As The Pretzel Twists

FRIDAY, 9/11:

We’ve been stuck in traffic a lot on this trip.  We’ve been stuck in traffic because of construction, stuck because of farm vehicles, even stuck because a tunnel was closed, but I don’t think in any of our travels we’ve been stuck because of this—

Apologies for the poor picture, which was taken out of the front windshield of Tony the Tour Guide’s van, but we were stuck in Munich traffic today because of a parade in support of legalizing marijuana in Germany.  Between that and surviving our night in Adolf Hitler’s favorite hotel room last night, I’m wondering what’s gonna be happening next!

(And actually, that was answered when Loraine shouted out, as I’m typing this, “there’s a rainbow in the sky”, which is kind of weird considering there was no rain today and, in fact, just one cloud in the sky!)

There is a rainbow there in that picture...trust me on that one.  Greetings from the Motel One Deutsches-Museum in Munich, tonight’s stop in this little ongoing adventure.  We started the morning in a quiet country setting, and ended it in Germany’s third largest city, a seething mass of humanity—

More on that in a bit.  We wanted to visit Munich to, as always, pay our respects to Sophie & Hans Scholl.

Sophie & Hans were the brother & sister who led the White Rose resistance movement against the Nazis during the early 40s and paid for it with their lives.  That, in fact, is why you see the white rose in the picture Loraine laid at the foot of their crosses.  If you wanna know the whole story about Sophie & Hans, scroll up a little on the right hand side of the page, click on 2011, and then the “Why You Should Always Admire a White Rose” entry.  Go ahead, do it now.  We’ll wait for you.

(a slight pause for effect, and then...)

There.  Now you know all about them, and their amazing story.  We visiting several places that played an important part in their story, even crashing the opening day of the International Conference on Long Term Care and End of Life Planning (and no, I’m not making that up.  No one could make that up if they wanted to!) in the process.

After that, we tried to visit St Michael’s Church, the final resting place of our old friend King Ludwig II, but between trying to get through the seething mass of humanity pictured above and the fact that we spent over an hour trying to find a parking space, we ended up at the crypt three minutes after it closed.  Three lousy minutes!

C’est la vie, I guess.  Or whatever the German equivalent of “C’est La Vie” would be.

The seething mass of humanity did, however, provide one weird moment—

No, I don’t know why those two guys were rolling a giant tire imprinted with the hashtag “Be More Human” on it.  Maybe I should just paraphrase the movie “Chinatown”, say “It’s Munich, Jake”, and leave it at that.

What else did we see today?  Well, a fountain that shows Germany’s obsession with statues of naked men—

A police horse keeping the city safe—

And a countdown clock to the release of the newest Star Wars movie in December—

See?  The Germans are nerds, just like us!

Tomorrow is, sad to say, our last day on tour.  We’re gonna get up early and make sure we get to see King Ludwig’s crypt right as it opens, visit a very important museum, and have lunch at Munich’s most famous Biergarten.  Oh, and we hope to avoid the seething masses, as well. 

Wish us luck!

(jim@wmqt.com)