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We woke up early and wandered out to a café in the neighborhood for some coffee and breakfast. We each got a café au lait. N had a croissant and I had a pain au chocolat. Tasty (er, duh!).

tasty

Croissants hurt my stomach when I eat them in America, even at high-quality bakeries, so I avoid them. N had a theory that in France I wouldn’t have a problem. He was right about that, though I can’t tell you why.

After breakfast we went back to the hotel for N to shower. I watched some tv while waiting for him — one of the morning shows was doing a demonstration of how to apply bits of bright eyeshadow for fun effect. Once N was done, we wandered out.

We planned to go to d’Orsay, but took a long walk there to do some sightseeing. I was over my camera shyness, so I stopped to take a number of photos along the walk.

across the Seine

I love boats:

boats

A neat Voltaire statute:

Voltaire

While in St Germain des Prés, we happened across Ladurée and I saw stacks of macarons in the window and a short line. Everything in the shop looked delicious, but I really wanted a macaron. We went in and ordered two dark chocolate macarons and two pistachio macarons. They were completely and totally fantastic. The texture was unlike even the best macarons I’ve had here in the US and they were just … perfect. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I’ve since read that some people think Ladurée make the best macarons in the world.

oh, delicious!

We continued our scenic walk to d’Orsay and I enjoyed textured buildings:

textured

I love that everything has a pattern or texture, even air vents:

love the pattern

Signs and ornate balconies:

sign, sign, everywhere a sign

Cute cars and signs about bikes being an exception to the do not enter:

sauf bikes

We finally arrived at d’Orsay after our wandering.

in front

Tuesdays the Louvre is closed, so d’Orsay is very, very packed. When we arrived to the entrances, we were shocked at how long the lines were! Hundreds of people waiting to get inside.

I had pre-purchased our 2-day Paris museum passes and I had my copy of Rick Steves in my bag, which indicated where the pass entrance was. We wandered over to the pass entrance — facing the museum, it’s to the left of the regular entrance, but on the same wall — where there was a much shorter line and we got inside fairly quickly. Buy a museum pass!

I’m getting ahead of myself, but I will say that we enjoyed d’Orsay the most of the three main art museums we visited (Louvre, d’Orsay, Pompidou). The most popular thing at d’Orsay was probably one of Van Gogh’s self portraits.

It took us a few hours to see just about everything at d’Orsay, and I was starting to get cranky and hungry. We left the musée and wandered back across the Seine on one of the pedestrian bridges, Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor (formerly pont de Solférino).

lovers, locked

We continued our way back to the Marais walking along the side of the Seine. I had the first “gold ring” scam experience. Did you have any idea there were so many gold rings on the streets of Paris?! Amazing. A person walking in the opposite direction would bend down and pretend to find a gold ring (you could see the ring move from their folded hand into their finger) and they would hold it out to you as you walked towards them to ask for money. They were not persistent, we just continued walking and ignored them. We had FOUR people do this all one right after the other on the walk between Tuilleries garden and the Louvre.

neat the pompidou

We finally cut up a street looking for a late lunch and ended up at a café where N ordered a pichet of water and a pichet of wine– of course we actually wanted tap water and I started kicking myself mentally for not remembering how to phrase that and being too self-conscious to look it up in my phrasebook. We ended up with a huge bottle of decent spring water that I drank the ^!*& out of, for €10 or something ridiculous. We also each had a mediocre croque monsieur with salad and started to feel a bit less cranky.

Afterwards we checked out a few shops on the way and went back to the hotel for a mid-afternoon break. We wandered back out to the Pompidou but I neglected to remember that it was also closed on Tuesday. Then we walked to the Musée d’art et d’historie du Judiaïsme, but they had just closed. Drats! So we focused on dinner

picnic

For dinner we decided (a bit too late) to picnic and we wandered around to a fromagerie, an Italian place with delicious meats, a wine place. The boulangerie were all closed at this point or didn’t have any baguette left, so N went back into the Italian place to get some bread, which ended up working out just fine. We neglected to get any butter [!] but frankly, we didn’t need it.

meeeeeat

Both wines were quite good.

wine!

