Munich

It’s rainorama here.  Or rainapalooza.  Rain in the forecast as far as the eye can see.

Monday evening we got into town just at dinnertime.  We are staying at a rental in Gruenwald, just south of the city, very close to where we lived a decade ago, so we planned to go to our favorite biergarten just south, but, on the way there, the lightning chased us back and we ended up at the McDonald’s in town.

Tuesday we took the streetcar into the city and spent some time walking around the pedestrian area, looking at old churches, etc., until we got tired of the rain and came back.

Wednesday we got a late start, but decided, since the rain was forecast to hold off until the afternoon, to start with a walk in the forest just south of Gruenwald, which was, since our house when we lived here was at the south end of town, pretty much in our backyard.  Well, it didn’t last very long before it started pouring.  We ended up at the “Flugwerft Schleissheim,” the Deutsches Museum branch devoted to aircraft, chosen because it was suburban and reachable by car – though as it happened the downpour ended before we even made it there, and it stayed dry the rest of the afternoon, and, at the same time, the museum was smaller than I’d remembered, so if we hadn’t panicked due to the rain, I would have made a different choice.

Thursday, my husband wanted to spend some time getting work done, so the kids and I went into town ourselves, to the Deutsches Museum.  The museum itself was fine, but it was undergoing a major renovation, so many of the exhibits were closed down.  We did enjoy ourselves but it wasn’t the same Top Sight as it would have otherwise been.  It was, at any rate, gratifying to see that it was pouring rain outside.  Afterwards, my husband met us (the rain had stopped by then!), we had dinner, and then saw the Independence Day sequel at a nearby movie theatre which specialized in original-language movies.

Friday I again took the kids into town, since my husband had a lunch meeting.  We went to the Englisher Garten, ate lunch at the Biergarten there, the kids played on the playground, and eventually we met up with my husband, and took our time wandering around the Odeonplatz/Marienplatz area, but left early and (finally!) had dinner at the Biergarten near our apartment.

Saturday – finally – had good weather in the forecast.  Well, comparatively at least, still in the 60s but no chance of rain.  Our initial plan was to go to Lindau, take a boat cruise on the Bodensee, then get in the car and drive to Switzerland, which was so close that even without a specific destination it would be fun to say we’d been there.  And we did indeed go to Lindau, cruise, then eat lunch and walk around town for a bit, but then, well, planning ahead a bit more would have helped us, because all of the sudden the GPS told us it would be 1.25 hours to St. Gallen, the closest larger town, and we couldn’t easily identify an alternate, closer destination.  So we changed our plans, and visited a “bauernhof museum” – an open-air museum – on the way back, then further changed our plans and made one final visit with the grandmother in Augsburg, meeting for ice cream as a late afternoon (OK, dinnertime) treat.

And on Sunday the trip was over.  We had packed, mostly, on Saturday night, so there wasn’t much to finish up on Sunday, and we got to the airport early enough to go to mass at the airport chapel before going through security and boarding the plan.

So now we’re back home.  Lots to do to catch up on work, and other obligations, and weeds to pull, but I do plan on uploading various pictures online, even if just as a more organized way to show them to family & friends than posting onto facebook. And in the meantime – well, world news just can’t seem to manage to take a vacation, can it, between Brexit and the Orlando shooting and the police shootings and the Nice attack and the failed coup, only now to return to the very painful GOP convention?