Day 1: München (Munich)

Most German schools do not finish their school year until the end of this month. But our kids' school did not have as many holiday during the year, and their school year officially ended yesterday.

We began our weeklong trip to Munich and Salzburg today. The TGV train that took us from Karlsruhe to Stuttgart, where we would transfer to Munich, was late and we had to take the connection about an hour later. When we got to the Munich main train station, storm clouds were rolling in. By the time we got to the U-bahn (subway) station near the hotel, the thunderstorm was in full force. We had rain gear, but we waited in the subway station (Münchener Freiheit) until the lightning had subsided about an hour later.

The sky began to clear up after we checked into the hotel. After a brief rest, we decided to get some Bavarian food at Hofbräuhaus in the town center. It is a tourist trap, and I would say over 80% of the customers are tourists (with the remaining 20% being locals accompanying their visiting friends). But Glenda and the kids have never been to a beer hall of this size and I like their Schweinsbraten (roast pork) in my previous trips, so we had dinner there. Here you see our happy family (those drinks are, from left to right, 0.5L of water, 0.5L of Orangenschorle, 1L of wheat beer, and 0.5L of water).