Zum Brünnstein

Tonight, a couple co-workers and I went to a new place for me called Zum Brünnstein.  This place is a traditional Bavarian restaurant with quality food and a lot of local regulars sitting around playing cards.  My eyes were a little bigger than my stomach, so I ordered a bowl of goulash and a Wiener schnitzel.  I don't regret it though because both were delicious!  The place was also decked out for Easter.  They had Easter bunnies, Easter eggs, and lambs everywhere.  I also saw an Easter bush (decorated with eggs) and an Easter nativity scene, where Jesus was replaced with an Easter bunny baby.  It was great.

Paulaner am Nockherberg, Erdinger Brewery, and Nymphenberg Palace

This week marked the beginning of Starkbierzeit (Strong beer time) in Munich.  Strong beer time began back in 1651 when the Paulaner monks started brewing their starkbeir named Salvator.  They referred to the beer as "Flüssiges Brot" ("liquid bread") because it was so calorie-dense that it helped them to survive their 40 days of Lenten fasting.  This Salvator beer, which people today commonly refer to as a doppelbock, has a gravity of 18.3% and an alcohol percentage of 7.5%.  Traditionally served in 1-liter ceramic steins, 1 liter of the beer is equivalent in calories to 1/3 of a loaf of bread.

The tradition of strong beer spread around the city and the first public strong beer festival ("Starkbierfest") was held 100 years later.  The biggest and most traditional celebration takes place at Paulaner am Nockherberg, Paulaner's large beer hall in the southeastern part of the city that can hold up to 2,500 people at one time.  When we went last Friday night, it was packed wall to wall and we had a hard time finding a place for 6 people (me and the other PW people).  The atmosphere was very similar to Oktoberfest, or so I was told, but with far fewer tourists.  Loud Germany music, large soft pretzels, bratwurst, men and women dressed in tracht (dirndl and lederhosen), and, of course, lots and lots of beer.  I had a great time and am really glad that I got to go!

Paulaner am Nockherberg for Starkbierfest

In keeping with the theme of beer this weekend, on Saturday the same 6 of us got on the S-bahn (suburban train) to head out to the small town of Erding northeast of Munich.  In Erding is the world-famous Erdinger Weißbräu, where we had signed up for a tour.  The tour started off with being served a beer (The "Champ")  while being shown a video about the brewery.  We then went on a fairly quick tour of the brewery itself, which was pretty similar to other breweries I've been too.  Brewing beer is a pretty straight-forward process with not much variation, so I wasn't expecting anything different.  They did have a huge bottling line though, but, as it was the weekend, no one was working.  That would have been cool to see.  After the tour, and included in the price of the ticket, we were allowed an hour and a half to hang out at the bar.  They served each of us two pretzels and two weisswurst to go along with as many samples of their 9 beers as we wanted.  Now, in the US, when a brewery offers samples on a tour, you typically get around 3 7-oz samples.  Here, on the other hand, they served us full beers (your choice of a small 0.3L or a large 0.5L)!  I tried three "small" samples of the Dunkel, the Original Weissbier, and the Pikantus before calling it a day.  Friday and Saturday was enough beer for one week, never mind one weekend.

Erdinger Weißbier

Sunday, after dropping off my laundry at the laundromat, I went across the city to Nymphenburg Palace.  This palace, whose construction was completed in 1675, was the former summer residence of the Bavarian ruling families.  The entire grounds consist of a 490-acre park that, apparently, has beautiful gardens in the summer.  Unfortunately, today was cloudy and cold, so it wasn't as pretty as it would have been on a sunny, summer day, but it was pretty nonetheless.  I took the English audio-guided tour through the palace, and was blown away by the ornately decorated rooms and living quarters.  Although the amount of rooms you could see on the tour paled in comparison with the amount of rooms overall in the palace, the size of the place was just enormous.  In addition to the palace and the grounds, the museum included a display of the former carriages and sleighs of the royal families.  These were amazing carriages plated in gold and fancy fabrics.  Nymphenburg Palace was a pretty cool place to go.

Nymphenberg Palace

The ceiling in Nymphenberg Palace's great hall

King Ludwig II's coronation carriage

 More photos here!

