me to take one of the sightseeing bus tours, so we went down to the train station, bought our bus tickets (and our train tickets for later), and headed over to the bus stop. We managed to get seats on the open-air top of the bus, and set off for our tour. On the tour we were surprised to find that we had already seen many of the sights they were showing us; because Munich is so small compared to Berlin, it is very easy to walk from one location to another and we had accidentally wandered into many of the landmarks on our own. It was still worthwhile though, because it eventually took us out to the edge of town where Nymphenburg palace is located.
Nymphenburg palace is a summer residence for the Wittlebach family that was built by King Maximilian, to celebrate the birth of his first son. The palace was opulent, however, we both found the gardens more impressive than the building itself. We toured part of the interior. We decided that instead of waiting for the Tourist Tour bus we would save time and take the public tram system back to the train station. We actually did this very successfully and saved about an hour.
We were able to get train tickets to Miesbach and boarded the train. Luckily, Susi had informed us that the train separates at one of the stops. The first two cars continue to Miesbach and the latter cars go somewhere else. No one had told us that at the train station and we didn’t see any mention of it on our tickets.
Susi was there to greet us as soon as we got off the train. It was great to see a smiling, friendly face. She then drove us to Oedberg for the summer luge. Lib had been looking forward to this since we decided to go to Germany. The luge was located on a ski mountain. The carts were pulled up the side of the mountain with a cable and then released at the top. A hand brake could make the car accelerate or decelerate. It was very fun. After two runs down the mountain we headed off for a hike near Miesbach. The hike gave us plenty of time to ask Susi all of the questions about Germany we had been accumulating during the trip. She explained some of German school life to us, talked about the German government, and explained many of the Bavarian traditions to us. For example, most towns have a May pole that is put up in, well, May. A common tradition is to get the pole several weeks in advance and hide it, and then nearby villages try to steal the pole. If they succeed, they the first town has to buy the town that stole the pole beer. Susi is an English and history teacher and likewise had many questions for us. The hike was gorgeous and gave us excellent views of the valleys below. At the top of the hike we sat outside of a biergarten, drank water (sparkling of course, this is Germany), and talked for a while.
The hike made us hungry and we went to Miesbach for a Bavarian meal. Susi informed us that people in the town do wear drindles and lederhosen, but it is usually for special events. Ordering with a native German at our table made things much easier. We had roast, dumplings, and cole slaw. We have found that the Germans love their ice cream, so we did as the Germans do, and got ice cream (one thing we’ve noticed about German ice cream; it is more like Gelatto than ice cream in America). After dinner she showed us her flat (it was very nice) and helped us plan our last couple of days in Germany. We took a walk around Miesbach and had a wonderful time conversing with Susi, and of course, swapping stories about Emily (We found out some very interesting things. I think Emily may have to cook us some meals for a while, if you know what I mean).
We did miss our first train, however. We thought the last train left at 23:44. It turns out that the last train left at 22:44. Luckily Susi was kind enough to let us spend the night in Miesbach and head back to Munich the next day instead.
Signing off,
Libbenstein und Kadystein.
Traveling question of the day:
How hard will it be to convince the Pook (Emily) to come to Germany in two summers? We may have made a solemn vow to kidnap her and bring her back with us within 2 years.