Munich

The next day Jake, Lab (one of Jake’s American teammates from Brooklyn), and I decided to do some sightseeing around Munich on foot. We decided to start at the Marienplatz, which is basically in the center of the city, and contains the information center. Within the Marienplatz you will find the Old Town Hall, New City Hall, a church or two, and numerous shops, cafes, and restaurants.

After deliberation, we decided to head to the Deutsches Museum. This museum was a little out of the way, but it turned out to be a good thing because we basically created our own little walking tour of Munich, and ended up seeing Maximilianstrasse (one of the best shopping streets in Europe), the Residenz (the official residence of Bavaria’s rulers from 1385-1918), and walking along the Isar River.

The Deutsches Museum is described in Frommer’s as, “On an island in the Isar River is the largest technological museum of its kind in the world. Its huge collection of priceless artifacts and historic originals includes the first electric dynamo (Siemens, 1866), the first automobile (Benz, 1886), the first diesel engine (1897), and the laboratory bench at which the atom was first split (Hahn, Strassmann, 1938).” They also had the single manned helicopter featured in James Bond’s You Only Live Twice, as well as a Wright Brother’s Airplane:

After perusing the museum for a few hours, we headed up to the Englischer Garten to find a beer garden to relax. The Englischer Garten is best described as Central Park with a European Twist. There are acres and acres of park to explore but just walking through a small portion we encountered the river running through with people swimming and surfing in it (yes I said surfing!), a few thousand people sunbathing, picnicking, and playing naked badminton (yes I said naked badminton, although the naked people were not the ones you would want to see naked), people playing soccer, basketball, and all other type of sport you could think of! It was definitely the coolest thing we encountered while in Munich and for anyone coming to visit Munich, I would highly suggest bringing a picnic lunch and hanging out, swimming, or even participating in naked badminton for at least a few hours on a nice day!

Along the walk through the Garten, we encountered a few guys playing basketball and felt the urge to challenge them to a game. And just like the legendary Dream Team’s of the past Michael Jordan (a.k.a. Andrew Robinson) and Scottie Pippin (a.k.a. Jake Flaherty) were victorious in the international competition witnessed by millions across the globe (a.k.a. Lab). Score one for the good’ole U.S.A.

We did work up a sweat and finally found what we came for: The Beer Garden. We were parched and starved after a long day of exploring and needed some good hearty Bavarian cuisine and a Liter Beer, which is exactly what we got. After resting up for a bit, we took off for Deggendorf so the guys could get to practice, as they had a game to play on Sunday.