Neuschwanstein Castle

Today we went outside the city again, this time to visit the famous Neuschwanstein Castle.  Neuschwanstein is a castle that was commissioned by Bavarian Kind Ludwig II in 1869 as a personal retreat.  After he died in 1886, the castle was opened to the public and has been ever since.  The castle, an example of Romanesque Revival architecture, has been the inspiration for many other castles and buildings around the world, most notably the Disney Castle.  The castle is located in the town of Hohenschwangau on the edge of the alps.  When you get into town, you have to buy tickets at the base of the mountain and then walk up to the castle.  It's about a 30 minute walk uphill the whole way, but it wasn't too bad for us.  The view from the castle was incredible, both looking up at the mountain and down into Bavaria.  We tried to get to the bridge where everyone gets the picturesque photos that you see of the castle on Wikipedia, but it's closed till May for maintenance.  Also, the weather was cloudy and slightly rainy, but the views were still spectacular.  The tour was pretty short as well, but the inside of the castle was very ornate and beautiful.  As we were walking back to the car, the clouds finally parted and the sun came out, leading to a great picture of the castle sitting atop its perch.  Definitely worth the visit.

View down into Bavaria.

View from behind the castle, almost from the bridge.

View from the town once the sun came out.

On the way back to Munich, we stopped off at Kloster Andechs, a monastery brewery well-known for its strong Dopplebock Dunkel.  Everyone at work told us we should go there, but that we should be careful because the beer was really strong.  However, the beer is only 7% ABV, which is lower than the stouts I usually drink back at home, so it really didn't have any effect.  For German beer though, it is stronger than most, since they are typically between 4 and 6%, so I guess I can't blame them for the warning.  The beer was good and the pretzels were the best I've had so far.

I love beer and pretzels.

More pictures here!

Busy Week

This week was very full of activity, but I was too lazy to write about any of it.  But now I'm back, and I've written.  Tuesday was the last night of Fasching/Fastnacht/Karneval in Germany, which is the Christian celebration leading up to Lent.  Germans treat the last night of Karneval as a huge celebration, with people dressing up in costumes and going to big public celebrations.  Apparently kids even go door-to-door getting candy, so the whole night is very similar to how we treat Halloween.  Zach and I planned our dinner near Marienplatz so that we could walk through to see the celebrations.  It was wild.  Marienplatz was packed with people shoulder-to-shoulder and people were just standing around drinking beer in costumes (seemed as though live music had just ended).  The one very odd thing, though, was the prevalence of full-body animal onesie costumes.  It was almost like a Furry convention.  We ended up going to a new (for us) restaurant called Weisses Bräuhaus, which is right next to Marienplatz.  It was extremely busy, as expected, and full of more people in costumes, as expected.  The food was not very good at all, and neither was the beer.  So that was pretty disappointing, but the costumes, music, and people singing were enjoyable.

The next day was Ash Wednesday (Aschermittwoch).  Zach and I had a late review to get approval to test our engine (we passed), but I was still able to make it out in time to get to church at Theatirenkircke at 19:30.  The church was very big inside, with lots of ornate decorations and architecture, but there were probably less than 50 people at the mass.  Everything was in German, of course, so I didn't understand much of what they were saying, but I was able to pick up a few words like "Jesus Christus," "Mein Gott," and "Gesundheit."  I did know what was going on, since it was the same format as any other Catholic mass, but it was difficult to even think the prayers in English when everyone else around me was speaking German.  I did totally nail the Our Father though!  One thing that was distinctly different, and maybe it was just this particular church, was how the congregation went up to receive ashes and communion.  Instead of filing out of the pews row-by-row, everyone went up as one large group to the altar.  Along the entire front of the altar is a long kneeler where everyone kneels, the priest goes from one side to the other giving ashes/communion, and then more people fill in on the kneeler until everyone has had their turn.  Overall, pretty cool experience, even though the homily and readings were meaningless.

Interior of Theatinerkirche
(Not my photo.)

