The One Where We Go to Munich

We went to Munich last weekend for a long weekend. After our visit to Dachau, we headed into the city to the Marriott. Yeah, the Marriott. Marriott might not have old world charm or the local flavor, but they are great for traveling with three kids. They're modern, thus modern amenities (like bathrooms bigger than a breadbox and comfortable beds). Also, because Tobi has traveled so much, he has about a million Marriott points. And nothing beats free.

We checked in and immediately the children started jumping on the beds. Do your kids do this? I don't allow them to jump on the beds at home, but the rule has always been you can always jump on hotel beds (sorry, Marriott). We got our bearings, had a snack, and watched Anderson Cooper narrate the last NASA shuttle mission for us. Ahhh, I miss television sometimes.

The English Garden, with the Seehaus beer garden in the distance.

Cheers!

After that, we decided to take the subway, which was only a few minutes' walk from the hotel, into the tourist area. We walked through the beautiful English Garden, where we found our first beer garden, the Seehaus. It was very crowded, but it had lots of seats. After filling our plates with mountains of wurst, potato salad and pretzels, we sat at picnic tables and had dinner. The kids loved the playground (European restaurants with playgrounds are the BEST!) and Tobi loved the beer.

Munich's Town Hall (with rainbow flags!)

On Saturday morning we headed back into the Marianplatz area of the city to look around. The Munich Gay Pride Parade was also taking place that day. That was interesting. As much as I love and support my gay friends, I wanted to try to steer a bit clear of the parade route. I've been to the Chicago Gay Pride Parade and it was a blast. But I'm not sure it's the most appropriate thing for an eight year old. We did see a drag queen. That was a fun discussion. Grant: "That's a man?"

The boys enjoyed the Munich Toy Museum.

Especially the robots!

We decided the toy museum might be a more appropriate venue and the boys enjoyed that. We also decided to pour some tourist dollars (francs, Euros, whatevs) into the local Munich economy by hitting up the local toy store, Obletter.

I just thought this was so pretty with all the flower boxes!

Street markets selling fresh fruit

After all that, we were exhausted and nothing sounded better to anyone than a big German-style lunch. So we headed to Munich's most famous beer hall, Hofbräuhaus. The kids enjoyed that and we did multiple rounds of "Cheers!" (side note: I kinda wish we hadn't taught the kids this fun trick. The amount of cheersing we do in this family is ridiculous). After lunch and much too much wurst, we headed back to the hotel for Caroline (and Tobi) to nap while the boys and I swam in the indoor pool.

The square at the Hofbrauhaus.

A family that does "cheers!" together

We enjoyed the Oompah Band at the Hofbrauhaus!

Our dear friends -- Trish, Tod, Will, Fyn, and Mara -- from England, were visiting friends of theirs in Munich for the weekend. Trish and Tod used to live in Evanston and Will and Grant were preschool buddies. Tobi and I had dinner with Trish and Tod last year in London, but the kids hadn't seen each other in quite a while. On Saturday night we met up with their family and their friends at yet another beer garden, Aumeister. We were able to get a little bit of play time in (another playground in a beer garden - yea!) and dinner before a storm approached. Trish & Tod's friends were kind enough to invite us to their house for a while so the kids could play and the grown ups could chat. We had a lovely time and planned to meet again (European city TBD)!

Will & Grant - friends since age two.

On Sunday we decided to tackle what was open of the BMW Museum. I had contacted them earlier in the week about scheduling a private tour only to be told that the museum had sustained water damage and most of it would not be open. We went anyway and we were so glad we did. The BMW Welt (German translation: BMW World) was open, which is more of a brainwashing of why BMW is the best car in the world. Yes, we do have a Koolaid-drinker in our family. Tobi just sold his baby in February. The pain is still too great to talk about.

Tobi's next car? This one got a thumbs up.

A vintage BMW

The utterly amazing BMW Isetta. WANT.

ZOMG! It's Kelly Taylor's car!

(I know some of you will adore this reference!)

The Museum wasn't open, save for the Art Cars exhibit. But what an amazing exhibit. BMW asked famous artists (the likes of Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol) to transform cars into works of art (or as Tobi says, "put works of art upon works of art"). It was a very cool exhibit and I would recommend it for any art or BMW enthusiast.

After that, we headed back to the Aumeister for a late lunch (yes, 4 beer gardens in 48 hours, thankyouverymuch) and then we hit the road to get back to Zurich.

The kids, discussing the merits of modernism vs. pointillism.

Or, "red is pretty!"

The Andy Warhol car

A side note on Bitsy, my beloved Volvo. Bitsy made her way to us a few weeks ago after an arduous process of paperwork and shipping containers and barges. She's been outfitted with new plates. And a Switzerland sticker (contrary to popular belief, CH doesn't stand for Cheese or Chocolate, but Confoederatio Helvetica)! However, even though her odometer says she goes up to 160 miles per hour, sadly she does not. I drove her on the German autobahn and she maybe got up to 106mph. Maybe. She was still passed by Volkswagens and Audis and maybe a Ford. But seeing as though I'm primarily concerned with the safety of my family and thus a Volvo owner, this didn't bother me in the least. Nope, not at all.

And that concludes Act I of the Laczkowski family's excellent European field trip. The blog will be on hiatus until at least the end of August as we are heading back to the good ol' U.S. of A for a while.

Cheers! *clink*

Tiffany