After dinner it was still early and a little hot and N talked me into taking one of the boat tours on the Seine. Our hotel recommended it over doing any of the nighttime bus tours. I was supremely cranky and really just wanted to go to sleep, and instead we walked and walked and walked and walked to some tourist building that directed us all the way back to Pont Neuf to catch the boat. My feet were killing me but I was looking forward to being on the water and getting photos of things from the water. I splurged on a diet coke while N carried a couple of beers on.

clock

I really liked seeing many of the different bridges across the Seine and the buildings.

decoration

Each bridge is different and decorated differently.

another

This one is really ornate:

ornate

I think my favorite is all of the different faces on Pont Neuf, though.

Pont Neuf bridge

The Eiffel tower is a lot larger — and uglier — than I expected. I still appreciate it as an icon and engineering marvel.

la tour eiffel

We saw colorful boats.

blue

And buoys:

buoy

I continued my obsession with signs:

alternat

We waved at lots of people hanging out:

tons and tons of people

I spied some people making out on the side of the river:

ohh la la

Windows.

lines

People chatting with their leg hanging over the side freaked me out:

chatting

Notre Dame, from a different perspective than before.

notre dame

Overall, we had a nice time on the tour boat. The tour was in French but we knew what the big items were and it was really just worth it to be on the river, a different vantage point.

We walked back to our hotel and I crashed hard while N watched a movie on his laptop.

I was really nervous getting off of the train at Paris. I’m not sure why. We got off the train and … well, it was a train station. There were special grooved edges embedded in the walkway at the train station for blind people using canes which I thought was neat.

N and I walked out of the train station to the street. N smoked a cigarette and I eyed all of the buildings and traffic and people zooming by. It’s a city! Exciting!

We caught a taxi from the train station to our hotel in the Marais, even though it was many hours before we could check in. Our cabbie did not speak English and he did not understand our butchered pronunciation of the hotel address, so I wrote it down on a page in my Moleskine Paris and he said, “Ah! Rue du Plâtre!” His pronunciation of “Plâtre” had this really guttural sound to it that I don’t think I can make– I have been trying to make it since.

We climbed into the taxi and HELD ON. The traffic was amazing — busses, taxis, cars, trucks, bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, special ‘city’ motor tri-cycles (two in front) all sharing the same road, and somehow no one dying a horrible death. I saw a lot of Parisians using the Vélib’ rental bicycles (wikipedia) — way more than I expected!

We got stuck in traffic near the Marais — it was just before 10am on Monday — and our cabbie tried to cut down a couple of skinny alleys with no luck. He still got us to the hotel quickly and directly given the traffic and all. We overtipped the taxi driver (of course) and walked into the hotel, exhausted. We knew it was too early to check in, but the hotelier offered to let us leave our luggage in the lobby and said our room should be ready by 2pm. Great!

While in the lobby, an American family was checking out, waiting for their taxi to the airport. The woman came to me and said, “you have to get a lock and go to Pont des Artes and put a lock on it, then bury the key in the sand below or throw into the Seine! You have to do it!” I smiled and nodded, actually knowing of the romantic tradition. It’s not my style but I was looking forward to seeing it. It was fun to have someone SO excited suggesting we do it.

We stashed our luggage in the hotel lobby and headed out from the hotel to wander.

We walked down the street and went to our first café to get some coffee since we had not had enough on the train. N walked into the café and I became completely and totally distraught because N didn’t really greet the guy when he walked in and then he ordered two cafés and sat down. All I could remember was that Rick Steves/David Lebovitz/Clotilde Dusoulier everyone said to “always greet people when entering a shop or café” and that Rick Steves said to order at the counter of a café. In retrospect, it was totally fine because the guy asked N if he would be sitting and N said yes, so he charged him the higher price. I was SO embarrassed though, “we’re doing this ALL WRONG! We are SO stupid American tourists! NOOOOOOOO!”

After the coffee, we started walking through the Marais. I was struck not with the skinny streets but with the doors! Colorful, ornate and every building seemed to have one. It was fantastic. I wanted to take a photo of every one (but I was still photography-shy, as I am the first day or so in a new place).

[here's a blog worth checking out for cool Parisian doors]

After a while we realized that we were not headed in the direction we thought we were and we consulted my Molkskine map. We had walked all the way up to Place de la République — the complete opposite direction of where we’d meant to go. Oops! We turned around and went back, stopping for a well-deserved lunch near the hotel.

from above

We ate lunch at Le Bouquet des Archives on Rue des Archives. I was happy to sit in the sun outside! We ordered a pichet of wine — N asked for a rosé but when the waiter asked N what size he pointed to the column header and the waiter brought the white wine that was under N’s finger on pointing. Oops! It was still tasty.