Thursday was a wild day.  Work was pretty busy because we got a lot of hardware delivered, so there was a lot more work than there has been.  On our way back to the hotel after work, we turned onto the hotel's street and immediately saw that the street was full of police and news vans.  A police officer stopped us, but let us through when we informed him we were staying at the hotel.  He told us the only place we could park was at the hotel's parking garage, so we headed that way.  As we turned into the garage's entrance, another police officer stopped us, asked for our IDs and then made us get out of the car to search it.  We had absolutely no idea what was going on and were a little uneasy because it was unclear whether something bad had happened.  Once the officers cleared us to enter the garage, I decided to ask them why they had stopped us, and they told us that there was some big international Security Conference going on in Munich, and lots of politicians were staying at the hotel.  Once inside the hotel, we were amazed at how full it was with TV cameras and people in suits.  It was crazy.  I'm so glad the hotel warned us that this would be going on.

We successfully made it out of the hotel once again for dinner, and headed south, past Sendlinger Tor to a Greek restaurant called Thalassa.  The reviews online were great, and we totally agreed!  We both got plates that had an assortment of Greek foods that were all very delicious.  Mine had souvlaki, souzouki (meatball), gyro meat, a lamb chop, rice, tzatziki, and a salad.  It was a lot of meat, but it was all so amazing!  I was stuffed, but once I got back to the hotel I felt like I wanted more.

My Greek dinner at Thalassa.

Today at work, we were sitting in our office when one of the MTU Test Engineers came in, a little excited, and said, "Your pet arrived from Florida!  It's a baby alligator!"  We were both a little confused, until we realized she was talking about a lizard that had made its way into one of the shipments we had just received from Florida.  It was alive, but moving and breathing very slowly.  Everyone in the department was very excited and kept referring to it as a baby alligator.  It was really funny, especially when we saw Melanie (the one who told us about it) carrying it around in a box showing it off.  I told them they should kill it so it doesn't invade their local populations, but I think they all thought I was joking.  Oh well.  I tried, local lizards.  I tried.

Our pet baby alligator from Florida.

Tonight, we made it back to the hotel without police checkpoints (unexpected) and then headed into the city to get some souvenirs and dinner.  Since Zach is leaving Monday, we wanted to get one last dinner a Der Pschorr.  By the way, it's not actually pronounced Derpy Score, it's Der Peeshore.  We had a very huge meal, starting with a cheese plate, middleing with the beef medallions, and ending with the apple pie/fritters dessert I've raved about before.  Such an awesome meal and a great way to end the work week.

Dachau, Flugwerft Schleißheim, and BMW Museum

We had another busy weekend the past couple of days.  We started with dinner at Alter Hof on Friday night.  I ordered a rainbow trout, with cucumber salad, lemon butter, and potato rösti.  As it turns out, I got an entire fish!  That was interesting to eat, but it all tasted very good!

My Rainbow Trout from Alter Hof

On Saturday, Zach and I went to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (KZ-Gedenkstätte).  It was an extremely somber experience to see the conditions in which so many people were held before and during WWII.  Overall, the entire memorial was very well-done, with a good audio guide as you walked around and a very thorough museum in one of the original buildings on the site.

Dachau Entrance Gate

"Work Sets You Free"

Dachau Concentration Camp
Camp Road

Afterwards, we headed into the shopping areas around the center of the city to walk around and window shop for souvenirs.  Nothing really caught our eye, but we did eventually go through the Viktualienmarkt, which is a huge outdoor market with lots and lots of food and fresh produce.  Unfortunately, we were on our way to dinner at that point, so we didn't eat anything.  We plan to get lunch there next weekend though!  Then we headed down to Paulaner Bräuhaus for dinner, where I got the "For Fellows" steak.  It was a 250g Bavarian steak seared on the outside and cooked to medium-rare perfection on the inside.  It had a red wine onion sauce with mashed parsnip carrots and potato fritters on the side.  What an excellent meal!  Kind of want that again right now...

Anyway, today we went north to the Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleißheim, which is an extension of the main Deutsches Museum with a focus on aircraft.  It wasn't super large, but it did have a pretty wide variety of airplanes to see.  My pictures didn't turn out too great, but I did get a couple good ones that I put in the Flickr album.  Since the Flugwerft museum didn't take a very long time, we then went to the BMW Museum nearby.  It was pretty cool to see a lot of nice-looking cars all in one place.  Too bad they're so expensive to own and come with a negative stigma in the U.S.  Oh well!

