Well, I made it and I’m feeling better now, thankyouverymuch. But it was a long trip. I left Boston at 10 pm Saturday and flew into Frankfurt at 10:50 am Sunday local time, then ran through passport control to make my 12:30 connection to Munich. Then I took more than an hour and a half to take the train system (which is really wonderful here in Munich, by the way, no complaints) to my hotel.
After that, I took a shower, and things started looking up. Then my coworker Bob and I went out walking in the city center, and somehow (how does this happen to me?) ended up at the Augustiner brewery where we had dinner in their very excellent, very traditional “brästuben.” And when I say “very traditional,” I mean we sat at a table with a bunch of strangers, facing the oompah band in one direction and the horse stables in the other. Really. The traditional brewery horses had been brought in from their pastures to become accustomed to the city noises and traffic in preparation for Oktoberfest next weekend, and we could see them through a glass window. unfortunately, Bob got some other benefits—somehow some very persistent flies were making it over into the dining room and attempting to monopolize his attention.
Our company was excellent, too: two German speaking couples who were very kind with our lack of the language, and one pair of college age sisters from Ohio State—one new graduate and one freshman getting a head start on her beer drinking. We could probably get them into trouble, or at least embarrass them by mentioning how the younger one was drinking the older sister under the table, if we had gotten their names.