The entire menu looked great, but N and I each opted for a sandwich. N ordered the French “fast food” croque madame. I ordered an open faced sandwich of goat cheese, walnuts, proscuitto and something green I can’t recall now. I was surprised to see that both sandwiches came with “une salade verte” after reading David Lebovitz noting how to order a green salad in Paris but I was very thankful (we like greens and there wasn’t much vegetable matter in Munich). Both sandwiches were open-faced on thin-cut crispy bread with a tasty topping. This café also brought everyone carafes of water. Shocked I was! (for the record, I liked Paris water taste). Lunch was delicious! And our waitperson was friendly and accommodating.

After lunch we wandered a couple of blocks to our hotel to see if our room was ready. I really wanted to shower but it wasn’t quite 1400 yet. We walked in and the hotelier said that yes, our room was ready and handed N the single room key to room #17. 17 is one of our lucky numbers, so I took this as a good omen. The hotelier told us that when we entered the room, our key was to be placed in the slot by the door to turn on the lights and air conditioner and that when we left the hotel, they kept our key at the front desk.

We shuffled our luggage into the elevator and went up one floor to the first floor (Europe, I love you- 0th floor, as it should be!).

hotel room in paris

We opened our room and I was expecting a tiny room like the one we had in Munich. Oh no. This room was absolutely huge! Places for each of us to hang clothes and stash our bags, a reasonable sized bed (it was short, N’s feet hung off the end, but it WAS comfortable otherwise), a lcd tv (just 5 channels, but I wasn’t there to watch French tv), and a big bathroom with a shower that had ACTUAL DECENT WATER PRESSURE. If you get the idea I was pleased about that after the shower on the train, you’re spot on.

N changed clothes — we were a little grimy after the train and the walk, even with a train shower — and went down to talk to the hotel people while I showered. When N left the room, he took the key with him, removing it from the slot by the door. A second later, the air conditioning turned off. No big deal, as the room was pretty cool. A fourth second later, the lights all turned off. Oops! That was a little more challenging. I still got my shower done and N returned with directions to a department store, BHV.

We walked a couple of blocks to the 14 Rue du Temple BHV location and went in to look for a razor for N and some shaving cream. We paid way too much for some disposable razors and left BHV without really looking at it too closely. I did see some really cute stuff in the stationery section! (I did not see any yarn in the store, though I know that many French department stores carry yarn).

It started pouring as we left BHV– us without an umbrella, of course! We popped into the drugstore across the street to pick up some band-aids and escape the rain for a minute. Afterwards we stood under an awning. It was amazing how in the downpour, everyone just stopped moving and ducked under an awning and (generally) started smoking a cigarette.

N and I took off as the rain began to let up and paused at a cafe for some coffee. Two cafes, standing at the counter, 2.5€. It was tasty– I don’t care how people complain about Parisian coffee!

Notre Dame

We decided to walk down to Notre Dame as the sun came back out. We walked down and crossed the Seine at Pont d’Arcole, walking down Rue d’Arcole. It was amazing how many tourist shops and Americans we came across on this walk after crossing the Seine. Everywhere else we had been was a fairly good mix of locals and tourists-who-just-wanted-to-be-perceived-as-local — this area was just SWIMMING with tourists.

Notre Dame

I am not sure why, but I expected Notre Dame to be larger than it is. It is a completely fascinating piece of architecture and engineering. I enjoyed walking around the inside — so intricate and detailed. I didn’t take any photos inside.

Notre Dame

As I walked out of Notre Dame, a short young woman came up to me, “Do you speak English?” For some reason I immediately went into my city-mode-self and shook my head and kept walking. She did the same thing to N, who was a bit behind me (and he reacted the same way). I realized shortly thereafter that there were 2-3 young women working together and as one person distracted someone by asking questions, someone else would pickpocket or follow people, asking for money.

Leaving Notre Dame, we walked down further and crossed back across the Seine at Pont au Change (I think — it may have been Pont Notre Dame) and started walking towards Les Halles. There were a ton of us all waiting to cross a big street and at one point we all made like to cross (against the light) and then saw some cars ZOOMING towards us, so the whole group of us stepped back. When that happened, I stepped on the foot of the girl next to me. She started ranting in French about stupid tourists stepping on her foot — I understood a few words thanks to my years of Spanish. I had apologized (in French) but it was a silly clumsy thing!

traffic! (Eiffel Tower in the background)

We walked for a while longer and I started to feel cranky so we looked for somewhere to eat. We seemed to be in a food-free zone so when we finally came across a place, we stopped. We ordered panini and coffee. It was mediocre but stopped the crankies and gave me the energy to walk back to the hotel. Of course just a block or two from this place we came across a pedestrian street with tons and tons of different street vendors and cafes. Dammit!