Flugwerft Schleißheim

BMW Museum
BMW 507

More pictures here!

Derpy Score (Round 3)

Because Der Pschorr is our favorite restaurant, we went back for a third time tonight.  Once again, Zach got the Bavarian Ox medallions (no surprise there).  I, on the other hand, decided to try something new, so I ordered the Crispy Half of Bavarian Duck with a humongous potato dumpling and apple red cabbage.  The duck was amazing!  Definitely the best duck I've ever had, out of the one or two other times I've ever had it.  Take a look at the picture below too, because it was a ton of meat.  The potato dumpling and apple red cabbage were not very great though.  We finished off our meal, once again, with one of the best desserts in the known universe... the Der Pschorr apple pie.  To add to the description from last time, these are basically a circular slice of apple covered in donut batter and lots of sugar.  Frankly, the only thing that beats these for dessert is Hood's Moosehead Lake Fudge ice cream.  Seriously.

Der Pschorr Bavarian Duck

Der Pschorr Apple Pie

Seehaus (Round 2) and Spatenhaus

Last night Zach and I headed into the Englischer Garten to once again eat some great seafood at the Seehaus.  This time, we switched meals, him getting the Heilbutt and me the Skreifillet.  Again, both were delicious, which wasn't a big surprise.

Tonight we tried out a new place called Spatenhaus an der Oper (Spatenhaus at the Opera), which is on the western side of Max-Joseph-Platz on the opposite side from the Bayerisches Nationaltheater (Bavarian State Theater or National Theater).  This is the first time we'd been to Max-Joseph-Platz even though it's right between Marienplatz and Odeonplatz, and it was actually really pretty.  The square was designed in the 1820s to the south of the Residenz.  In the center stands a statue of Maximilian I Joseph, the first king of Bavaria, who wrote the Bavarian constitution in 1818, the first of its kind in Germany.  The National Theater is modeled after a Greek theater, which is evident in the columns lining the entrance-way.  I tried to get a good picture of the National Theater, but I only had my phone.  I'll have to get a better one with my DSLR later.

Max-Joseph-Platz and the National Theater

Anyway, the restaurant.  We went here specifically because we're trying to go to all of the different brewer's restaurants, and we hadn't yet been to Spaten.  The food was pretty good, we both had a Bavarian sausage plate, which had sausages similar to the ones we got on the sausage plate at the Ratskeller before, and a Spaten Dunkel.  We were both starving and the food really hit the spot.  The restaurant itself was really cool inside.  It had some wooden floors and ceilings, white walls, and lightly-stained wooden tables and chairs.  It felt like we were really in Bavaria, which is good because we were.  The ceiling in part of the restaurant also had a pretty mural painted on the ceiling.  I got a couple pictures but not of the whole thing because I feel awkward taking pictures over people's heads while they're eating.  Good place to eat though; we'll have to go back.

Spatenhaus an der Oper

Spatenhaus an der Oper

Link to Flickr album

Augustiner-Bräu

Last night Zach and I tried a restaurant that we found near the top of the list on Trip Advisor, Opatija.  This restaurant served Mediterranean and Bavarian food.  We were looking for something a little lighter after having several heavy meals in a row the past few days, so we both got fish dishes.  Mine was a mixture of a couple types of fillets, some octopus, squid, and king prawn.  All-in-all it was good, but not great.  Oh well.

Tonight, however, we headed over to Augustiner-Bräu (pronounced Augustiner-Broy), the oldest brewery in München.  It was founded in 1328 by Augustinian monks and has a fantastic-looking interior that is a rare example of the architecture, design, and atmosphere of Munich restaurants before World War I, according to my informative guide book.  I didn't get a great picture of it because I was lazy and didn't feel like standing up, so I'll have to get a better one the next time I go back.  You can see some of the aesthetics though, and the atmosphere was pretty great!

A bad picture of a good restaurant.

