lately...

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken the time to update you on what I’ve been doing. Here’s a brief overview of my last month here in Munich. Besides for the everyday things like running, going to class, reading, and attempting to keep my room free from the fruit fly infestation (primarily in the kitchen, but throughout the apartment), I was able to do a number of cultural activities.

My fruitfly trap

Some of the museums that I visited include two technical and automotive museums, the Munich city museum, and 4 art museums. I’ve come to realize that most things can be interesting if approached in the right way. Art never really interested me before, but I found the museums here as well as the architecture of several buildings, especially churches fascinating. When combined with historical anecdotes and being able to see things first-hand, it all makes a lot more sense. I can now better appreciate the different art movements. One thing, that catches my attention each time that I hear or read it, is that the reason that Munich so much artwork has, even though 80% of the city was completely destroyed in WWII, is that they knew the bombs would come and because Hitler loved artwork, he saw to it that all most of the artwork was removed from the city and stored in safer places.

I visited Schloss Neuschwanstein (the castle that looks like the Disney castle) and Schloss Nymphenburg. The first of those two was neat to learn about and see, but had way to much decoration and ornamentation for my tastes. The surrounding landscape with the autumn leaves was gorgeous.





Many days were rainy and dreary, but there were a few days on which we had gorgeous weather, such as those this weekend. I took full advantage of the sunny days spending my entire time outdoors going for walks along the Starnberger See, in the Englischer Garten and in the garden belonging to Nymphenburg Palace.

This past Saturday, I spent attempting avoiding city center, yet having a difficult time getting around the city because of protests that were being held. A group of about 1000 neo-Nazis were demonstrating in the city’s center. Their actions were condemned by the mayor as well as numerous others here. An anti-protest was held by about 5000 people and police from several large cities in Germany were here to enforce safety and crowd control.

I also watched a theatrical production of a book by a Swiss author that I read a few years ago and got to see a ballet. Both were excellent.

Oh, and I’ve seen two shops with names about as close to mine as they come: “April April” and “Aprilia”