We got back to the hotel and I passed out quite early, exhausted from the train travel and all the walking, I guess. N hung out in the hotel lobby using the wifi and uploading photos before coming back to bed.

For ~$600, we bought sleeper train tickets from Munich to Paris. It was a fun way to travel and not too much more than a hotel room plus a flight back to Paris. It was a 10 hour train ride and I was looking forward to seeing some of the German and French countryside. Tickets have to be purchased and reserved pretty well in advance for the sleeper trains. I think we bought these tickets in March or April for our trip in mid-June.

Our train arrived about 30 minutes before the scheduled depature and we jumped on, trying to figure out where our room was, looking at our confusing ticket. Our ticket was for a first class private double sleeper room with a shower.

We wandered into the wrong room and frowned at the lack of shower. The (assistant?) conductor took a look at our ticket and informed us that yes, we were in the wrong room and directed us next door.

In our room, there were two single beds mounted one above the other (with heavy-duty roll bars and seatbelt straps to prevent someone from rolling off — similar to this, but more heavy-duty) and a separate bathroom. The bathroom had a toilet, sink, and space for a shower. The sink and shower used the same sprayer. The sink was on a pole and swiveled over the toilet to allow space to get to the shower — you just had to raise up the sprayer.

The conductor spent a few minutes with us. He informed us that to turn on the water, we had to push the red button and it would turn off automatically. He told us that he would wake us up at 0745 and bring us bags of breakfast, and asked if we would prefer coffee or tea.

“Coffee, please.”

He took away our ticket and said he would return it in the morning.

N thought there was a dining car on the train and went out to find some beer before we took off. No luck — so he quickly ran out to get some beer at a vendor just down the way in the Hauptbahnhof and ran back.

I took a shower shortly after the train pulled away and I had adjusted to the movement. I would push the button and the water would spray for about 45 seconds, then stop (just as the conductor said). I didn’t count, but it took many pushes to get the shampoo out of my hair.

After my shower, I clambered up into the top bunk — it was a little treacherous on a moving train! — and lay down to go to sleep. I was fairly tired and don’t have difficulty sleeping on planes or trains, so I fell asleep quickly.

I woke up when the train stopped at one of the earlier destinations and had some trouble getting back to sleep.

I woke up again when my phone buzzed to tell me that I had crossed into France.

I went back to sleep to snooze until it was daylight because I really wanted to take some photos from the window. When the sun came up, I got up excitedly to try taking some photos. I didn’t have much luck thanks to the speed of the train and the fact that I forgot my polarizing filters so I got reflections in the window.

From the train:

Like from a movie:

At 0745, the assistant conductor came by the room with our bags of breakfast and coffee. I wasn’t expecting much and neither was N. Oh, were we surprised:

Orange juice, yogurt, two rolls, a croissant, butter, honey, meat paste, fruit, creamer, sugar.

I got ham paste! Delicious:

Even the coffee — though there wasn’t much of it — was good.

The train arrived in Paris exactly on schedule at 0923. Amazing! Oddly I found myself really nervous as we pulled into Paris – I hadn’t felt nervous since the trip started.

We woke early on Sunday thanks to our travel-induced comas and wandered downstairs to partake of the (included) hotel breakfast.

The hotel breakfast was absolutely fantastic and delicious. Lots of juices — including the best orange juice I’ve ever had! — coffee (a fancy machine where you picked what you wanted, pressed a button and it made it), yogurts, tea, soft-boiled eggs, many different delicious crusty breads, meats, meat pastes, butter, cheeses, nutella, pastries, cereal. Delicious! I asked N why American breakfast wasn’t like this. He noted that it reminded him of brunch at his mom’s (yes, very much so!). I am still dreaming about it.

We packed and checked out. Our train to Paris was scheduled to leave at 22:30 that evening, so we had an entire day to spend in Munich. N asked the hotel about whether they knew if Hauptbahnhof (the train station) still had lockers available for rental, since they got rid of most of them in the US after 9/11. The hotel suggested instead that we leave our luggage there, and we could pick it up later. This was much more convenient since the hotel is in the center of town and the train station is on the opposite edge. We thanked the hotel, left our luggage behind and headed out.

