Has a bird ever pooped on your nuts?

This weekend we stayed pretty close to home and traveled to the center of Munich. Since our Nice trip was so close to our original arrival time we had not yet had the opportunity to really explore our local area too much. I had experienced a little of central Munich when I took the kids to the zoo and I wanted no part of the parking issues that I saw that day. Also, it is getting close to Octoberfest time and from what I hear Munich is already starting to get some of the influx of tourists. Since the weather is still nice and it was not yet full blown Octoberfest we decided it would be a good time to check it out.

Above is the central train station near the middle of Munich. So, I spent some time trying to figure out the public transportation system, had the trip lined out, print outs, android app on my phone, everything. We were supposed to get on the S-Bahn (fast train), get off at a certain stop to catch the U2, get off of it to catch the U3, walk out from the tunnel into Marienplatz in the middle of Munich. Well, best laid plans don't always pan out. The train never stopped. It was a direct train all the way to the central station, well past where we would pick up the U2 train. Okay, not too bad, now we were only about a kilometer from the general area that we wanted to be in. In the pic above Cindy has her Kaffee and buttered pretzel and I was munching on what is similar to a cinnamon roll. This central station was awesome. It was big and it had many little kiosks of Bavarian greatness. Our plans to find a bus or tram were put to the side to start eating and drinking. I apologize if you are offended by the signage in the background. Cindy nor I noticed this until I had uploaded the pictures on to this post. Be honest, how many of you noticed before I said anything?

Eventually we decided to start exploring and just started walking towards the Marienplatz area. This was just one of many bicycle islands that we came across. You cannot believe the number of bicycles that were around this central station.

If you saw my Facebook post I had a before and after of David. He had not had a haircut for many months and we had been letting him just go with it, not wanting to fight that battle. Every so often we would walk by a barber shop or salon and I would ask him if he was ready. For some reason, today, in downtown Munich, to my surprise he said YES. There were four or five haircut places side by side so we walked into the one that had no wait to find three male stylist cutting hair. The guy that cut David's hair was great. I really did not give him any directions. David just said he did not want to "fix it" in the mornings. He spiked it up with a messy look, but David was not ready to go that far. After a quick wash he brushed it down and was happy. This was a fun and unexpected part of our day.

Above were just some of the views that we had along the way. Our destination was to see the Glockenspiel show that occurs at 11 am in the New Town Hall building. There was a large open main road with many people and shops along the way. It was a great walk with lots of things to see.

So this is the main tower of what is called New Town Hall. This is knowledge that I have gained during and after our tour. See, as we were telling the kids where we were going I was telling them that this building that we were going to see was close to 2000 years old. Wrong. After we were there and I found out it was called NEW town center I decided I should educate myself before sharing with the kids. Turns out the building was finished in the early 1900's, it was just built to mimic the medieval period style. Wiki says they actually tore down some more accurate medieval buildings to erect this more "over the top" building over about a 30 year period. Regardless, it was really cool to see. The detail in every inch of that place was amazing. We were just walking along, then you see it. It does not really belong in the area and is clearly a different style than anything else around.

  

Just above the levels with the red flowers on the main tower you can see some levels that are more greenish. Within those are some life size figures that make up the Glockenspiel show. Again, I had heard the word but did not know it was a show or what it was about. More on this, along with a personal commentary later.

We had arrived at our destination about an hour before the big awesome show that millions of people travel to Munich to see. Now is when the title of this post can be explained. We started walking around, decided to find a restroom before the big show started. We came across a kiosk selling various nuts that are baked in a sugar, butter, cinnamon type coating and served hot. For our Dallas area followers that have been to any professional sporting events you know about or have at least smelled the greatness of the Nutty Bavarian stand. For $6 bucks you can get a handful of yummyness. Well, we are in Bavaria, and at a nut stand. This was the true nutty Bavarian in my eyes. Well, I could not decide between the various options, we had already had a cinnamon roll, pretzel, apple strudel, and other pastry thing; AND we had lunch reservations at the Hoffbrauhaus. I decided to go with the 3.50 euro mixed nut bag. I opened it up as I walked towards the family, we walked under a shade tree since the morning sun was heating up nicely. I grabbed one delicious piece of heaven nut and put it in my mouth. About that time I hear a faint sound and feel something hit my open bag of nuts. I look around, nothing on my hands, nothing on my shirt, nothing on my shoes. Hhhmmm, maybe Katherine was trying to get a sample, not sure. This I notice a wet area inside of my little paper bag and some green stuff and some black stuff with more wetness. I look up in the tree and see the tail of a pigeon with a direct line of site over my bag of nuts. Damnit!! Direct hit, right in my nuts. After some thought I decided to go back to the nut stand to explain my situation. Well, that did not go so well. The young girl that originally helped me did not understand much English. If you can picture me showing her the inside of my paper bag of nuts, making bird flying motions, and saying the word "pooped" over and over again she eventually got it. Okay, good........she looked at me with a blank stare.........finally she said something to the older lady.......okay progress, I am about to get my replacement bag and be on my merry way. The old lady laughs and says in very rough english, while still laughing, "that is not my problem". After walking away and chucking my soiled bag into the trash I stood and let the anger build up. Eventually walking back over to the stand and talking to the girl again who did not understand me. She directed me to the old lady who was now around the back smoking a cigarette. I pleaded with her using words like "costs you nothing.....customer service....unbelievable". It was clear she had no intention of hooking a brother up. My final shot was telling her that her and her nut stand suck. She did not look too pleased as I walked away disgusted wishing I had thrown my bird pooped nuts into their kiosk. I am sure they had a good laugh about it after I left. The best part of it was later in the day after I had a chance to calm down. It seems that immediately following the incident I was not the best company for Cindy and the kids. It was several hours later when the day was about over and we asked the kids if they had fun. David, without missing a beat says, "Yes, except when Daddy gets frustrated when a bird poops on his nuts".

