As many visitors to Munich seem to be interested in flea markets and beer, it’s that time of year again. Last year I wrote a bit about it and posted a couple of pictures, which you can see here.

This year it’s running from, well, yesterday (April 17th) until May 3rd. So…although I’m really not sure if I’ll go at all this year or not, if you’re new to town or just want to check it out, it’s going on right now and it’s free…so might as well. Maybe I’ll go just to find something to eat that I don’t have to cook myself. Pasta daily gets to be a bit boring, I’m told.

….Just talked to my wife, Hong Kong/China seems to be going well for her.

This last week I’ve had it pretty lazy, just a few city tours and smoked beers.

Next week is a little more active…trips to Neuschwanstein and Salzburg…the end of this month looks very busy with Neuschwanstein, but now the tours have an extra hour (the tour starts at 9:30am rather than 10:30am), so that helps a lot. Probably going to get into shape pretty quick here.

[Listening to: I’m Not Tim – NOFX – (2:27)]

Last month we went to Dresden (& then Leipzig, more on that later). At the time, for whatever reason, I was quick in posting the pictures from our trip to photobucket and facebook, but felt too busy to post them here. So today, since I have the day off, I thought I would get back to that and give a few thoughts on the trip.

Dresden was much different than I expected. What did I expect? To be honest, everyone talks about East Germany like it’s a bunch of run-down former factories used as squats, cold war era housing complexes that make Einstürzende Neubauten sound like a great idea, and according to news reports, no jobs.

Now, I’ve been to East Germany before, but only really to Berlin. In Berlin there certainly is some of what I mentioned above, however there is a bit of everything there…like any major city really. With Dresden (& Leipzig), I thought I’d see a little more of what those news reports go on about….but the fact is, I just didn’t see it. Dresden is a modern city, to be sure, but some things have been restored quite beautifully. The biggest surprise was the sheer cost of Dresden. Coming from Munich, which is always ranked as Germany’s most expensive city, I thought Dresden would be slightly cheaper. Dresden was very expensive.

Why don’t we make some comparisons, I’ve picked three top choices:

Munich

The Residenz in Munich: (massive palace downtown Munich) costs €6 which includes an audio guide, €9 combined with Treasury

Alte Pinakothek (large art gallery, world-class): €9, €5 on Sundays

Munich city museum (MASSIVE city museum): €4, FREE on Sundays

Dresden

Residenzschloss Dresden: €12 for the “historic green vault” and €6 for the “new green vault.” These are basically two sections of their treasury.

Zwinger “Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister” (major art gallery): €10

Dresden city museum (rather small, really): €4

Conclusion: We went on a Sunday, which is usually the day we do museums as churches are a bit awkward on Sundays, and nothing else is open. If we went to the three sights in Munich, our total cost would be (per person) €14. If we went to the three sights in Dresden, our total cost would be (per person) €32. In my opinion these are very comparable sights…and as you can see, over double the cost in Dresden.

With all that said, we had a great time in Dresden and saw a lot of beautiful things (which you can’t take pictures of, they’re evil like that). However, what is meant to be the highlight (according to the city’s tourist board), the Frauenkirche, I found to be pretty…but soul-less…worth about 5 minutes of your time.

Now, what you’ve all been waiting for, the pictures:

There is a lot to see in Dresden, but it can be done in just a couple days if you plan ahead. The city has a very new feeling to it, but the area around the Frauenkirche and the river is very nice.

If any of you have questions about Dresden, we’ve now seen and done about everything there…so ask away!

[Listening to: Bad Blood Better – Bob Mould – Life And Times (3:46)]

This post is basically just to say that we’re back from Dresden & Leipzig, had a great time, saw what we wanted to see, and I’m back home in Munich. Today I had a tour to Neuschwanstein…decent weather, but not sunny. Spring breakers seem to be coming in hordes & tons of chinese lately. More later.

Oh, and my finger hurts like hell, I have no idea why.

I’ve taken a few pics randomly down in Salzburg…this first one is of Untersberg from the Europark shopping mall at the edge of town.

This second one is in the same direction, while I was waiting at the bus stop, heading back to meet up with my group.

Finally this last one is of a Smart car that they have in the mall right now. I had never actually sat in one and played around with all the features, so this gave me the chance. I’m about 6’2″, and that’s about as tall as you can be for this car, but was quite comfortable at my height…so should be good enough for most people. It feels like a go cart and the spedometer only goes to 140kph…so isn’t much faster than a go cart either.