We wandered down a few roads we hadn’t walked down the day previous. Everything was quiet and still — Sunday morning, after all. I spied a yarn store that looked great, though of course closed on Sunday (good for my wallet).

Walking back, We paused at the edge of Marienplatz to watch the Bavarian Pretzel Horse guy getting situated and for still-dehydrated me to drink another bottle of water and return the bottle for my deposit back. I was still full from breakfast or I would have bought a pretzel (bretzel)!

Munchner Bretzel

We continued on. After walking for a while, N mentioned that he really wanted some more coffee, so we ducked into a place called Treeman’s Coffee and he got a huge mug of coffee.

I used their facilities, impressed with the ‘big flush, little flush’ button. Germany has a reputation for being innovative and on the cutting edge especially when it comes to environmental issues. I found it interesting that they have solutions for various things — deposits for glassware/plates/bottles (something we had here and still do, on a smaller scale), big flush/little flush — that I haven’t really seen as extensively elsewhere. Guess what? They don’t seem to have any problems functioning with these things in place, and neither did the tourists.

Afterwards we did some more wandering, including entering Frauenkirche and looking around in there. I liked the stone carvings outside.

Afterwards we continued to wander and saw a Michael Jackson memorial:

A neat fountain:

Tourists bicycling:

Cool buildings:

I have to say that I really loved all of the window boxes on buildings in Munchen.

We paused at the Fischmarkt and looked around around lunchtime. I saw a number of things that looked tasty, so we decided to have lunch here. I had fried herring and paprika potatoes and N had a bacon and onion super thin pizza. It was all tasty.

Oh, and beer, of course!

Then we wandered down towards the other end of town and ran into Sommerfest. There were lots of street vendors and more live music — live music everywhere in Munich!

We wandered back towards Marienplatz and the Hofbräuhaus, which was on our list of things to do this day. We entered via the back entrance, where I almost accidentally walked into the men’s bathroom (oops). We sat down and eventually N ordered himself a beer while I was still feeling out of sorts, and ended up asking N to ordering me some coffee.

Hofbräuhaus is such a huge tourist destination and so huge — there were so many people in there! There were some college guys behind us — from Georgia Tech, my alma mater! — and a really drunk guy wandering around arm wrestling women. There were a few men in full Bavarian getup — lederhosen and the whole deal — that intoxicated women asked to take photos with. It was a collosal fun drunken time and while I know it’s SO touristy, it was fun and our waiter was awesome. N had three or four different beers here. I tasted each of them but I was still dehydrated from all the travel.

Upon leaving the Hofbräuhaus, we decided to go back to Marienplatz.

It started to rain and so we ended up at the Museum of Hunting and Fishing (Deutsches Jagd und Fischereimuseum). Most of the museum was in German but it was fascinating to me, even if I couldn’t read anything. And yes, there were Wolpertinger in the museum! It’s worth an hour or so of your time — the kids inside seemed to really enjoy it. My favorite part was the fishing section with all of the different hooks and hand knotted nets and ornate poles.

After the museum, we paused at a beer garden in Marienplatz to enjoy a beer and plan our evening.

We decided to pick up our luggage at our nearby hotel and wander down to the train station, planning to eat there. I had some crazy idea the train station was a lot further away than it was. We got there in about 15-20 minutes and … well, we had many hours to wait until our train was scheduled to leave. We locked our luggage up in a locker and took off to find something to eat. I started to really get cranky from hunger and foot pain, so we stopped at the first place that looked good. We ended up at a little Italian style food cafe. N had some pasta and beer, I had pizza with proscuitto and mushrooms. It was delicious, and I was smiling again once I finally got some food in me.

We wandered back to Hauptbahnhof and still had a couple of hours to wait. On the way in, a guy walked up to me and rattled off some question about directions in German. I stared at him in complete and total “I have no freaking clue what he just said, no clue AT ALL!” I’m usually able to pick up on a word or two in other languages, but not this time. I felt pretty lame but hopefully someone else helped him.

Upstairs in the Hauptbahnhof there was a coffee stop that had the Germany-Australia World Cup game on, and plenty of comfy seating space. N bought me more water and he had some coffee, and we sat down to enjoy the game, which Germany won, 4-0! It was pretty awesome to watch German World Cup in a train station in Munich, especially when Klose scored and all of the Bayern Munchen FC fans erupted in cheers!

