Home!

Our last day of non-travel in Europe was a long, rather packed day in Munich. We spent most of the day in the wonderful Deutsches Museum, a terrific science museum that could have swallowed two whole days without any trouble at all. I particularly enjoyed the boats, trains and planes -- and they have a fantastic model train set! -- but also got a whole new appreciation for metallurgy and forging, of all things. Anyway, time well spent.

After the Deutsches Museum we walked down the river to the Englisher Garten, a "Central Park"-style mid-town green space laced with bicycle and footpaths as well as horse riding trails. We stopped for a pick-me-up beer & pretzl at the Chinese pagoda and continued on to the small lake in the centre of the park where we had ribs and salad for dinner. (The salad cost way more than the HUGE serving of ribs that we split between us.)

As we were finishing the food and getting started on the beers it very suddenly got darker and colder and we set off towards the road to find a taxi home when I happened to look south across the lake, to see birds exploding off the island in the middle. The reason soon became clear and we started running -- a hailstorm caught up with us within feet, and torrential rain followed soon after! Drenched, we took refuge in the fancy restaurant by the lake. Once the rain had died down a bit -- about 15 minutes later, maybe -- they called us a cab and we went back to the hotel to change, and pack to come home!

The flight was straightforward and we made it home to house and cats. Everything seems fine here, thanks to our friends Meredith & Bernard and Eric who house-sat for us for the last three weeks. About half an hour after we got home, a delivery man brought us flowers from my parents to welcome us back!

It's almost 6pm EST now, which feels like midnight for us, so I don't know how much longer we will be able to stay up, though we'll try and get as much of the jet lag out of the way today. I hope we'll hear from everyone soon and see everyone as soon as possible. We have a lot of wine left over from the wedding to drink!
posted by Tom at 5:44 PM | link |