Munich 2012!

Munich (or München to those who speak Duetch), Bavarian city of Art, Music, bicycles, beer, sausages, and pretzels.

Kalee and I arrived at Flughafen München on Sunday, July 29th.  From there we took the S8 München Bahn to Hauptbahnhof, only it doesn't stop there on Sundays.  So we blew all the way across town to Pasing, and took the S6 back.  Once we got to the central station (literal translation of Hauptbanhof) it was a two block walk to the Art Hotel, where we stayed all four nights.

That night we had fun hunting for a restaurant, because being a tourist town, Munich is closed on Sundays.  We found this cute little place, that was showing the Olympics and serving typical Bavarian food.  We weren't the only expats there and ran into an Aussie/Kiwi couple and talked about Windows 7, the Olympics, beer, and world travel.

I gave my presentation on Efficient Quasi Group Block ciphers at ICCCN Monday morning, and Daniella, Kalee's friend met us that night and we had dinner at the Hofbräuhaus that evening.  More vinegar and salt, yum!

Munich is a great city.  It is both modern and Gothic at the same time.  Much of the Gothic architecture isn't truly from that time frame though, as it was constructed in Munich's golden age in the 18th and 19th century, with a good portion coming from (Mad) Konig Lüdwig von Bayern's pocketbook.  Like the rest of Europe, turns out that imperialism was a good thing for the pocket book and with Lüdy being from Bayern (Bavaria to us Englush) Munich prospered too.

I mean where else can you surf 450 km from the sea.

As a tourist town, there was a lot of shopping, and Munich is an art city, has been for a while.  We visited the Alte Pinakothek, which has the largest collection of Peter Paul Rubens paintings in the world.  So whether you're looking for a pair of 12€ jersey jini pants, or multimillion dollar 14th century art, it's the place to go.  Not to mention the weather was awesome.  Highs of about 24 every day, sunny and no rain.