About an hour before our train was scheduled to depart, we retrieved our bags from the locker and headed back to our train gate. The train still wasn’t there. N went outside to smoke and I stood around with our luggage, once again having someone come up to me and ask me something in German. I really have no knowledge of German other than hello, please, thank you, wool, sock, and cherry. This person got really upset at me when I shrugged at them. Sorry!

We went back and sat down at the gate waiting for our train to arrive after a long but nice and comfortable day in Munich.

[more photos in my Munich 2010 set on flickr.]

I’m an airplane window type. I love to look out the window and see things from the sky. I think I still enjoy flying as much as I did as a kid on my first flight.

Flying into Munich, I noticed that many of the houses had solar panels. I noticed a few wind turbines and lots of farms. It didn’t seem very densely populated, and didn’t look to have a lot of sprawl. It seemed odd to me for the third largest city in Germany (1.5 million in the city proper; 5+ million in the metro area).

The airport was clean and neat. We did not have to go through passport control or customs since our flight came from France. We picked up N’s bag at baggage claim and headed to the main terminal where we converted some US dollars to Euros, then tried to decide how to get to the hotel.

After some discussion, we decided to take the S-Bahn since I had directions for how to get to the hotel from the S-Bahn station. We did have a small issue buying tickets for the train because N tried to use an ATM card and failed due to the S-Bahn machines at the airport only taking chip-and-pin ATM cards. We picked the final destination, selected (2) passengers, paid with a €20 bill, and the machine spit out two small rectangular paper tickets.

munich

We followed the signs to the S-Bahn entrance nearby and watched someone else go through, putting his small ticket into a machine that stamped it with the time. We copied him, punched our tickets, and went down the escalator to the trains. Just like metros in other cities, trains arrived on either side of the platform, each going in opposite directions. I motioned to N that our train would be on our righthand side and we noted that the digital sign above said the train would arrive in 15 minutes.

At this point I turned my cell phone back on, forgetting that I had not turned off twitter SMS and data sync and data roaming before I turned it off in Seattle. When I turned it on, 30 $.40 SMSes came pouring in. Crap! Ah well. Vacation expenses! T-Mobile was everywhere in Munich and my phone had a strong signal everywhere in the city.

After 10 minutes, the train arrived and we all clambered on. The S-Bahn was very clean and empty at this point. I pulled out the map of Munich I had packed and pointed out where the hotel was to N. The train had luggage racks above the seating but N’s luggage was so large and heavy he did not put it up there (infuriating many people in the process, I am sure — I was embarrassed). No one checked our tickets at any point but I guess they could have.

Once we were a few stops from Marienplatz (at Ostbahnhof, I believe), the train got very full. The trip time from the airport to Marienplatz was about 40 minutes. At Marienplatz we hopped out and made our way up to the street from the station.

We came out into the center of a huge festival and pedestrian center. It was packed and hot and smelled delicious. I saw people wandering around eating pretzels topped with cheese and bacon! We eventually made our way to the hotel. N had some issues dragging his huge rolly bag across the cobblestones.

the hotel

We checked into the tiny but clean hotel room on a very quiet street (Hotel Falkenturm), showered our travel funk off, and headed back out into Munich.

room 104

We walked and walked. I was so incredibly grumpy and cranky. It was my worst day. I just shut down and didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to eat or drink or take photos. I was incredibly thirsty but when I tried to drink anything (water, beer) I just felt so full I couldn’t finish it.

half-metre

N finally stopped at a street vendor and bought two half-meter weissewursts on baguette with spicy mustard and handed me one. I pushed through my crankiness and ate a bite. It was delicious. N finished his long before I finished mine, but finish mine I did!

deposit

Then he bought me a bottle of water and the vendor explained to him that when he bought the bottle of water, he was paying a deposit for the bottle. The vendor handed him a paper ticket (other vendors used plastic coins or other items) and told him to bring it back with the empty bottle to get his deposit back.

We wandered back to Marienplatz and took up residence at a beer garden so N could get a Paulaner Salvator. I had one as well but I actually did not like it at all — too sweet for me. He also ordered a snack from the menu that included a few pieces of dense dark bread, butter, and a spiced-herbed Camembert. It was the color of salmon (paprika?) and was quite delicious with some slices of onion on top.

At this point I was still very tired and grumpy and N was tired of dealing with me, so we went back to the hotel.

