Last week, I celebrated turning 50 in Munich. Originally, I wanted to celebrate in Paris, but Paris is 8 hours away by car and too far for me. Then I thought Strasbourg. No, still too far (3 hours). But Munich is less than 2 hours away! (Is avoiding long distance travel a sign of old age?)
We spent two nights at the Holiday Inn-Schwabing. When we first lived in Erlangen, we used to stay there often, and Alex, who was only two the last time we stayed there, still remembered a few things about the hotel. So Holiday Inns may not be as charming as most German hotels, but this one is convenient, has a pool, kids eat free, and dogs are welcome. Perfect!
Our first night, we met our friends S. (from Ukraine via London) and J. (from France via London) at the Hirschgarten Biergarten. It's near their apartment and the boys wanted to skate the Hirschgarten Pool. After skating and drinking beer, we had dinner at Cafe Neuhauser in Munich's Neuhausen neighborhood, hence the appropriate name. The food's Italian and excellent. Alex, our pizza connoiseur, loved his cheese pizza.
On Tuesday, my birthday, we visited the Deutsches Museum, a lot like Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry but without the long lines (I've never been to the mining exhibit in Chicago because of long waits, and in Munich, I've seen the exhibit twice) and cheaper. The rest of the day was spent just walking around Munich. We had lunch at the Viktualienmarkt (top photo), an open-air market in the city center, and later dinner in Schwabing, the neighborhood that's home to our hotel. Schwabing reminded me of some of Chicago's neighborhoods, such as Lakeview, Uptown, Wicker Park. For example, the restaurant, Drugstore, where we had dinner, had a small theater upstairs.
Back in our hotel room, at 11 PM, the time I was born, Bob and the boys sang "Happy Birthday" to me. What could be better on one's 50th?
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