[Listening to: Scotty Doesn’t Know (The Secon – Lustra – What You Need & What You Get (3:02)]

Today Petra and I were grocery shopping at a normal German grocery store called “PLUS”. We discovered possibly the most racist food product I’ve seen in a while…

I use google maps all the time. The idea of google sightseeing is entertaining at least in a passive sense. As long as I don’t have to search out new ideas for what to look at and can just look at the RSS reader every once in a while and go “oh, that’s interesting…”, then I’m happy.

I was looking at it recently and noticed the “top 10 rudest place names in Britain”. Now, I’ve never been to any of those, but at the bottom it mentions a place a little closer to home. It links to an older article on Fucking, Austria.

As many of you may know, I’ve been there a few times now when we’ve had guests, and think it’s a wonderful photo opportunity. We usually do Burghausen, Fucking, and Altötting in one day, it’s a great day trip (you need a car to do it).
Anyways, here’s a few pictures from our trips there:

My brother, Petra, and I:

no more Fucking, Austria *sniffle*:

(sorry if you’re easily offended, it’s supposed to be funny)

Last week the gang over at Toytown Munich decided to arrange their Oktoberfest seats, and completely sold out in under a week. This last year we had 80 seats for our group, this year we will have 100, and they’re already gone. Next year 120 sold out in 1 week? We’d need more organizers.

Anyways, that of course got me thinking of the best beer festival in Munich, which is Starkbierfest. Starkbier is strong beer. The beer is a roasted doppelbock amounting to about 7.5-8% alcohol. I love the taste of the stuff & you don’t have to spend a fortune to enjoy yourself if you get my drift.

The big one is at Paulaner am Nockerberg, which is basically the Paulaner brewery. This year’s dates are March 13 thru 29th. I’m there every year and if you’re planning on being anywhere NEAR Munich around that time, I suggest you head over to Paulaner. I hope the weather is CRAP during that time so it’ll be more fun than last year.

More beer everyone, more beer.

[Listening to: 19 – Four Deadly Venoms – Paint It Black – LG2008 (1:36)]

We had Christmas down here and New Year’s up in Neumuenster. The holidays are over and although they’re fun and it’s nice to have some time off, it’s also good to be home. I’ve got a few more days before I have to work, so I hope I can really enjoy it. My first tour of the year will be to Salzburg, which is quite dead in January, mostly because it’s so cold. We went sight-seeing around Hamburg and have a bunch of pictures that I should post soon, but laziness is kicking in so maybe tonight. I will say this: Hamburg’s Zoo is a rip-off, Neumuenster’s zoo is really cool, although fairly small, and Hamburg’s Rathaus is a must-see.

[Listening to: The Understudy 1 – David Sedaris – When You Are Engulfed in Flames (5:17)]

As some of you may have noticed, there’s been a recent change to this website, the addition of micro blogging. For those not familiar with micro-blogging, what I do is I use a website (well, technically I use a program called digsby that accesses the site for me) called “twitter” which allows me to type what I’m doing at any given time with a maximum size of 140 characters, so rather than a lengthy blog post, it’s just simply what I’m doing.

SO, I type what I’m doing into twitter (through digsby) and then it appears on the left side of this blog in that little grey box. You can scroll through that grey box and find out what I’ve been up to in recent days if you want too…I think it’s a nice addition to the site.

 I would expect updates from twitter at least daily if I’m anywhere near internet access.

[Listening to: El vals del obrero – SKA-P – Live at Southside Festival 061 (5:01)]

A lot of times people ask me where they should go shopping in Munich.

If you’re looking for souvenirs, then either the shops next to St. Peter’s church or the shops near the Hofbräuhaus are your answer.

If you’re looking for more general shopping (are you an Australian who didn’t realize what the temps can be in May or October?) then I would say the main pedestrian street between Karlsplatz and Marienplatz is the answer. It’s actually two street names (Neuhauser str. and Kaufinger str.), but it’s one street, you won’t notice the change. This street has it all as far as normal shopping is concerned and is no more expensive than if I sent you to the edge of town. This is where much of Munich does their shopping.