My meal was pretty great too.  I had a pretzel with a Dunkel to start, of course, and then ordered roasted wild boar with juniper sauce, creamed mushrooms, homemade bread dumplings, and cranberries.  The boar and mushrooms were very tasty.  The bread dumplings could have been better, but I don't really know how since I've never tried them before, and the cranberries were, well, cranberry delicious too.  Overall, it's a cool place with some good food that I would definitely go back to.

One more for the coaster collection.

Link to Flickr Album

Der Pschorr and Birthday Treats

Today is my birthday, so I wanted to go back to the best restaurant we'd been to so far, Der Pschorr.  This time, Zach tried the beef medallions that I had last time (but with a slightly different sauce), and I went for the Rabbit Ragout with a side of gnocchi and salad.  After scarfing down the main course and one Hacker-Pschorr Müncner Dunkel, Zach and I got the apple pie for dessert.  Now, this wasn't your typical American apple pie.  This was more like apple cider donuts stuffed with apple.  IT WAS AMAZING!  Definitely one of the best desserts either of us has ever had.  It's going to be hard not to order that again every time I go back there.

Der Pschorr's interior with an unusually few amount of people inside.

Even though dinner was great, what really made my day was coming back to my hotel room to find two small containers of Häagen-Dazs Belgian Chocolate ice cream and a small birthday cake waiting for me!  As it turns out, my extremely thoughtful, incredible girlfriend had called the hotel asking them to bring me ice cream.  They insisted on cake, but she insisted on ice cream because she knows I love that way more than cake, so I ended up with both.  The ice cream was great, the cake was meh, but overall the fact that Nell did that for me made up for the fact that we are an ocean apart.  She's the best.

My birthday surprise from Nell!

Link to Flicker album.

The Largest Schnitzel In Town

You read that correctly.  Zach and I headed into the University District tonight to a small place called Steinheil 16.  A co-worker recommended it to us saying, "It has the biggest schnitzel in the city."  (Don't feel bad, all of the German-speaking people at the table giggled at that too.)  So, always wanting to try new things, we said "Why not?"  We went in, ordered two half-liters of Augustiner Dunkel and two pork Wiener Schnitzels, then sat back and waited.  When our food was brought out to the table, we really couldn't believe our eyes.  These things were MASSIVE!  Almost as large as the plate itself.  Remember when you were a kid and your friends told you that if your hand was bigger than your face you had cancer?  And then when you checked, they made you smack yourself in the face?  Well, if someone said the same to you about the schnitzel, you'd just know right away that you had the worst cancer imaginable without even having to check.

Thankfully, they were very thin pieces, so you really weren't getting as much meat as it seemed like, but it was still really heavy (and delicious).  Good thing we had a long walk back to the hotel to burn that one off.

The Pork Weiner Schnitzel from Steinheil.

Olympiaturm and Exploring Old Town

We started off today taking the U-Bahn north from our usual station, which was a first for us.  Our destination, the Olympiaturm (Olympic Tower), is the highest building in Munich, and we were told it provided excellent views of the city and countryside beyond.  Once again, the guys at work gave us good advice because the views were absolutely stunning.  There was some cloud cover, but it was high enough that we were able to see all the way to the Alps!  I'll probably go back on a sunny day to get some better pictures, but it was really amazing to see the whole city splayed out in front of us with the Alps on the horizon.  Definitely something worth doing if you ever come to Munich.

View south from Olympiaturm

Hopping back on the U-Bahn, we made our way down south of Marienplatz to Sendlinger Tor, the southern gate to the old city, which was build around 1300 B.C.  We then walked up Sendlinger Strasse past Asamkirche to the Viktualienmarkt.  Disappointingly, the market isn't open on Sundays, so we'll have to go back another time.  So, we headed over to Marienplatz to catch the Glockenspiel at noon.  The Glockenspiel, if you don't know, is a set of figurines in the clock tower of the Neues Rathaus that move and dance to music a few times a day.  It was interesting and worth seeing once.  I took a couple of videos of the Glockenspiel in action that I will upload somewhere later.

