Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Germany and Switzerland: Day 1 and 2...

Ken and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in Germany and Switzerland!  It was seriously the best vacation we have ever taken.  I am sad that it is over, but happy to be able to share pictures.  And boy, do I have a lot of pictures.  I am warning you now, I have a ton to say about our trip and share in photos.

This was our 5 year wedding anniversary and 10 year anniversary of being together trip, which is super hard to believe it has been that long!

We had decided a few months ago that we would do carry-on luggage only in the form of a backpack.  Yeah, just think about that for a second.  I was able to pack 10 days of clothes into a backpack.  That in itself should earn me some type of prize.

Clearly a Christmas miracle


We arrived to the airport on Wednesday and learned that our flight from Kansas City to Chicago was delayed.  Apparently the fire near O'Hare the day prior had left many flights delayed.  The delay would have given us 4 minutes to get to our next flight.  We got past security and went to the gate and spoke to the agent.  During our conversation with her, we learned our flight had been delayed even further and there was no way we could catch our flight once we got to Chicago.  The agent worked some magic and ended up getting us re-routed to London from Chicago and we would arrive in Munich at 3:45.  This was quite a disappointment because we were supposed to be in Munich at 9:20 am originally, but there was nothing we could do.  We got to Chicago and killed our layover with drinks and dinner.


It was quickly realized that Ken was in love with his backpack.  

Clearly I do not feel the same love for my backpack.

Backpack and beer, he is ready to board the plane!


The flight from Chicago to London was absolutely horrible.  Because we were one of the last to get on the flight, we did not have the seats I had originally selected for our original flight.  We had two middle seats.  Somehow the very nice Italian lady next to Ken offered to switch seats so Ken could have the aisle.  I think she saw the panic on his face when he saw he was in the middle.  Even with the moving around, neither of us slept at all.  Maybe it had something to do with all the wine we were drinking?  We learned that wine is free on international flights, so it seemed wrong not to drink it!

Ken may have had a few more drinks than me. 


We had a four hour layover in London.  I was bummed because if it had been even an hour longer, we could have gone to see at least one site in London like Buckingham Palace.  Heathrow was a super clean airport, but we were both miserable while we were there.  We started our time there by taken a horrible shuttle to our terminal that was jam packed full of people.  It was so hot.  You know, the kind of hot where your boobs start to sweat and you feel a drop of sweat falling down your bra.  It was awful.  The people watching in the airport was pretty fun.

We got aboard the British Airways flight from London to Munich and Ken and I had aisle seats right across from each other.  One of the funniest things of the entire trip happened when we landed in Munich.  The British man sitting next to me (in the middle seat) told me he needed to get his stuff out of the overhead compartment.  People were already standing in the aisle, including Ken so there was no room for me to get out of my seat.  I told the guy that there was no room for me to get up and he told me that it was quite alright, he would just climb over me.  Climb over me he did.  He proceeded to get out two large suitcases and stand practically on my lap all while his wife was barking orders at him from the window seat.  It was kind of like the twilight zone, but we were finally in Munich!

We quickly figured out the S-Bahn system and made our way from the airport to our hotel.  By the time we got to our hotel we had been travelling for 26 hours and neither one had slept for more than an hour.  We decided instead of showering and changing, we would walk around for a bit, eat, and call it an early night.

We started making our way to the Marienplatz to see the main sites in Munich.



We were starving, so we set out to get something for dinner.  We found the famous Hofbrauhaus and went in to check it out.  It was chaos, pure chaos. 

A private party in one of the upstairs rooms of Hofbrauhaus

We decided that we were not quite in the mood for the loud atmosphere of Hofbrauhaus and we made our way over to Augustiner am Platzl instead.  It was the perfect place for dinner.  We were seated with a nice retired couple from San Francisco and enjoyed talking to them.  

We loved the beer from Augustiner!


A view of the restaurant and our cute German waitress


Prost!

After dinner we walked around and made our way back to our hotel.  We were so tired that I declined the offer for ice cream.  That should tell you how exhausted I was!

It was a great first day in Munich!


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