Here is some of the detail of the New Town Hall on a different part of the elevation.

The above is a 360 degree panoramic of the courtyard area in the middle of the New Town hall. You can maybe make out each side by seeing the pattern of the sunlight. 

This is just a regular picture from the inner courtyard area. 

So more about the Glockenspiel. To sum up, I don't get it. Look at the crowd of people! They were all around in every direction. At 11 am one of the green bells starts ringing, then some more bells (there is like 42 of them in all). After a few minutes the top portion of the characters starts rotating, there is a mock joust where the Bavarian knight wins on the second pass. That is what they tell me anyway. I could not tell which was the Bavarian knight. A few minutes later the bottom portion starts rotating with what looks like dancing, all of this time the bells continue to play a little tune. Well, I don't think I was the only one disappointed, many people were walking off before the twelve minute show was over. Cindy had read that you have to stay until the bird at the top chirps. Okay, we did, then it chirped, barely audible, then it was over. At least it was a cool building.

This was just a random area that I thought looked cool. 

We now had a tourist map and saw that "The Residence" was a nearby attraction. It was not much to look at from the outside, other than a big building. I had no idea what we were in for on the inside. We found our way to the museum entrance and found the area to purchase tickets. I had done some research on this and knew that for $65 euro I could get a one year family pass that would get us into any of the castles (over 40 of them) in the Bavaria region. It would have cost us around $40 euro just to see this one and the opera house pictured later, plus we already have plans to see the one that inspired the Disney castle in a couple of weeks.

This was the first room that we saw. It is a fountain area inside with a grotto outdoor area behind us. The detail was amazing and the scale, sheer size of it, is not captured on camera. 

This was the next room. I have never seen anything like this. I have never been much for historical markers or history in general, but this was beyond what I would have ever imagined based on the exterior of this building. We all had a little handheld audio tour guide device. You just punched in the number as you entered a room and it told you what you were seeing. I won't go into detail on these but the story behind all of it was pretty cool. 

Detail of the ceiling. 

This tour was over 80 rooms. Many of them had thick carved solid marble trim around the doorways and entrances to each room. This room had black marble entrances. Now take a close look at this ceiling shot. Look towards the bottom where the wall arches into the ceiling. Now would you believe me that this ceiling is completely flat? The artist painted this to make it appear as if it vaults or arches when in fact the ceiling is flat. In the middle of the room you cannot tell, in fact I was not convinced until I got to the very edge of the room and studied it before I believed it.

These are just some of the amazing rooms that we saw. Words like lavish and opulence are just not enough to explain how many of these rooms were finished out. I cannot believe people lived like this. It was apparent that many of the rooms and items had been replaced. World War II destroyed many parts of this building so a lot of it had been re-created.

We toured the Residence for a couple of hours but had to leave to get to our lunch at Hoffbrauhaus. This was part of our walk along the way.

Lunch was very good and so was the beer. I can say I have been there. We ordered a pork knuckle, schnitzel, assorted bratwurst platter, and a pretzel. After walking all day we devoured all of it and got re-energized for the rest of the day. I bought a mug for my freezer.

After lunch we headed back to the area of the residence because there was an opera house that I wanted to see. This was one of the courtyards on the way.

Again, just a beautiful place. I plan on looking into this place some more to see if they still have performances there. I would love to go back and actually see an opera or orchestra performance there. It would be a shame if they don't use it. 

After that we did a little shopping. Katherine needed some Velcro tennis shoes for PE at school. I was trying to use my phone app to tell us how to get back home. Again it told us to walk 900 meters get on a tram, switch to a bus, then the S-Bahn, then another bus and it would take 75 minutes to do it. We were seeing multiple S-Bahn and U stations that we knew took us in the right direction, but the app was not wanting us to use them. Well, the central station was not much further we decided to just get back there and figure it out. After we arrived and had a potty break we walked up to the train area, Cindy saw a sign that said Freising. We hopped on and the train departed within a couple of minutes, again it went non-stop to our park and ride station in Freising in about 15 minutes.

Dear MVV Munchen, your android app sucks.

Somehow we got lucky and found direct non-stop trains to and from our city. We feel pretty fortunate since we had no idea what we were doing. It was good to try it out and get a feel for how it works. Cindy works with several people who use the system and swear by the app as a lifesaver. We just need some more time to figure it out.

I am excited about seeing the other castles. I think the kids may get tired of seeing them, and I might too eventually. For now I am sold and I have my one year pass burning a hole in my pocket. If the rest of the family gets tired of them I may just go on a weekday while Cindy is working and the kids are at school........cause I can do that you know.

It was a great day and we learned a lot. Most important lesson. Never stand under a tree after you buy a bag of cinnamon sugar nuts. Guard them in whatever way is necessary so you can get the full enjoyment of all of the assorted nuts in your bag. Oh yeah, if you are ever in Munich and you are just to the south and west of the New Town Hall, don't buy from the little kiosk there. I am sure you can find them somewhere else. That place sucks. :-)

I guess I should have paid closer attention to the sign at the train station early that morning. It does and it did.