MUNICH: YEAR 2

It has been quite cold and snowy in Munich lately. I've been working a lot and there's not much to report.

However...

On February 7th I celebrated the anniversary of my first full day in Munich by going to the same restaurant I visited when I first arrived. It's an old Bavarian restaurant right next to the famous Frauenkirche (church). I ordered the same thing I ate a year ago, but this time I was able to order from the German menu.



That little potato ball is called a "knödel" -and let me tell you, knödels are SOOOO good. Next to the knödel is roast pork with a crispy pork rine on top, all cooked in a wonderful beer sauce.


After lunch, I decided to walk around the Bayerischer Hof Hotel to see if I could get a look at what was going on in town that weekend.

What was going on in town that weekend? It was the annual Munich Security Conference where world leaders from all over the world meet, having come from all over the world, to talk about international security and defense from all over the world.

This year some of the big names of people here in Munich attending the conference were: Vice President Joe Biden, head of US Central Command Gen. David Petraeus, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, and other heads of state and defense ministers from a variety of other countries including Russia and Iran.

This conference was the first appearance by the Obama Administration on the European stage.

Needless to say, security was tight. There were police and security forces everywhere. A one-block radius around the hotel was barricaded off. Here you can see the hotel at the end of the street. There was no getting near it...




I went around to the main security checkpoint to see how close I could get. There were machine guns, guards with full body armor, walking patrols, the works....




Here you can see the Bayerischer Hof Hotel where the conference was taking place...




There were snipers on the roof....




And important-looking people coming in and out and walking all about...




Three blocks away on the Marienplatz the protestors were out en masse protesting anything they could think of. There were cops and security guards everywhere...




It was interesting to be so near to where a world event was taking place.

...

2008 EUROPEAN-YEAR-IN-REVIEW

It was exactly a year ago today I set sail from America to come to the land of Deutsch.

I arrived in Munich on a pleasant February day without knowing a sole [UPDATE: actually, a soul], without speaking the language, without a job or a place to live, without knowing exactly where I would be from one day to the next.

I remember sitting in my hotel room one night shortly after my arrival and thinking to myself: Somewhere in this city is a place for me to live. Somewhere there is work for me to have. Somewhere there are restaurants and grocery stores I will come to know. Somewhere in the area are places I will visit and pictures I will take. Somewhere in this city of strangers are people that will someday be my friends.

Sitting like this on the brink of so many new things happening, was profoundly exciting. Though the path was not always clear, nor even always pleasant, it has led to the coming to pass of all of those things I wondered about, and in the best possible ways.

So let's take a look back at the past year in Deutschland...


My first day in Munich!

I was very excited about the cherubs...





Living in hostels and hotels was a pain...




Early on, I took a visit to Hamburg to see if I would like that city any better...




While in Hamburg I met up with my fourth-cousin-twice-removed, Sybille, and her husband Wolfgang. Together we participated in the world's largest golf lesson...




I spent the next few weeks with Sybille and Wolfgang at their home in the north of Germany. I got to meet my sixth cousin, Elias.




While staying in the north I visited a lot of interesting places, like the town of Putlitz where my ancestors are from...

After leaving Sybille & Wolfgang in northern Germany, I headed west to the Rhineland area where their daughter Solveg and her family lives. I got to visit Düsseldorf...




And I got to meet my other sixth cousin, Sidney...




I visited the tri-border of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands...




Solveg, Jack, Sidney, and I in Valkenburg, The Netherlands...




I returned to Munich and decided that I would stay there. It took some time, but eventually I was able to get my work visa...




Land a great job teaching English...




And I moved into a nice shared apartment in great location...



I met some new friends who invited me to see them sing in Porgy & Bess and whom I went with on a trip to Dachau...




My friend Alex, took me hiking in the Alps for the very first time...




I've had a lot of great times with the Young Single Adults from church. I was able to cook gulasch one week...






As spring came along, I started taking trips to places throughout Bavaria. My first big trip was to the beautiful town of Passau...



I went with the elders to the Deutsches Museum...




I catched a lizards in the Alps...




I've seen all the big movies at the English cinema right down the street from my apartment...




In June I visited the town of Salzburg...




And I returned to Salzburg the next week to baptise a Hungarian couple in Hungarian...



I also got my keyboard shipped from the States to my apartment (complete with cat hair!)...



In July I went up north again to visit Sybille and Wolfgang for Sybille's birthday. I was the entertainment (sort of)...




I was eaten by a goat...




And I ate a banana split on a warm summer afternoon in a charming German village square with my other fourth-cousin-twice-removed, Unna-Eike....




I visited Berlin and reenacted the Bourne Supremacy...

I went to Leipzig and saw the church and the grave of J.S. Bach...

I visited Dresden and saw a lot of cool things...

I visited the Silesian town of Görlitz and then crossed the border into Poland...





I visited the back pocket of Germany in far eastern Saxony where I found rocks like those in Souther Utah...

I also made my first crossing into the Czech Rep...

Not long after returning to Munich I set out again on a day-trip to Lindau on Lake Constance...




I crossed the lake to visit Switzerland...




A few weeks later I took a trip to Garmisch, in the Bavarian Alps. There I visited the villa of the composer Richard Strauss...



I also had a great hike through the alpine foothills...




In September my friend Alan came to visit from the States. One of our first stops was Salzburg...




The next day we went to Berchtesgaden in the Alps...



We also took a boat ride on Königsee to some of the prettiest scenery in all of Germany...





We visited the Olympic Park in Munich, among other places...




We also ate sushi...




We took the cogwheel to the top of Germany's highest peak, the Zugspitze...




We visited the Nymphenburg park where I met a swan...




In late September the Oktoberfest began...




In October I went with friends to the Partnachklamm, a narrow river gorge in the Alps...



We also took a walk around Eibsee at the foot of the Zugspitze...




A few weeks later a day of Indian-Summer weather brought me again to the Alps to enjoy a slice of mandarin cream cake on the banks of a crystal lake beneath rocky peaks and changing autumn leaves...




For Halloween we carved pumpkins...




For Christmas I went back to visit Sybille & Wolfgang and had a great holiday...



I then went to Berlin to enjoy a few days before flying to my New Year's destination...




I rang in 2009 in Lyon, France with my friends Joseph & Emily...




I enjoyed spending several days with them in France near the Swiss border and Geneva...




One day we drove through the Mont Blanc tunnel...



...to Turin, Italy where we saw a guy with yellow pants...



Another day we went to the town of Annecy on Lake Annecy...



And now I'm back in Munich and enjoying my time learning, working, making friends, making use of my piano, and all those other things for which I have no pictures for.

At the moment I'm typing that I'm typing how I'm typing that I'm finishing my blog entry for today. Goodnight...

...