Friday, December 14, 2007

Deutchland uber, er, breweries











TOP: V-1 rocket, Hitler's first attempt at the buzz-bomb (which thankfully the guidance system sucked) and (behind) single-pilot jet bomber (which thankfully never got mass-produced)
2nd: A random church-face. This style was everywhere in Munich
3rd: The "Chinese Garden" in one of Munich's beautiful parks
4th: An Oompah band, which were numerous throughout the city
NOTE: Trying a little "x" between paragraphs to help readability. For whatever reason, the blog compresses everything together).
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Today we took the train from Amsterdam to Munich, where we plan to attend "The" Oktoberfest. I'm finally shedding my cough, and people are able to sit near me on mass transit again. The train system in europe is incredible, and it's a huge shame that we in the US are so car dependent. We did 5 weeks backpacking europe, and only ever took a taxi 3 times, and rented a car for 2 days. The rest was all done on rail - trains, trams, subways, getting carried by drunk Czech guys... The high-speed Amsterdam to Munich was luxurious, comfortable, and very fast...I guess that's why they call it the high-speed train.
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Munich is much more "institutional" than Amsterdam. Streets are well paved, sidewalks are concrete instead of the historic "cobbles", and many of the commercial buildings have a very institutional feel to them (big, blocky, concrete). This also was the beginning of the "church tour", as throughout europe there are big, beautiful, and EMPTY churches everywhere. Many of them are free to just walk in and tour, some charge a small fee (or more likely encourage a "donation"). Now it's been years since I've even been in a church, but these are quite impressive, and unlike few in the US (think St Patricks's Cathedral in NYC as an example). And, I'm to come to find out that the german churches totally paled next to the italian ones!
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We enjoy a walkabout for the day, and bed down with visions of Oktoberfest dancing in our heads. Well, that and buzz bombs...
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Herr Lumpensteinengruber out

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