BMW and Beer

This morning we were up decently early to go to the airport. Having not landed in Brussels we had no idea how long it would take to return the car, check in and get to the gate. We decided to leave the hotel 2:30 hours before our flight (8:30 am) which ended up working quite nicely. Returning the car was a breeze, which was a welcomed relief after our AMS experience with Hertz. The Lufthansa check-in wasn’t super fast took a few minutes but was fine. I also learned something interesting. Lufthansa doesn’t care how many bags a person checks, it only cares about the total weight of checked items. Each passenger is allowed 20KG. To be difficult I specifically asked the lady if I could check ten bags each weighing 2KG if I wanted and she said yes.

After completing our check in we went spent a few minutes in the Star Alliance’s Gold Lounge before heading to the gate. I was stoked to see that they had a self service soda fountain and glasses that were bigger than 6 ounces. Needless to say I consumed a lot of Coke Light in the ensuing 30 minutes. When we arrived at our gate I read the information on the reader board. It said, “Lufthansa strictly adheres to a one carry-on baggage limit.” This set a lightbulb off in my mind. We were missing a bag. We left our Lulu Lemon shopping bag at either the car return or the Lufthansa counter. We only had 20 minutes until our plane left and there was no way I had time to run back and try to find it. The bag contained all of our acquired yummies and two electrical cords. Mom had used my portable plug adapter to charge her camera battery in the car. I threw those cords in the top of the Lulu bag at the hotel and sadly they are now gone :~( I hate wasting money and that’s about $200 down the drain. I’m also devastated (that is not too strong of a word) by the fact that I think I lost all of the mini-boxes of chocolate sprinkles I had lifted from breakfast. Evidently people in Belgium put chocolate sprinkles on bread for breakfast. I thought this was the coolest things ever, and had taken a few boxes for the road. Unfortunately I think they are now being blown up by the bomb squad in the Brussels airport.

We are now on the flight to Munich. I had a terrible thought. My drug bag (insulin, all my pump supplies, and my pills) is not in my backpack. I am not certain that I put them in my checked bag, which means they too might be in the lost Lulu bag. If that’s the case, I’m screwed. And I’m still really bummed about the sprinkles. I am also entertained by the fact that woman, yes woman, across the aisle from me is reading Playboy. I’m sure it’s for the articles.

Few... my drugs are in my checked bag. Crisis almost averted. I was holding out hope that my sprinkles would be in my checked bag too. I really thought I had put them in something other than the Lulu bag. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to settle for not dying. Now off to get the car at Hertz.

On the way to the rental car area in the Munich airport you have to go outside into a large courtyard like area. In this courtyard today there was, no joke, a polo exhibition being played. It’s pretty cool that the first live polo, of the non-Marco variety, I’ve ever witnessed came at the Munich airport.

Hooray for the Munich airport Hertz. My name was actually in lights today! Within ten minutes of spotting my name we had a car, keys and were ready to roll. That even included the time it took me to figure out how to reset the language of our GPS system from German to English.

My first goal for Munich was to locate a hoop near the Olympic Stadium complex. I knew the area surrounding the venues from 72 Games had been turned into a park and I figured I could probably find a hoop. It turns out I was right. It was super cool. The best picture, however, was probably not of the Olympic Stadium or corresponding radio tower, but rather one of the BMW World buildings. Speaking of BMW world...

... after wandering around the park a bit I decided I wanted to see a little of BMW World. Not surprisingly seeing all the cars made me want a new convertible, so I bought one. I kid, I kid. I didn’t buy a car, at least not one I can drive. Only a mini-model of the one I currently have. I also bought and ate possibly the best dessert I’ve ever had. It was truly an amazing marscapone/whipped cream/mouse like base, with a layer of raspberries and then topped with meringue. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.

Next we hopped on the U3 and head for downtown. Munich really is a clean and beautiful city. The buildings are totally picturesque. Since today was a Sunday, almost all of the stores were closed but even just peeking in the windows was enjoyable. Before too long both mom and I were hungry, so we set off for the Hofbrahaus for dinner.

The Hofbrahaus is quite a place. First off, it is HUGE... like really, really big. I think it is supposed to be the largest beer house in world and frankly, I can’t imagine one bigger. The beer was quite good. I know you are all thinking, “How does Katy know?” Well I actually had one, or at least part of one. The only size available was 1L and I didn’t want to be THAT adventurous. Mom even had a few sips and I think she liked it as well. The most amazing part of the beer in the Hofbrahaus was our particular waitress’ ability to serve it. I really wish I had a picture of this. There was a large group of kids sitting at the table next to us. When the waitress brought their beer she was holding all 12 glasses, in her hands (no tray), at once. I fancy myself as being a pretty strong lady and I felt compelled to drink my single glass with two hands. The fact that she could carry and control twelve is just insane.

Post dinner mom and I were both full and wanted to move a little bit to burn off some of the 10,000 calories we had just consumed. We strolled around downtown Munich for a while before hopping the U3 train back to the hotel. It’s now 11:30 pm and another great day is in the books. We are driving quite a bit in the next few days but I’ll do my best to write and post as often as possible.

Katy