Part One: Munich

The first part of my trip was a quick run to Munich. A good friend of mine was finishing a Fulbright at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and I wanted to see how he was doing. We played it cool and mostly hung out with friends he'd made during his year there, but he did have some time to play tourist guide for me as well. Munich is really vibrant and, like most of that part of the world, does a really interesting job of mixing the old and the new. I especially liked the central city area in which twelfth-century cathedrals shared space with Givenchy outlets.

  
Probably because of the university, Munich seemed pretty young and energetic, this was never more apparent than in the Englisher Garden, a sprawling park in the center of the city where I went jogging my second day. There were, of course, plenty of tourists like me, but there were also tons of kids playing in the sun. Apparently it had been very rainy for a couple weeks and this was the first nice day in a while.

After running we went to a wonderful restaurant called Prinz Myshkin where I had an excellent tofu stroganoff with mixed vegetables. Another dish I can recommend if you're ever in Munich is spaetzl, a very tasty egg noodle with onion and cheese. This is apparently a classic Bavarian meal and they take it seriously. The most traditional plates also have some sort of ground beef or sausage, but I didn't have any trouble getting vegetarian options.

My original plans for this trip involved a bicycle tour of Munich. We didn't end of doing it, but I was interested to see just how much people there relied on their bikes. I saw an incredible variety of people riding bikes trough town.

We only had three days, however, so when the last morning arrived we burned rubber (almost literally) to the airport and headed out--my friend back to his job in the US and me to Venice.

more to come