After the Glockenspiel's spiel we walked the short distance over to Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church), which is a Roman Catholic church sitting on the highest point of the Old Town, according to my guide book.  The church, Munich's oldest public building and the oldest church in the district, was actually formed with part of a monastery from which Munich received its name (Mönchen = monks).  Atop the church sits a 91-meter-tall tower built in the 17th century.  To get to the viewing platform at the top of the tower, we had to take a very skinny, very long staircase that could not fit two people side-by-side.  Fortunately, the leg workout was worth it because the view from the top was excellent.  We had an awesome view of the Old Town and, of course, the Alps on the horizon.  Thanks to Nell for the suggestion on this one!

Frauenkirche, Neues Rathaus, and Olympiaturm in the distance,
as viewed from Peterskirche.

Next, we headed west from Marienplatz to Karlstor, the western gate to the Old Town.  From there we turned north into the northern half of Old Town and meandered our way to Odeonsplatz, where we had a great view of the Theatinerkirche and Feldherrnhalle.  Feldhernnhalle was the sight of Adolf Hitler's failed coup attempt in November 1923, known as the Hitlerputsch.  He used his time in prison that followed this failed coup to write Mein Kampf, and, well, you know the rest.  We then walked through the Hofgarten, past the northern side of the famous Residenz and the Bayerische Staatskanzlei (Bavarian State Chancellery), and turned south to return to Marienplatz.  Another quick U-Bahn ride dropped us off near the Paulaner Bräuhaus, our destination for a late lunch.  After another excellent meal, this one consisting of the Braumeister Schnitzel (pork with a spicy crust, potato gnocchi, and root vegetables) and a half-liter of the Paulaner Dunkler Wickerl (brewed in-house), we called it a day.

Flicker photos:  https://www.flickr.com/gp/finigdan/8SW5nv

Deutsches Museum

Last night, Zach and I decided to have an easy night, so we stopped by the hotel restaurant after work.  It... wasn't that great.  Much better than other hotels I've been to, but not as good as the restaurants we've been too.  Guess you can't win 'em all.

Today, however, we caught the tram nearby the hotel and made our way over to the Deutsches Museum, which is the world's largest science and technology museum.  We got there around 10:00 and made a beeline for the Astronomy floors, on which we spent about two and a half hours reading every sign and playing with every interactive exhibit.  We also found a computer that had an astronomy quiz.  We actually managed to answer 63% of the questions despite the fact that there were no English translations!  We were able to use a lot of context clues to figure out most of the German words, and on the rest we just guessed.  It was really fun.  After that we realized we needed to move a little quicker if we wanted to get through the whole museum, so we went to the Physics area and spent another hour and a half in what I would consider the coolest part of the museum.  I guess we didn't really move much quicker, but the physics area had hundreds of hands-on exhibits to demonstrate fundamental physics, like momentum, inertia, mass, conservation of energy, waves, aerodynamics, and much, much more.  What made it extra fun was trying to figure out what each exhibit was demonstrating because very few had actual English translations.  I think, once again, we did a pretty good job.

Fundamental physics.

The rest of the time at the museum we spent going through the Historic Aviation (Luftfahrt), Energy Technology, Metals, Machine Tools, Power Machinery, Foundry, Marine Navigation, Environment, Electric Power, and Nanotechnology.  We still didn't even make it through the whole museum, but we were able to hit everything we wanted to before we left at 4:30.  Afterwards, we were feeling very hungry (we skipped lunch) so we went back to Marienplatz to Der Ratskeller to get a nice hearty meal.  Both of us had the Grillwürstl Schmankerl, a "great sampler of all delicious Bratwursts we offer, like Nuremberg style Bratwurst, skinless veal sausage Wollwurst, smoked Beef-Beerknackbratwurst, Schnapps Bratwurst, grilled bacon, sauerkraut, [and] mashed potatoes."  Alongside a full liter of Löwenbraü dunkel, this hit the spot.  Once again, another great meal.

After catching the U-Bahn back to the hotel, it's now time to digest and prepare for some Munich sight-seeing tomorrow.  Gute Nacht!

Go here for more pictures.

