Drei Tage in München

We started our trip in Munich, where we spent three lovely days. We stayed with Martin's friend Ralf and his son Paul. Ralf picked us up at the airport at around 9 am. We ignored the idea of jet lag completely and jumped right into the first morning. Ralf took us to a great playground near his house, then we went walking by the river and to a biergarten and all sorts of other good things. We managed to stay awake until almost 10 (I think the boys finally fell asleep around 9), and slept right until 7 the next morning.

At the bridge by the River Isar, there is a tradition to have your and your beloved's names or initials engraved on a lock and then attach it to the fence.

We got too close to one of these, and Otto got, um, goosed.

The boys had their own little sleeping nook at Ralf's, just under the window. They were not bothered at all by light or noise and slept really well.

The second morning, Martin's younger half-brother Michael picked us up at 8am and took us to his house for a nice breakfast with his wife Jana and newborn son Jakob (the older son Micha was off to daycare, so we only met him at first in passing). After breakfast and some hanging around the house (Michael taught the boys to "scratch" on his vinyl records, and we looked at a few home videos together), we went on a walk (again by the river, but a different part). We watched people surfing on the river, apparently a world famous spot for this. After watching for a while, we were inspired to take a bit of action ourselves. We went to a climbing gymnasium, where we all climbed the walls. 

Afterward, we went back to their house, picked up dinner from a nearby pizzeria, drank some wine and introduced them to "Go Bat." It was a most relaxed and wonderful day, Otto said it even felt like two days, but not in a bad way. It was really nice to be with them, they are truly lovely kind interesting people. It's so cool to see how Michael has turned out, since he first visited us in Chicago when he was only 19. So good to see him as a father, and to be with his sweet family.

We spent our third day with Ralf. We climbed Die Bavaria (kind of like a small Statute of Liberty) for a view of the whole city.

We walked to the Deutsches Verkehrsmuseum (the German Transportation Museum), where there were all sorts of cars and trains and trucks and bicycles to gawk at.

And afterwards, another biergarten.

A quick trip to the grocery store to buy supplies for dinner. The boys were amazed at how many products were made by "Ja!," and spent time running through the store, finding examples.

Otto was collecting bottle caps of all the different German beers, and Ralf offered to buy a whole assortment and drink them all so Otto could have the caps. It made for a festive evening. In the midst of all the drinking, Ralf also made us spaghetti bolognese. Yum. Paul joined us for dinner and then spent more time with us than he had the entire three days. He showed Otto some Minecraft tips, such as how to build snowmen and iron golems.