Busy weekend, and finally some local sightseeing

Before we went back to the States, I had signed up to go to a Toytown event Friday 12th in the evening. Toytown is an on-line forum, where English speakers living in Munich can ask questions, get advice, etc. The group also arranges lots of activities like dinners and meeting for drinks and members post the current happenings so that we can find out what’s going on in Munich. Friday was dinner for the ‘over 30’s’ at Arabesque, a restaurant in the neighborhood of Schwabing. We went out early, went to our new apartment on Ungererstrasse and watered the plants, then walked down to the restaurant. It was a nice place, had good food and we met some new people and chatted all evening. The jet lag caught up with us though, so we left around 10:30 and made our way back to Unterhaching.

We are making progress on actually moving; Logan has arranged for the phone and internet service to get turned on in the new place – on Friday they told him 7 to 10 working days. I found a moving service, recommended by other Toytown folks and they’re coming over on Friday the 19th to do an estimate. We hope to be out of this place by August 24th, another coworker’s family is coming over & they could stay here until their house is available on September first. We could do the move ourselves with help from friends, but the thought of carrying all those boxes up 2 floors daunts me. It was hard enough helping get the boxes off the pallets, into the elevator and out into the corporate apartment. I’m sure with some hired help and a small truck we can do it complete in about 4 hours.

On Saturday morning we joined another Toytown group on a trip to the Andechs brewery. We rode the S-bahn line 5 to the end, in the town of Herrshing. Hiked up the byways to the top of a hill, through neighborhoods then woods. (It reminded me a bit of hiking in Rancho San Antonio, with the stream still running.) At the top of the hill, after about a 45 minute hike, is the Kloster monastery and beergarden. It is quite the tourist attraction, the place was hopping. The weather was good: low 70s, overcast but no rain. We had beers & pretzels, then got lunch. Talked the whole afternoon with the group, which included a couple young guys in the Air Force who are friends of the organizer, and were down to Munich for a weekend visit.

The group up the tables from us was well into their beer when we sat down, and they did the traditional ‘Prost’ toast and we all clanked mugs. But we did no singing – no ‘Ein Prosit’ song, the place had ‘No Singing’ signs posted! I was making fun of that – “Give me food or I’ll sing at you in a threatening way” and one of the Air Force guys said that he’s been in Germany so long that he didn’t think twice about the sign. (There are many many rules here. For example, I learned from one of the guys that to be able to fish here, you take a year-long course and pay 1,000 Euros before you’re granted a license.) I guess people have been getting rowdy and forbidding singing has reined it in. All in all, it was a great day – hiking, beer, food, good companionship and more hiking. We got back home around 8:30.

Sunday we slept in – no construction to shake us awake at 7 a.m. We did stuff around the apartment; I caught up on email and Logan did some work reading. In the late afternoon we drove out to the new apartment with a small load of things, and took measurements there for some storage-type furniture. We know we’ll need some more bookshelves, and we think we can store the bedding under the beds and free up an existing closet. (In Germany, closets in apartments are free-standing, there are no built-ins.) We do have access to the basement storage room, but have been warned that it is very damp and not a place to store clothes or books.

We also put our names on the mailbox at the new apartment. We left & drove around to find the local Wal-Mart – there are 2 in Munich and I think I’m going to become a Wal-Mart shopper here. The convenience will be great, for a car trip there. I know there’s a supermarket much closer to the apartment where I’ll shop for the majority of the groceries.

That evening, we went to the Twisted Bavarian for an English-language book swap and dinner. Again, found it through Toytown. Dory, the restaurant owner, is an active TTer and we met her a month or so ago. Twice a month she advertises the book swap and people show up to refresh their reading collection. The library has over a thousand books now, and it was just started last November through people’s donations. A great idea and it helps save me $$. Dinner was enchiladas for me and chicken mole for Logan – very good and even spicy! That’s unusual in Germany. But Dory grew up in Mobile, and lived in Texas so she knows how Tex-Mex should taste.

Met another new friend during this evening, a lovely woman who’s come over from Ireland about a month ago. She was a nurse in Ireland, also does aromatherapy and Rieki healing. Her boyfriend works at EADS, where Logan works, and she’s got a 5-year old cat. So we traded cat stories, got talking about “What the Bleep” and made a promise to get in touch & get together. Now I just need to get on line & follow up.

I woke up at about 5 this morning; still jet lag I guess. It’s cold & rainy, a nice day to hang about the house with a new book. I hope we have some weeks of good weather soon, it’s mostly been a cold rainy summer. Locals say it’s unusual. I sure have saved on sunscreen this year.