Arrival and First Few Days

Hi everyone,

I've decided to start a blog to use as a way document and share all of the great things I get to do, eat, and drink while on my business trip to Munich (München).  I'll probably end up talking a lot about food and beer during the week since I'll be working, but the weekends should be full of good activities and pictures!

So anyway, work sent me over here to test an engine with our partner company MTU Aero Engines (MTU = Motoren- und Turbinen-Union).  I'll be over here for approximately 6 weeks, and work pays for the flights, hotel, car, and food.  It's a pretty nice gig.  Also over here working with me is one of my good friends Zach, who likes traveling and food just as much as I do.  It's going to be fun!

We left Hartford at around 7:30 am on Monday, January 20th, had a 6 hour layover in Atlanta, and then caught our flight to Munich, landing at 7:45 am the next day.  It was a long trip, and the crying baby on the flight didn't really help me get much sleep.  That's okay though.  I felt worse for the parents than I did for myself.  Once we landed, we got through Customs very quickly, grabbed our bags, and made our way to Avis to pick up our cars.  I had requested a manual transmission car just because I wanted to feel like a local, and ended up with a sporty Citroën DS5.  It took a little getting used to, especially figuring out how to get it in reverse gear, but I made it back to the hotel without killing myself or the clutch.

After resting up a bit at the hotel, Zach and I made our way down to Marienplatz at the center of the city.  The geographical center of the city is actually marked by the Mariensäule (Column of the Virgin Mary), from which all of the distances in the city are measured, apparently.  Marienplatz and the surrounding area are part of the original area of the city, so the architecture is gorgeous.  Once I get to explore this area during the day, I'll be able to share some pictures.  One of the most stunning buildings in the area is the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall), which houses a restaurant called Der Ratskeller in its cellar.  This place serves up traditional Bavarian dishes with local Munich beer and does it all very well.  With lots of good options to choose from, I finally settled on lamb bratwurst, green beans in tomato sauce, and roasted potatoes.  Everything was washed down with a half-liter of Löwenbraü lager.  Boy, was it good!  I'll definitely be going back there.

Lamb brautwurst, roasted potatoes, and green beans

in a tomato sauce with a half-liter of Löwenbraü.

On our second night we walked through the Englischer Garten (English Garden), which is a park larger than Central Park in NYC, from our hotel to a nice restaurant called the Seehaus.  The restaurant, situated on the edge of the park's Kleinhesseloher Lake, was recommended to us by the guys we work with at MTU and has outdoor beer gardens in the warmer months of the year.  Maybe I'll be able to enjoy that someday in the future, but for now, we were stuck inside.  Inside, however, wasn't bad at all.  Once again, the menu had too many great things to choose from, but I went with the filet vom schwarzer hailbutt (Greenland halibut) served over a lime-thyme risotto and a saffron velouté, whatever that is.  Served with a cold glass of Paulaner Lager, this meal was incredible.  Definitely going back there too.  That's two for two so far.

On our third night, tonight, we took another suggestion from the guys at work and headed back down to the Marienplatz area to a very highly rated beer cellar called Der Pschorr.  The interior of this place really makes you feel like you're in Bavaria (which you are).  I suggest searching for it on Google and looking at the pictures.  The food matches the atmosphere with traditional Bavarian meals that they tout as "a taste of home on your plate."  And the beers on tap are some of their own beers brewed in-house, under the name Hacker-Pschorr.  Hacker-Schorr is a brewing company formed in 1972 after the merger of two separate breweries, Hacker and Pschorr.  Hacker was founded in 1472, 20 years before America was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus.  That's crazy!  Anyway, I ate some delicious beef medallions served over mushrooms with a port wine sauce.  On the side were some excellent things called tomato/potato balls and a half-liter of Hacker-Pschorr Münchner Dunkel.  Again, another delicious meal.  Zach and I decided that Der Pschorr was our favorite place of the three we'd been to, and we'd have to make it there at least once a week to try more of the menu.

That's about it for now.  Munich has been great so far, and it will hopefully get better with time (and on the weekends).  I'll keep updating as much as I can!

Dan

P.S. I will be keeping a Flickr album full with pictures I take along the way.  Blogger doesn't seem to handle photos well, so this will be a lot nicer for those.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/finigdan/J2d4vP