However, if you’re here in Munich during the winter and you’ve already done your sight seeing, but you want to shop in a heated environment, well, there are large in door shopping malls in Germany too. The biggest and easiest one to get to is called the OEZ (Olympia Einkauf Zentrum) and you can get there by taking the U-bahn (subway)…either the U1 (from the Hauptbahnhof, main station) or the U3 (from Marienplatz). It takes 15 minutes to get there, but is by anyone’s standards (remember I’m from near the Mall of America as well as the mall from the movie “Mallrats” which I used to go to as a kid) a pretty big mall. It’s open Monday through Saturday 9:30am-8pm.

Anyways, I got locked out of my apartment the other day, so I went over to the OEZ and spent what I usually spend at a mall, $0 and about an hour. I only took one picture, cause I wasn’t thinking…but anyways, it’s decorated for the christmas season as you’d expect.

happy shopping:

(lovin’ the Ska-P at the moment, they’re on tour now and will be in Munich in February, we already have our tickets)

This one’s for my friend Tom in NRW. His gf is apparently obsessed with My Little Pony. I think it’s actually him, not his gf, but his gf is a good cover.

Anyways, this is from the mall in Salzburg (taken last week Nov 2008):

Here’s some great video of the election night here in Munich:

…and here’s some more, but turn off the sound for this one:

& there are some random pictures here: http://munich4obama.com/

Obama won, Al Franken is still about 500 votes behind as of this writing according to the NY times & BBC.

This is the first president that I actually voted for that won…took long enough. The party was fun, I was glad to be there…but I’m still hoping Franken can pull through….so close.

Here’s some pictures from last night:

First, waiting for the action to start…(12:14am)

Later we got better seats for the real late-night action…(3:47am)

Here’s one of my friend Randy Caldwell checking out how things are looking at 4:59am

…and finally the moment we all were waiting for, 5am….this was taken just after…about 30 press flashes later (5:02am)

…and here’s Randy with his new t-shirt (5:09am)

Just because I’m here in Munich doesn’t mean I couldn’t or wouldn’t vote. I firmly feel that you can’t complain unless you at least vote. If you vote, you have secured your right to complain for the coming years…

Tonight I’m going for the marathon late-night party of the year, hopefully. 250 mostly Americans getting together to party for probably 10+ hours…if anyone wants to talk to me tomorrow, please wait until after 4pm. Thanks

Apparently, a bar in Baltimore is giving free beer (or soda) to anyone who votes. God bless’em.

Bring on the free beer.

[Listening to: clown cars on cinder blocks – Dillinger Four – Civil War (3:16)]

I went to German class today, but apparently everyone else was sick. SO, I’m back home and on my walk home I took some pics of my walk. Here’s what many would recognize if they’ve been in the area:

Other than that, the day was relatively uneventful.

I had a normal Munich Highlights Walk today, which is the standard two hour walk trying my best to fit most of the sights into two hours. It more or less works, but seems a lil rushed to me and doesn’t allow enough time to go into the churches or the Hofbräuhaus for example. Had a few Americans (Obama supporters), had a couple Aussies, and a guy from Ghana

For the record: the Americans tipped and the guy from Ghana tipped. Australians: what’s going on? I know, it’s not in your culture…but it should be. If I wasn’t hoping for tips, I’d probably be a mediocre tour guide, maybe that’s why…oh, this line of thought might get me in trouble.

I’m going to grab a Weihenstephan from the fridge, cheers everybody.

Had a couple tours recently, I’m no longer sick, though my nose hasn’t fully gotten the messege. Either way, I’m 95%, which according to many people, is about 45% better than your average tour guide.

I’ve got German class again tonight, which is down to just a couple of us…it moves too fast. I don’t think there’s any way AT ALL a complete newcomer to the German language could make it past lesson 3 at this pace, and if they made it to lesson 3 I’m impressed. Petra and I went over the first few lessons a lil bit yesterday and I think I’m better off scheduling time with Petra. The problem is, therefore, actually scheduling time for it rather than saying “oh, umm…not right now, in a couple hours…”…which means we’ll be too tired then and never mind.

It’s a good thing I still have my German book from Winona State, because it’s 50x better than the book that German schools use (they nearly all use the same books…which are horrible, imo).

The U.S. election is only a week away, so I’ve booked a spot at a big election night party for the night of the 4/5th…and plan on it being a long night. Even if everything goes my way, it’ll be AT LEAST 2am before the presidential election would be called, and much later for the Al Franken decision.

Anyone in Minnesota: VOTE FOR AL FRANKEN. Thank you.