Adventures with Annie: The Munich & Garmisch-Partenkirchen Edition

Annie arrived on a Friday afternoon in a daze from traveling on a nonstop flight from Seattle. I allowed her to take a nap before setting out and exploring our city, starting off with the Apfelwein festival-- how perfect that she was here for that! (Apfelwein is Frankfurt's claim to fame-- kind of like cider but more sour and not that great, in my opinion.) The weather was perfect-- it had cooled off just for her, and the sunset over the river was the most brilliant that I'd seen thus far.

Blurry, but you get the idea. 

mmmmm... apfelwein is delicious... not 

Having one of your own visit your new space is surreal-- the places and people you've been talking about for months come to life and are no longer made-up, and you see your own city through new eyes.  I showed it off as best I could, this environment so completely different than home. We laughed at how she lives in a "German town" in Washington, plus one in Chile, and she was a server at a German hotel in Vail. Weird, huh? She kept saying, "This looks like Leavenworth." Well, duh. You're in the motherland.



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Our adventure of epic proportions  began in Munich-- I thought it appropriate to start there, since it's pretty much the epitome of stereotypical Germany.

Men truly strut around in their leiderhosen like it's no big deal, pounding liters of beer and robustly singing German drinking songs while violently clanging their glasses together. 

It's simple fantastic-- and while not like the rest of Germany (just like the south is different than the rest of the States) it's the Bavarian culture that lured Mike and I to this country in the first place. 

It's crude, I know. But hilarious. Just your typical bachelor party. 

 We ate pretzels every hour, we drank liters of beer. And took a bike tour, because bike tours are the best way to get an overview of a city. Sunday we spent the day in the Englischer Garten with the rest of Munich, watching the German oompah-band at the Chinese beirgarten, the 'surfers' on the river, an the naked people laying out in the park. Well, not watching them, per se, but they were there.

 Sometimes I need to rest my fat head on something, too. 

Annie and Mike were even adventurous enough to jump in this freezing cold, swiftly flowing river because everyone else was doing it.  Did I mention it was freezing cold? Good thing someone had to stay behind with the stuff (and take pictures...)

I've been dreaming of this pretzel with chive cream cheese since we last visited Munich 3 years ago. Not as delicious as I remembered, but still good enough to eat twice a day. 

Paddle boating-- Mike didn't have to do any work, just sat in the back like a creeper

Sadly, Mike had to leave us at the weekend's end (work is so borrrrrrring.) Have I mentioned how much I love my hubs for supporting us on our adventures?  He's the bomb diggity. Yep, I just said 'bomb diggity,' and it felt so right.  

Annie and I traveled 2 hours south of Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where the Bavarian Apls separate Germany from Austria. The highest peak on the German side is here,  the Zugspitze (zoog-spitz-uh-- took me forever to get it right!) We used this town as a hub for hiking -- it was quaintly Bavarian, and I couldn't get over the awesomeness of the alpine cows!

I didn't even mind being woken up at 6am by clanging cowbells. They drank from this fountain, then continued on their rambling way up to greener pastures. Some of the cows are taken up to the top of the mountains for the summer (more pictures of them to come later!) and then brought back down in September, with lovely festivals to commemorate the events. The cows wear flowers on their heads.

 I'm dying to go to one.

Time to go home, boys and girls. 

That first day, we found a lovely trail. And a slackline.

And that's the end of part one. More to come later, detailing our uphill hike up to the top of the mountains, more cows, and being chased by the sheep mafia.