Lake Starnberger - The Goldbergs in Munich Day 5

Day 5 will go down in our memories as a perfect vacation day.  We spent the day relaxing with The Murphy's at Lake Starnberger, a beautiful lake situated at the foot of the alps, about 30 minutes south of Munich on the S-Bahn train.  The Alps were in the distance and seemed to become closer as we moved the lake.

It was around 11:30am, which was perfect time for the first beer of the day.  Weissbier was the beer of choice...the morning beer.  Where else but Europe would you be served a tall glass of beer on a ferry boat...and looking around notice that everyone else on the ferry was also drinking a beer at 11:30am.  Ciaran and I couldn't have planned our outfits any better....good thing I called him in the morning and told him to wear sunglasses and a black jacket.

We had a wonderful lunch on the banks of Lake Starnberg.  The weather couldn't have been nicer, and even Finian agreed that it was sunny enough for sunglasses. 










Back in Munich we stopped by the Murphy's new apartment which they had just gotten keys for that week.  The apartment, very near Rosenheimer Platz, was in a perfect Munich location.  Seeing their apartment and plans for their new life was very reminiscent of my days in Munich.  

That evening Hannah and I spent an evening at the Hofbrauhaus…to anyone who's ever visited Munich it needs no introduction.  When you get to the HB Haus you can't understand how anyone would ever want to spend more than the requisite one beer….its loud, there are tourists everywhere taking pictures and staggering around drunk, people are inappropriately hanging on strangers and either telling you how much they love you and your country or hate you and your country.  After 30 minutes you find yourself telling everyone how much you love them, hanging inappropriately on strangers, and cheering incessantly when the band starts playing.

We met plenty of interesting characters that night, including, but not limited to the 50 year old farmer from Bavaria and his cousin who kept telling us about the ease of obtaining illicit drugs in Prague, the young overly affectionate couple from Africa who live in Munich, the 7 kids from Koln who immediately friended us on Facebook, and the winner of the US beer stein holding championships (to the right) who was awarded a trip to Munich for holding a beer glass for 7 minutes, longer than anyone who somehow realized they had a talent for this.

 The Bavarian farmer and I had one thing in common, we both have the same fat fingered hands.  No where else but the HofBrau Haus is this something that you bond over.  After talking to this fellow and his cousin for 2 hours we stood up to take a picture, turned around and they were gone.  They sidled out like thieves in the night, never to be heard from again.

As we headed home, not even slightly sober, we stopped by our favorite place in Munich, the hauptbahnhof, which seems to be the place where we start and end every day.  We cleaned them out of sausages and danced and ate through the train station.