Evening at Connie and Axel's - Day in downtown Munchen

Last night it was just great to have a quiet evening at the Strasser's.  Brenda said to stay up and get on German time and we did.

 The inn we are staying is an old brewery in the village of Irsee - settled by monks.  The monastery and brewery have been beautifully renovated and it smells like wood that has been freshly cut.  Beautiful church, village and trails to walk by gardens and cottages straight from Heidi books.

This is a picture of one of the ceilings in the monastery....notice how the leg appears to be 3-D and stick out of the painting.  There are several of these techniques visable in the paintngs....some with other limbs and some with snakes.

Today it was drizzle rain so Connie took us downtown to Munchen where we just looked at people and buildings.

We even went into the most amazing hardware store - they have the coolest bathroom fixtures here you could ever imagine.  We will never look at Lowes and Home Depot the same.

 I especially liked the fact that people take their dogs everywhere, into all the stores even Prada and Cartier.  We didn't go into those stores but people driving Bentleys and Ferrarris did and they took their dogs with them!!!

Tomorrow we are going to a castle where the king always liked being alone - he was a little nuts and the people of government decided he was building too many bachelor pad castles and chased him into a lake and drowned him!!  At least that is the story Axel shared and he has read a lot of books on stuff like that.

We survived the first leg....

We made it to Munich and managed to find Connie & Axel.  We did about everything wrong on the trains in Munich, but still managed to get to Kaufbeuren, where Axel picked us up.

The flight over was tremendous....I always wondered what those people in the front of the plane were eating....they're eating much better than the peanuts they give you in the back of the plane.  That flight was our first experience in business class....that was a huge jump from coach....thank you Brenda.

Enjoying some expresso in Irlee with Connie & Axel...

44 degrees in Germany today.....we have too many t-shirts and not enough jackets !!

Crunch time....

Crunch time is here.  We leave tomorrow. Now is the time to see if we have remembered to do everything. Since we are flying 'standby', we are taking no checked baggage.  We each have a new micro-fiber wardrobe....we can pack 5 days of clothes in a shoe box!

Since we have always lived our lives on a 'last minute' basis, we have done the bulk of our planning in the last week.  This has been good....trying to think of the possibilities has been stressful.   Had we started planning 6 months ago, we would be crazy now.  Of course I say planning like we have some.  So far we are only planned for the first week.  We fly tomorrow to Dulles (IAD) then on to Munich at 5:30pm....landing in Munich at 7:30am (local).  Our friends Connie & Axel will pick us up and be our hosts for the first few days.  We have reservations at a bed & breakfast in Venice for Thursday and Friday night, pick up a car on Saturday and head South.  We will figure the next 2 weeks out as we go.

None of this would have been possible without the generous help of Brenda Skeen (UAL flight attendant and world traveler) and David Miller (master organizer and world traveler).  They have both provided us with all of the travel tips and secrets to make us feel prepared, not to mention UAL companion passes!!

So today, we study all of our lists and make certain we have all of the items.....then figure out how to get them into 2 carry-on bags!!

Wonder if I can upload a picture ....?

That wasn't too bad.  If you are going to add your first picture, I can't think of a better picture than the grandchildren.  This was from July 2010 on our family vacation to Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio.
Left to right...Cooper (4), Addison (4), Amelia (almost 6), Preslee (9 mos)

So you think we should start a BLOG ?

Well, we are off to Europe in a few days.  At the suggestion of my sister Shirley, we decided to start a blog so our friends and relatives could follow along on our trip.  "It's easy to blog...." she said....but I am definitely a beginner at this.  This is my third attempt at beginning and it is starting to make some sense now.  So, if I can get this 'post' up and running, my next test task is to upload some pictures.