Munich

Last year, I took a trip to the San Juan mountains in Colorado with Paul Hooper as a birthday present to myself. We backpacked into a lake at 11000 feet to camp overnight, and we hiked up to 13000 the following morning. It was an incredible experience, and I decided to try replicating it by taking a trip to Munich and hiking in the Alps for my 30^th birthday.

I emailed a few couchsurfers in Munich who had “hiking” listed in their interests, and a woman named Ruth got back to me in early September. She said that the first weekend in October worked for her, and that she'd be up for both a hike and a trip to Oktoberfest. So I booked a ticket to arrive in Munich early on a Friday and leave in the afternoon of a Monday.

I'd been to Munich once before, in 2002, during my month long loop around Europe. During that trip, my travel companions and I didn't see that much of the city. We spent our time taking day trips to a castle an hour outside of town and the concentration Dachau, and spending time in beer gardens. So I was really seeing the city through new eyes.

I was struck by how grand and imperialistic Munich seemed after I've been living in Amsterdam for four months. Amsterdam is a modest city overall – few large palaces or churches, no archways or gold plated statues. Munich has all of these things: arches and large roundabouts; Greek statues; sculptures; and museums documenting empires.

Outside of the palaces, museums, and government buildings, the architecture is uniquely Bavarian.

The interior of the imperial residence museum.

Like Amsterdam bars, Munich bars and restaurants advertise the beer they serve.


This type of scene is common in Munich: lots of empty liters of beer.

Munich has similar outdoor markets as Amsterdam.

I went to a flea market with Ruth and saw all sorts of German trinkets.



The common apartment styles in Munich







Chestnuts sold on the street.




Many of the bakeries in Munich sell the iconic Bavarian giant pretzels

Most of my time in Munich was spent wandering aimlessly around the town, popping into random museums and shops, and taking pictures along the way. I did get out of town into Austria for hiking, and I visited Oktoberfest. Separate posts for those.

Dutch Dunes

I went on my first meetup group outing in a while this morning. A group of eight expats met at Central Station in Amsterdam and took the train to Haarlem, which is about twelve miles to the west. After we arrived in Haarlem, we took a bus another few miles west toward the western coast of the Netherlands for a hike along the beach and then through a coastal nature preserve.

A piece of art above the ticket center in the Haarlem train station.

The arched ceiling within the Haarlem train station.

The forecast had changed a few times in the days leading up to the outing. On Friday, it called for rain all day. On Saturday, it said that there was only a 30% change of "scattered showers." But on Sunday morning, it said to expect around a quarter of an inch of rain.

Fortunately, I purchased my first ever rain jacket and rain pants on Saturday in preparation for the potential precipitation. I'm glad I had the hike as an excuse to do this - I should have bought this gear months ago for the day-to-day life in Amsterdam.

The forecasts calling for rain turned out to be the most accurate. The rains started as soon as we got off of the train and waited for the bus at the uncovered bus stop. They stopped briefly when the bus dropped us off at the beach, but the sky opened up above us and dumped a steady stream of water as we tromped through the sand. There were no trees or man made shelters to protect us. We just had to put our heads down and tolerate it.

Fortunately, the rain gear I bought worked perfectly. The clothes I wore underneath stayed perfectly dry, as did my backpack (which I put under my jacket) and my food and camera inside.

After about an hour, the heavy rains gave way to leaden gray skies, scattered showers, some rays of sunlight peaking through the clouds, and, eventually, warm and sunny weather.

The beach itself reminded me a bit of the Oregon coast. It was bordered by sand dunes and long grass that was kicked sideways from the steady winds. Once we went inland, a few little patches of forest popped up on top of rolling hills.

An empty beach side structure that seemed strangely Latin American to me.

We walked back into Haarlem and passed by a large church/cathedral/museum in what I believe was the center of town. It was really remarkable. It stood on the edge of the type of large square I picture being more common in Southern Europe.

A house/museum/government building (unclear) in Haarlem

This is the common mint tea served in cafes in the Netherlands.

And I took a couple of random pictures back in Amsterdam:

Fall is in the air, and the trees are starting to lose their leaves. The town colors are becoming more muted.

This cat was having a little adventure across the street from my apartment. This was outside a fourth floor window.

Birthday

Amsterdam is not a large city. Its population is under 800,000, and you can ride your bike from the southern end (around my office) to the northern end (around Central Station). It would be the 16^th largest U.S. City, right after Columbus, Ohio. Even so, it has world class museums, restaurants, and dance clubs.

It was my 30^th birthday on Tuesday, and I decided to take advantage of the restaurant variety and have Ethiopian food for the first time in eight years. Albuquerque, despite having Vietnamese, Thai, Ayurvedic, Greek, Mexican, Italian, and Brazilian, had no Ethiopian.

It was fantastic, with lots of fun, unique aspects to the meal. There was a beer made from banana and a beer made from quinoa. A large, pancake like spongy bread with a cornucopia of meats, vegetables, and lentils. There was cinnamon and stracciatella ice cream. And after, there were beers at Dopey's Elixer, a fun neighborhood tavern.

It was a nice birthday. Even far away from family and my closest friends, it was eventful and memorable. As most things in Amsterdam tend to be.

Spider make webs surprisingly quickly around here. This one was on a bike next to mine on the rack.

Banana beer in a coconut cup

Indoor photography is hard for me

The Party is Over

The school year has started, and my nights of wandering the town and weekends of exploring the countryside and castles are for the most part suspended by simultaneous sharp increases in workload and rainfall.

Before the current storm of teaching prep, instruction, and grading (no TA's for this class, and a lot of material to cover in six weeks), a grant application, and paper writing, I went on my department's annual "outing," which functions as a welcoming for new students and faculty, and a general team/community building exercise. One of the highlights was caught on film: