Dad and Mom do München

We've been looking forward to Mom and Dad's visit for a long time! They got to travel around with us for eight days, with a day of flying on either side of that. Here they are on their 31st anniversary hanging out in the Jacksonville Airport ready to be awake for a million hours!

And here we are, getting super well rested on our bus ride to meet them in Frankfurt. We left at around 2am and got there at 6, so Carson got a couple hours of sleep and according to my fitbit, I got a restful 33 minutes. That sort of made it a level playing field when our tired guests arrived at 8:45 in the morning

When they arrived, we did exactly what everyone wants to do when they first touch down in a country - got on a train. We got a Durch Landes Ticket, which allows you to ride regional (in other words - SLOWER) trains, so our trip to Munich took close to six hours instead of three or four. The only benefits to this were that we saved money, we got to sit and try to nap, and we saw more of Germany.

We got to Munich, checked into our hotel, and set out to explore.

We stayed in a quadruple room at the Hotel Munich Inn. It was a super short walk from the Hauptbahnhof (train station) to the hotel, and not a bad walk from the city centre. We were a street or two over from where we stayed in January and it's a busy area this time of year! Our room was on the fourth floor overlooking the street and if there's the option, I'd say request to be in an inside room. It was very noisy outside! The room wasn't air conditioned either (very common here - it just happened to be about 20 degrees warmer than is normal in early June so it was worse than it should have been) but it did have a fan.


 Everyone just wanted to nap, but we decided to press on so that we could get a full night of sleep and get Mom and Dad acclimated to the six hour time difference (they were champs!).

Marienkirche (the church with the two green knobs).

Odeonsplatz

We walked all around and found ourselves in the Englischer Garten. Carson was dying to see this surf wave again, so we watched for a little while.

Then we walked to Hofbrauhaus. When we came to Munich the first time in January, we came here also, and it's a fun experience.

Here's a funny little story: Mom and Dad ordered "water" but due to the loud noise inside the restaurant, the waiter heard "Ratler" and was soon returning with two beers which he plopped in front of them to everyone's great surprise. We got a good laugh and explained what they'd ordered, and also got a picture since it was pretty funny. They enjoyed their actual water not long after I snapped this. We enjoyed our food too! Mom got a roasted chicken, Dad had a roasted ham hock or something, Carson had German meatloaf, and I had Spätzle and despite everyone claiming to not be hungry, our food miraculously disappeared quickly.

Marienplatz

As we walked back to the hotel, we passed this very long party setting up. For several city blocks, this huge group of people dressed in white set about setting up tables and putting out food. We asked what they were doing, and it seemed like it was a sort of pop-up get together. I don't think they could possibly have all known one another and this much have been an annual event or something. It looked fun and it was fun to see!

We got back to the hotel while it was still light outside (the sun set at about 9:30 in Munich) and very quickly went to bed. I think just about everyone was asleep by 10pm. Also, how do you like our set up? Four twin beds in a row. Something I think is very interesting/odd about Germany is that lots of beds that look queen sized are actually two twins together. The bed at our apartment is a full and is one mattress, but we still have separate comforters for some reason.