We lay down on the hotel bed sideways “just for a second” and we both just passed out for three hours! We woke up for a while and then went back to sleep for a full night’s rest, which I thought was a good plan for waking up and having a full Sunday in Munich.

N had to travel to Bangalore, India for work and suggested that I fly to Europe and meet him on his return for a vacation. I agreed. We went to Munich for a couple of days, taking an overnight sleeper train to Paris where we stayed for three days. It was a short and sweet trip.

I tend to be a bit of an overplanner. I stress and research and come up with backups to my backups. I usually relax once I am on the road — because I’ve planned for problems and know I can handle them. Getting to that point is the hard part for me.

I slept horribly Friday night — the dogs were at camp, N was in India, I was worried I wasn’t ready for the trip. I woke up at 0600 after falling asleep around 0300.

The airport shuttle picked me up early and I checked in at the Air France desk with no problems. Security at Sea-Tac was freaking insane — the line stretched across almost the entire main terminal. I waited and waited and waited and made it through security with no issues and headed to the South concourse with a couple of hours to spare.

waiting on board (CDG)

I took up shop in a bar, having an early lunch of a sandwich and salad and a couple of Stellas. I was mistaken for Canadian by a friendly older couple (I took it as a compliment). We boarded on time and I settled into my window seat with a French woman next to me who reminded me of my mother-in-law.

They fed us a warm meal — dinner — within the first hour of boarding. I had specified a vegetarian meal (when I was a vegetarian I learned that the vegetarian meals are usually more consistent than the meat ones, so I usually specify a vegetarian meal if I remember) and received a tasty meal of penne with tomato sauce, mixed steamed vegetables (including my one hated vegetable — lima beans — I did try eating a few of them) a tasty curried cold salad with cucumber and orzo, tapioca pudding (I gave it away), and cheesecake. I was momentarily amused by everyone ordering the (free) champagne with dinner — I had a gin and tonic.

I tried watching Invictus on my entertainment unit but they were having some sort of issues with playback on the plane, so I took an Advil PM and went to sleep.

I awoke about seven hours later with an awful headache. I forgot that Stella, if I have more than a single beer, gives me an awful hangover. Little sleep at home + bad sleep on plane + air travel + stellas + gin&tonic = wicked bad hangover. Not a good thing on a transatlantic flight!

I snoozed through the rest of the flight until the cold — breakfast — meal. This meal included plain yogurt, fruit, bread with chocolate bits, butter, juice, and a croissant. Plus coffee. Mm!

I wouldn’t understand until I got to Paris why the French flight attendant kept asking me incredulously why I didn’t want any sugar for my coffee.

The meal did a good job of waking me up and making me less cranky. Landing in Paris, I thought to myself disappointedly that airports pretty much look the same from the plane. It wasn’t until we drove over a highway and I saw some distinctly European signage that I realized I wasn’t in Kansas anymore and got a little bit excited.

In researching my connection in Paris to my flight to Munich, I discovered that I would have to exit CDG Terminal 2E, go through passport control and exit into an insecure area, then go back through security to get to Terminal 2D. Internet reports indicated that this was a complete mess that usually took an hour or two to get from one to the other. I was worried about meeting up with N and making my flight to Munich since I had less than two hours between flights.

CDG, 2E

In reality, it was a really long walk from 2E to 2D, but passport control took mere minutes and there was no line at security.

Security wasn’t entirely easy — first the man managing the bags on the conveyor belt told me to take off my “veste” — which was actually a very lightweight cardigan (Eddie Bauer Long-Sleeve San Juan Cardigan). I understood that (knitting has helped me learn clothing terms in other languages!). Then I walked through the human scanner, which beeped (it had not in Seattle).

The security woman on the other side of the scanner started barking things at me in French. I stared at her and raised my arms to let her wand me. I pointed out the snaps on my pants (Eddie Bauer Adventurer Ripstop Pants) as a possible culprit. She shook her head and continued to yell at me in French. I still have no clue what she was saying and I probably looked really stupid as I stared blankly at her in a mix of travel exhaustion and cultural/language confusion. She eventually gave up on me after yelling at me about the American cash in my pocket and waved me through.

Once through, I spied N across the way and shouted to him since he was scanning and rescanning the crowds for me. He took temporary control of my Tom Bihn Tri-Star and I ran off to the restroom where I dealt with a bloody nose — 10+ hours on a plane will do that, next time I’m travelling with nasal spray.

I returned to the gate, and it was already time to board!