24Apr2009: Day 333: Munich, Germany

This was the earliest we’ve gotten up yet and actually got out of the room by 8am. We headed into downtown Munich to see a few of the churches. The ones we stopped at today were not as ornate as the ones from yesterday but still nice to see.

We walked on and found the area where the big glockenspiel is. As it was 9:30am, and Chris thought it “did its thing” at 10am, we quickly walked to another church but there was a service going on and Chris said there wasn’t much to look at. We walked back to the square and grabbed a bite for breakfast. I had a nut roll and got Makenna what looked like a muffin but was really a sweet roll with raisins or sultans (what is the difference anyways?) which she wouldn’t eat of course. Chris got a cheese pretzel and another pretzel for later (which was much tastier than the one from yesterday).

10am and no glockenspiel movement…oh well. We decided to head back to the car and found another church, St. Michael’s. This is where some woman was yelling at me and I of course had no idea what she was saying. I was walking around with Makenna in the cart and as I got up towards the front to take a picture she just started yelling quietly at me. I thought she was just mad that I was taking pictures in a church but Chris thinks I upset her because I was in front of the altar taking pictures while she was trying to pray and I was in her view. I said that I was off to the side of her so I wasn’t in her view but I guess he meant that I basically disturbed her praying by coming into her view. Later she went to the back of the church and talked to the guy who was overseeing things and started yelling at him about me. He just waved her off so I felt vindicated.

This church happened to actually be the place where King Ludwig II was buried. Chris went down into the crypt and saw his tomb. I just tried to quietly keep to myself in the back. I didn’t want any more trouble.

We headed off to another castle in the area. This one was more of a summer palace called Schloss Nymphenburg. At least here we could take the cart but couldn’t take the backpack in with us. I understand they don’t want anyone to bump into things while wearing a backpack but we said we’d leave it in the bottom of the pushcart but they didn’t care. I tried to explain that it had diapers and things in it for Makenna but they didn’t budge. I was frustrated but relented. We got up to the first floor and started looking around when I heard Makenna say, “Diaper change.” I said to her that I just had changed her (which I had about 20 minutes prior). A minute later I saw her feel her pants and I knew something was up. I went over and felt and sure enough she was wet – pants and all.

We went back downstairs and explained to them that we had to now go get the bag. I felt like saying, “you know that bag you wouldn’t let us take with us…well, now I need it to change my daughter…remember how I said I might need it?!” I went and changed her and then when I came out, Chris wanted to take a bathroom break. As I was standing near the area to go back up, the lady was trying to take my audio guide off of me. This galled me. I was like “what are you doing?” She was trying to explain to me that I had to turn it in. I was trying to tell her that I hadn’t even done the tour yet. She kept insisting that I had to turn it in and I kept telling her that I just came down from going upstairs, if she recalled, because I needed to get the bag to change my daughter. She went over to the audio guide person (the one that hands them out) and tried to explain to her what the problem was as there was a communication barrier. The audio guide person told me that she wanted me to turn it in before I left the palace to go outside. I told her that I hadn’t done the tour yet. She said, “Well I don’t know why she’s trying to take it from you.” I replied, “Neither do I.” I was just on a bad foot today with women in this country.

We did get back upstairs and this first room was opulent. We were able to take pictures and video of these places today. There was also another room that had portraits of either 30 or 36 women of different types of backgrounds. One was a shoemaker’s daughter while one was a princess. The pictures were very life-like and it was interesting to hear a bit of background on a few of them.
The grounds of Schloss Nymphenburg also had a lot of wooded areas along with lots of running water, little lakes, waterfalls and other little buildings that we could visit. One of the buildings was called Amalienburg and it was for a wife of one of the people that lived there. It’s definitely not as opulent as the palace and it’s a bit faded but still interesting none the less.

We then walked to Die Badenburg which was a bathhouse with a pool. Badenburg means “Nympheon” or holy temple of the spring nymphs. We didn’t know what this big area was and I thought it was maybe a kitchen (with no remaining cookery,) and it wasn’t until I looked at the book that we realized that it was supposed to be a bathhouse and pool. There was no explanation while we were there and we were looking down into it from a top level. Chris guessed it was a pool.

Somewhere along the way we stopped to feed a bunch of ducks, a goose, and a Canadian goose. Makenna enjoyed it as always especially since the ducks were practically coming up to her to get the food. All through the walk on the grounds, anytime she saw water, we had to restrain her from running to it, or maybe even into it. She started picking up rocks to throw into the water thinking the ducks would eat those, even though I explained to her that they don’t eat rocks.

We walked on again and got to Pagodenburg. Which was a ballroom downstairs and the upper rooms had Chinese wallpaper. The last building on the grounds that we went to was Magdalenenklause. It was like a church made with bricks on the outside, but then the inside – wow! Talk about different. The chapel is decorated with colored pebbles, corals, mussels, etc. It was very well done, in my opinion. The other part of the building was more like an apartment area with dark wood rooms and old pictures that were black and white and seemed as they were done in pencil or charcoal. When you went into this area, you had to put on these fuzzy slippers so not to scuff up the floor. I thought it was a good way to clean the floors and a great way to practice ice skating as it was slippery. Luckily we decided to leave one person outside with Makenna while the other went in to this building. This collage is a conglomerate of all the little buildings and a bit of the inside along with a few statues outside along the way.

We left there after chasing Makenna down the main steps of the palace out front and headed off to Frankfurt. We stopped to eat at another rest stop and we’ve decided that after last night and tonight, the German’s give you way too big of portions. You think that American’s get big portions – well, this was way too much. I had another schnitzel but this was with mushroom sauce (I think it was called jagerschnitzel) and vegetable rice. Chris had a goulash with rice and as you could’ve guessed…Makenna had chicken. We made her eat a couple of bites of rice too, especially since we argued about her lunch of chips, and apple which I made her eat in between eating chips, and cookies. It’s just too hard for us to keep a cooler with all the travelling we’re doing in order to have better food. We definitely have to change our eating habits after this trip!

I have another interesting bathroom to report about. At the road stop, I had to pay to use the bathroom (.50 Euro) which is quite common but I’ve been able to avoid doing so until now. Anyways, when I flushed this toilet, it was making this weird noise so I turned around and the seat was rotating! I guess it was going through this cleaning ritual and it rotated to do it. I’ve never seen anything like it. Good idea though.