Oktoberfest Day

This was the day. The day we went to Oktoberfest. Still in our 20s!!!

First we watched the mid-day Glockenspiel show. A delight!

We walked by this cool pond. It was sunny out!

Up to the top of the Rathaus for the Munich view.

Pretty cool. Cute boyfriend!

I got arty farty. Again.

Gargoyles for Merkle!

Don't worry, this was nowhere historically relevant. The drywall in a refinished elevator bank.

We also strolled through the Viktualienmarkt and they had cute crafts!

Re-fueled with bon bons! Not sure when we got them but dayum, they were good.

Random Michael Jackson shrine? Wow. Ok Munich, whatever you say.

And then, it was time for Oktoberfest. This is round 2.

Gingerbread!

It's true that it's tricky to get a table. But we figured it out. You have to make friends. This is me n' Kine. Her whole family was at this table. Their grandmother had just won the Norwegian lottery and sent them to Oktoberfest for fun. Kine is planning to open her own business as an undertaker. She also adorned me with this hat within the first 10 seconds of our friendship.

Oktoberfest doesn't do nachos. They do radishes.

Keene and Siv, a good friend of this family and also Norwegian. Fan of camping.

A bunch of New Yorkers in the background trying to hone in on our Norwegians.

Keanu. Looks like a really entertaining game.

Lederhosen everywhere! I'm not complainin'!

This is a souvenir the Norwegians bought me. A pic of me, Keene and the two brothers framed in a gingerbread heart and also a necklace that I wore the rest of the night. BFFs for an evening!

Here is a lame video I took that I remember being rather amusing at the time. I only wish I'd captured people singing "Country Roads", because they REALLY love that song.

Tip o' the Iceberg

Seriously you guys. I have a lot of pictures. Sorry. You will have to deal. If you get really sick of it you can come over to my parents house and help me figure out how to use Wordpress and then I can speed things along. But for now - enjoy more of us in Munich!

We heard about this Palace, called "Residenz", so of course had to check it out. It was ridiculous!

Beheading statue. Hardcore!

Um...Fireplace? Yes, please!

Great hall. Fit for a king!

Some of these were real, some fakes. The royals never knew which was which! Old timey scams.

Ok. Shell Grotto or whatever. This is insane. All made of shells. And these two background dummies are ruining my photo.

But anyway here it is. Crazy!

Lots of hot glue.

The most impressive part about Residenz, was their collection of artifacts. Narwhal stein, anyone?

Crazy ornate flask.

My fave - travel kit. Amazeballs!

Shannon - 'member when we collected all those tiny perfume bottles?

Boo-ya! Comes with matching scepter.

The everyday crown.

Phew! That was a lot of artifacts. We had to take a break at Spatenhaus. Hands-down one of our top 5 meals of the trip.

Tradish.

My meal won. Duck, dumplings, red cabbage. DAYUM!

All paired perfectly with Spaten bier.

Refueled, it was onto the BMW Museum and factory tour. Unfortunately they don't allow photos on the factory tour. But trust me guys, I am not into "how it's made", but that tour was AWESOME! Robots, robots, robots, SCIENCE. So cool.

Cafe at BMW. Here is a "salad" you can order. Oh, Germany.

They had these orby guys floating around the floor. I pet one.

Keene's BMW 507 he was lusting after. We took a lot of pics of it. Pretty hot.

Cool arty moving sculpture that morphed into silhouettes of the different BMW models.


Oh, and this was hanging in the hallway at our hotel. Keene was convinced it looks like Val Kilmer. I'm not so sure. You be the judge.

Hi Friends!

Whew! Long time, no blog. *Thanks for sticking with me guys* I've been preparing myself for the epic task of blogging our 1,000+ photos. I want to show you just the highlights, but hot dayum there are so many highlights!

I missed boring you guys with every detail of my life. So, shall we continue?

Day one, right off the train from the airport, we popped up and this thing was staring me right in the face. The Glockenspiel at the Rathaus at the Marienplatz. I shed a tear. Was probs just the travel exhaustion!

After a (a-hem, 3.5 hour) power nap, we had to make our first stop: Donner Kebab.

I was in no mood to wait for Keene to be camera-ready.

Awww yeah....!!! So good! Red cabbage! Shaved meat! This "imbiss" was right next to the Hofbrauhaus, which I don't have pics of but it was poppin' as we walked through. We weren't well rested enough to take that on yet, so we saved it for Oktoberfest (stay tuned for that post).

We followed the advice of our hotel manager and went to check out the Glockenspiel's night time "go to bed, go to bed" (in her words) routine. It's like the most giant music box ever. Only in Germany.

Here we are, breakfast at the Munchner Kindl. VERY Bavarian.

Cutesy Wootsey with awesome German breakfast: rolls, salami, cheese, jam, coffee n' juice :) This place set the tone for some good convo with midwesterners! They're everywhere.

DOOR at the Rathaus - *loves it*

Just a little ironwork for ya...

Google translate boop boop beep:

Stained glass in the hizzay

This was super quiet and peaceful until a tour group came through

Merkle I got you this Gargoyle

And this one

I was pretty in love with this door within a door

We were there at the very end of September, just in time to still catch all the flower boxes doin' their thang!

The first part of our trip was a fun whirlwind. So many more pics to come! Missed you guys. :)