Breakfast was good. Again, college kids were everywhere. We headed back to Marianplatz to catch a walking tour of the city. Our guide this time was an Irish guy named Keith. He showed us the Marianplatz area, the inside of the Frauenkirche, Odeonsplatz and the palace area, and the Hofbrauhouse. There was a fair amount of construction near the palace area. At the Hofbrauhouse, he explained that it was supposedly the “birthplace” of the Nazi party, and that Hitler used to speak from the stage in the upstairs hall.

After the tour, which ended at Viktuelsmarkt, we searched for somewhere to eat. This is always harder than it looks, both because Amber is extremely picky, and because we are on a budget and so trying to avoid costly places where possible.  We ended up walking a long way before finally ending up at the Chinese Tower biergarten in the English Garden. There we ate brats, pretzels and ice cream before moving on the Deutsches Museum. It was already late in the day and then the streetcar we needed was under construction. Fortunately, a native pointed us to a bus that went near the station, and we made it with a couple of hours to spare. It really wasn’t enough time to see the whole museum, but then we aren’t really seeing entire museums anyway, as I am the only one with much interest. We did see some of the highlights, though, including the ships and planes.

From there, we headed back to the Hauptbahnhoff and then split up. Everyone else had dinner at Subway (good ice) and then went back to the room for the night. I headed to the Olympic Park. I got stranded temporarily on a stopped subway train and struck up a conversation in broken German with a woman who had recently moved to Munich from Budapest.

I then ended up by mistake at a large shopping mall near the Olympic stadium, so I stopped there to eat at a sort of food court. The mall was very nearly identical to the sort of indoor malls that are very common in the US, but there were some subtle differences. There was, for example, a real food section, with a separate fruit store, a cheese store, a sausage and meat store, along with a full service food store. Sometimes you see arrangements like this in the US, but they tend to be very high end specialty areas – specifically designed to look like Europe – but not places where normal people buy food. There were also people walking their dogs in the mall, which you never see in the US. And the whole thing was integrated into the subway station, which is convenient.

From there, I moved on to the Olympic park. I remember it as one of the very first landmarks my relatives in Munich took me to see when I first arrived in Europe for the first time. It still looked like I remembered it, with the BMW building in the background, the Olympic tower, and the tent canopies over the stadiums. There were lots of people everywhere, which I discovered was because Elton John was in concert at the park.

I checked out the pool, and discovered that it was open to the public, and made a mental note to bring the girls back before we left the city. I then walked all around the park, around the lake and to the top of the hill that overlooks the park. A sign said that the hill was made of rubble from WWII.  Ducks and swans were in the lake, and I took a ton of pictures. I really wished the rest of the family had come along.

Afterwards, I returned to town and went to the Hofbrauhouse. I ordered one of the liter glasses of beer and drank it at various tables, outside, then inside. It seemed to be mostly tourists, many American. It was pleasant, though.

From there, I walked to Marienplatz to see the buildings at night. The Rathous and Frauenkirche in particular looked spectacular lit up against the night sky. From there, back to the room for the night.