Washout

We had initially planned to go to Hellbrunn Palace, just outside the city, but we woke to the sound of heavy rains. As most of the activities at Hellbrunn involved walking outside and in park areas, we decided to nix the idea. We ended up taking an earlier train to Munich since there was no point sitting in a hotel room in Salzburg during a rainstorm, so we arrived around 3pm at our AirBnB. It was decently located, nicely decorated with storm trooper art, but also smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. It was supposed to be non-smoking.

We ultimately ended up bailing on it since Nicole was getting congested and my eyes were drying up. It sounds like the guy will refund our money as we got a hotel near the main train station. To comfort ourselves, we went out for drinks at the Hofbrauhaus, walked in for a second to see all the young rowdy kids drinking and being loud, did an about-face and tried to find another beer hall. We went into a place called Ratskeller, but we were the youngest people there by at least 40 years. There must have been some sort of senior discount.

Long story, short? We ended up back at the Hofbrauhaus. We had some sausages, potato salad, beers, and a pretzels. We essentially closed the Hofbrauhaus and outlasted all the amateur American tourists. It was a struggle trying to find what to order since we had actually been to a sort of Hofbrauhaus - lite earlier in the day near Max Weber Platz. We tried to interpret menus that were in all German amongst a crowd that was all German. We ended up with a meat and cheese platter. Unsurprisingly, it is not what we thought we had ordered.

Then, once we got to the real Hofbrauhaus, we found ourselves again trying to interpret a German menu. We later acquired another menu that was in . . . Italian. It has been an interesting day, and not necessarily a grand one. Traveling, as they say, is as much about the experience as it is about sites and scenery. While my pictures may not be as profound today, I think we can all appreciate this picture of lil' Cole eating a big pretzel.

Allegedly the rain is supposed to stop some time tomorrow, so we can actually venture out and explore. If Munich wants to improve its reputation, it needs to stop this rain nonsense. It was downright miserable. I would have thought it was February based on how cold and dreary it is. Gluck Auf.