SATURDAY, 9/8:
Look. I made a new friend today!
Greetings from the NH Munchen Flughafen
hotel, where we are spending our last night on German soil before
heading home really, really early tomorrow morning. How early?
Well, we'll probably wake up just after 4am here, so we can get a
ready to go for our first flight of the day at 730. To give you a
little perspective, we'll be waking up around 10 pm Saturday night in
Marquette. Our flight to Sawyer gets in just before 9 pm Sunday
night.
Yup. We land 23 hours after we wake up
for the day. It'll be glorious.
(Pity sarcasm doesn't travel well in
the written word, isn't it?)
We did two things today. The first was
to return to the Residenz Palace in Munich, the first place we
visited on this epic journey. The reason for going back was that we
didn't get there until late in the afternoon of the day we arrived,
and they were already closing off parts of the exhibits. We just
didn't know how much we missed. As it turns out, they had closed
almost 60% of the stuff we were supposed to see, so it's a good thing
we went back. I mean, mostly it was to check out rooms this this--
That's the throne room for Ludwig's
randy grandfather Ludwig I, who you may remember from yesterday's
blog as the guy who liked women a lot. We also checked out the
rebuilt chapel (bombed during World War II) where Ludwig II was
formally crowned. But perhaps the most stunning thing in the complex
was the Residenz Theater, where Ludwig II would go and watch the
operas that he loved so much and that made up such a large part of
his life--
His friend Richard Wagner, the guy who
wrote “Ride of the Valkyries” as part of his “Ring” trilogy
(thus enabling everyone in pop culture from Bugs Bunny to “Apocalypse
Now” to steal it), would often put on productions at the theater.
Ludwig would attend, sitting in his royal box--
That would change over the years,
though, as the people who went to the show would not watch what was
happening on stage. Instead, because the lights were left on during
the performance, they'd turn around and focus their opera glasses on
the shy king, who then became quite aware that hundreds of magnified
eyes were staring at him. That was something he did not like.
Eventually, he built a theater into his Neuschwanstein castle and had
productions put on there for an audience of one—him.
At least that way, no one would be
staring at him.
Our other stop today was one of the
great municipal parks on the planet, the Englisher Garten (English
Garden)--
The park was started by one of Ludwig's
predecessors, who took the old royal hunting grounds and turned it
into a park for everyone to enjoy. In true Bavarian style it has a
Beer Garden--
And in non-traditional Bavarian style
you can also see people playing cricket in it.
But perhaps the most unique thing about
the park is the surfing. Yes, surfing, in a city park thousands of
kilometers away from the nearest ocean. Don't believe me?
I wouldn't lie to you, would I? What
happens is this—there's a river running through the park, and where
it goes under a bridge the surfers (and the city) have constructed a
series of walls that force the river into a narrow path, causing it
to rush through the bridge and kick up some rather mean rapids. The
surfers wait on either side of the river. One jumps in and rides the
current as long as she or he can, and then the next person takes
their turn. There are dozens of surfers at any one time, and
hundreds of spectators watching them, cameras and phones in hand.
It's quite the spectacle. And not
something you'd expect in a city park.
That's about it for today. What else
do I have to share? Well, how about a statue of a guy strangling a
wild boar with his hands--
Cows in the middle of Munich--
Well, okay, they're not REAL cows, but
they were still cows in the middle of Munich.
And we saw this--
Germany has been rocked the past
several days by neo-Nazi rallies in the eastern city of Chemnitz,
similar to what we went through in Charlottesville last year. So
across the country today rallies were held to show that most Germans
are tolerant and loving people, much like rallies were held in places
like Marquette to show that most Americans are tolerant and loving
people.
While our trip is almost over, these
blogs aren't. I'll be spending a LOT of time in airplanes and
airports tomorrow, so you'll get another one of these with all the
stuff I didn't get to. That should include (but is not limited to)
the legend behind Berchtesgaden's iconic Watzmann peak, how German
elections (coming up next month) are held, and how I may have been
slightly mistaken a week ago when talking about a giant killer swan.
Oh, and I'll have my niece Mallory's
annual picture (and the story behind it), as well.
Well, 4 am comes way too soon when
you're...heck, 4 am comes soon no matter what you're doing. So with
that in mind...
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