I was camera-less for my adventures in and around Munich, owing to my intractably poor memory, so I’m afraid that words will have to suffice. I surfed with a lovely crew headed up by Peter, a student a musician, in Munich’s innerish ring. We spent the first day hiking near a small village (Herrsching) outside the city,through a  stretch of fall forest along a ridge, with views of a large lake and the Alps in the distance; the hike was lovely by itself, and the reward at the top was spot-on. The ridge was crowned with an incredibly stereotypically Bavarian monastery-cum-beerhall/restaraunt, and dined on deliciously large chunks of glazed and roasted meat and tasty monkbeer.

After returning to Munich and feasting on Peter`s flawless rendition of Spanish tortilla de papa, we filled the evening with a raucous German flatparty. It is in these situations when I am forced to be thankful to the machin that is American popular culture, which has bestowe upon generations of young Germans the ability to understand the ramblings of an ignorant foreigner in his own language.

The next day contained a rather long lie-in, followed by some wandering about central Munich. My first find was a massive 19th century church, constructed of red brick and conspiring to look as much like a factory as it is possible for a building with steepled towers to look. In the grey drizzle it was both imposing and somewhat depressing, but magnificent in a very early industrial sort of way. The weather against me, I skipped the park, but spent an enjoyable few hours among the classic buildings, churches, and super-high-end stores, accompanied by well above average buskers of various stripe. I found out later that Munich`s transformation into a city which has dress codes at retails stores happened fairly recently, but I suppose this sort of thing has to exist somewhere. At least the accordion player was good.

And that was it for Munich. A legendarily pricey city, my only possibly reason to stay longer was vengeance upon Peter for defeating me at Mariokart, but I`d found a ride to my next destination, so took off Monday morning riding shotgun in a Passat piloted by the conductor of Tübingen`s student choir and orchestra. Bring on the Autobahn.