three hour tour...

Christina and I showed Autumn around. the fun shops we'd found, and we went beerstein shopping....and on a puma hunt. however we didn't find any that we liked.

We took a tour of the city that was geered for english speaking college-ish age people. We started at Marienplatz and Daniel the irishman told us about the glockenspiel that portreys the jousting tournament that was held to celebrate Ludwig II's marriage. the 2nd level of the glockenspiel does the "dance of the coopers." When Munich was suffering from the plague, people wouldn't even leave their house because they thought they would catch it. A bunch of guys decided that since noone had been sick in about a month they were tired of being inside all the time and went outside into the square and started doing this crazy dance. The whole town came out and went on with their lives. Since the plague never came back to Munich they said that the dance of the coopers fended off the plague so now it's a traditional dance in Munich. Then he talked about the Frauenkirche, the church with two towers with onion domes on top. These towers were not destroyed in WWII like most of the rest of the city because they were used as a landmark for planes flying over the city. there is a legend that when it was built, the builder was running out of money and had to make a deal with the devil to finish building the church (the irony). he and the devil stood in the entryway of the halfbuilt church making the deal and the devil said that he didn't want to see any windows in the church and that if there were windows he would take his soul. When the church was completed, the devil was pissed because of course there were tons of windows on the church, so he went to collect the builder's soul. the builder pointed out to the devil that from the place they stood on the day they made the deal, you cannot see a single window. the columns of the church are strategically placed so that from the entry the windows aren't seen. The devil was so mad that he stomped his foot in anger and supposedly left a footprint in the entryway of the church. we then went to a past duke's house where the pet monkey kidnapped the baby from the nursery and climbed onto the roof with the baby....and then on to the Englischer Gardens to see the nudist meadow. I kid you not. we were warned in advance of the two most famous nudists in munich: "The Tripod" and "Robo-cock" and that it can be frightening to see them...fortunately, it wasn't a popular day for the nudists... then we went to the Isar River to see the surfers. this is really cool. there's a concrete step at a bridge and it creates a wave that people surf on. it's pretty amazing, but looks really bad when they fall off into the water...almost expecting a crushed skull. then the tour ended at a bar for happy hour to hang out with the other people on the tour.

On the tour with us were Jaime and Katie from elon, Aaron the austrailian, Mark the air force dude stationed in italy, the frat boys from UGA, and the drunk old british men on the tour led by a hot irishman, another austrailian, and a brit. We all went to Hard Rock for dinner with the exception of the drunk old men, because Jaime and Katie were craving a hamburger. it was really fun and cool because Katie and I have mutual friends back home. pretty crazy...