Salzburg, Austria

After Munich we wanted to go to Salzburg for the sole purpose of going on the Sound of Music tour.  That is honestly the only reason we wanted to go.  It may sound silly but it is true. I grew up watching this movie all the time so it was a 'must do' in Europe. We found accommodations in Bavaria, on the boarder of Germany and Austria, in a small town called Bad Reichenhall.  Steve and I are convinced this town is the nicest place in Europe.  After I share our experiences you will understand why.  The people here were the most welcoming, generous, and kind people we have encountered.

When we arrived we didn't have directions to our place and figured we would find a coffee shop or something where we could get the internet.  It turns out it, Bad Reichenhall was a really small town and just about everything closed around 7pm.  I felt a small sense of panic but found a book store open and asked them for help. They were super nice and allowed me to use their computer to get directions.  They insisted on calling to make sure our host was home and then offered to give us a ride so we wouldn't have to take a bus and/or get lost.  Lol. It was so nice.  There were two men working in this store.  One of them said he had visited the US many years ago, had a very positive experience, and he was happy to help us.  The man who gave us the ride was Helmut.  He lived close by our place but told us he would have given us a ride even if it was on the opposite side of town. He knows what it is like to travel and how much the kindness of a stranger can mean. We were very grateful and felt very blessed.

Helmut

When we checked into our place, the woman told us they upgraded us from a room to a suite.  Honestly, it was more like a whole apartment with two bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a living room, a kitchen and a patio.  It was about the size of our apartment back home.  Apparently the suite was not being used and she thought we would feel more comfortable there.  We talked for a while and she had mentioned there was a grocery store and bank a little down the street and a castle a bit further down the street.  She asked why we came to this little town.  We told her why we were there and she offered to give us a ride to Salzburg the next morning for our tour.  More blessings :).

The view of the mountains from our patio

After we settled in a little we decided to take a walk to the grocery store.  I was excited to cook us dinner. We hadn't planned on having a kitchen so I had prepared sandwiches before we left Munich. We walked down the street a ways but couldn't find the store.  We saw a young couple walking our way so we stopped and asked them for directions.  Florian and Regina, the young couple, said the closest grocery store was in town (about a 15 minute drive).  I explained to them what our host had told us and they said the woman was talking about a little convenience store but it closed at 6pm.  They were concerned we wouldn't have food and offered us food and something to drink back at their place.  We thanked them but told them we had sandwiches we could eat.  They said the store opened early if we wanted to get breakfast in the morning before heading into Salzburg.  They were very kind to offer complete strangers food, but that is not all, they also invited us to come over the next night.  It was like having unexpected, instant friends. Well, you know me and Steve, we cant refuse a social invitation, so we told them we would love to hang out with them the following night.  :-). Our first day In this town and everyone was so friendly and welcoming to us.  They embraced us with arms wide open.  

The next morning we were off to Salzburg!!!!  I was so excited and I could hardly contain myself!  We arrived at the tour bus and I was not alone.  Everyone else was full of energy and excitement too.  :-) Our guide and bus driver were really nice.  The guide's name was Jennifer (what a cool coincidence).  She was bubbly, seemingly happy to be there to share fun movie facts with us, and she spoke with a lovely British accent. She guided us to all the important places the and lead us in a sing-a-long and the hills came alive again with the sound of music.  Granted our voices weren't as beautiful and as on key as Julia Andrews' but we all still had fun.  The bus driver, Lazlow, was great too, at times he would honk the horn along with our singing.

Us with Jennifer our lovely tour guide

We sat with nice people on the bus. There was a woman from the states who sat across from us.  She was a retired school teacher (maybe in her early 60s) and her husband refused to come with her on this tour.  Lol. I am glad I have a man who likes musicals and puts up with my crazy desires to recount my favorite things through song.

  Behind us sat the cutest old couple, Eleanor And Peter, who had been married for 50 years.  Peter was originally from Austria but they have lived in WA for many years now.  They were a joy to be with.  Through conversation we found out they were Christian too and they prayed for and with us at the end of our tour.  Before we parted we took a picture with them and exchanged information. They told us we always have a place to stay in WA if we want to come visit.  They really were a sweet couple.  It is inspiring that they are still so much in love and still travelling abroad at their age.  We hope to see them again some day.  

Okay, now the moment you have all been waiting for. . . Especially those of you who are crazy fans of the movie like me :) (Please excuse the quality of these photos as our camera broke the day before, so I had to use my iPhone.)

You would suspect we would have started out epically singing "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music" just as Maria did when the movie starts, but we didn't. We actually started out by going to see the Von Trapp's home. 

****Fun movie fact****Julia Andrews had to sing that song upon that mountain top multiple times in order to get this scene perfect.  The filming helicopter was so low, the wind from its rotor blades kept knocking Julia over in the middle of this memorable scene.  The wind was so violent it pushed her down very hard.  By the end of filming this scene, her arms were all black and blue.  This is why, you will notice, Maria is usually wearing blouses with long sleeves.  Ouch!  If it was me, the hills would be alive with the sound of screaming from pain.  lol

In the movie, the Von Trapp family home was actually two different houses. We stopped by the "back side" of their house first.

  This is where Maria and the kids fell into the lake right before meeting the Captain's girlfriend, the Baroness, for the first time.  

****Fun movie fact****This is a man made lake and it freezes over during the winter.  It is even used by the locals for ice skating.  Austria had had a late winter and at the time this scene was filmed the water had just melted so it was nearly freezing!  The director wanted to do this scene at the beginning of the shoot because it was one of the hardest scenes to film. The first time they did it, the director said it wasn't dramatic enough so they all had to fall into the ice cold lake again. Maria was supposed to fall off the front of the boat, get Gretl and carry her ashore because the little actress didn't know how to swim. In the second take of this scene, Maria accidentally fell into the back of the boat instead of the front like she was supposed to.  Poor little Gretl.  Thankfully she was saved by Louisa. Of course the director wanted to do it again but the whole cast refused to do another take (I can't blame them. Who wants to get hypothermia?) If you look closely, you will be able to see Maria fall off the back of the boat before the camera flashes to an upset Captain and then back to, a record breaking swimmer, Maria who is now walking with Gretl in front of the boat.  They had to use both takes and merged them into one.

While singing "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" We drove past the Abbey   Unfortunately we could not go in because it is still an active Abbey to this day.

This is the street Maria walked and danced down on the way to the Captain's house while she sung "I Have Confidence."

This is the "front side" of the Von Trapp manor.  You will notice the front side of the house is painted yellowish-orange.  This color paint, in Austria, is reserved specifically for families of royal or noble blood. 

****Fun movie fact****Remember when Maria was singing "I Have Confidence", she entered the gate to the house and as she was walking up to the door, she tripped?  Julia Andrews accidentally tripped but the director liked it and kept it in the film because it went with Maria's personality.  Ha ha ha ha

****Fun fact: the person who used to own the mansion had many fountains and loved to entertain. At his dinner table the seats were rigged with water hoses and  If he got bored with his guests he would turn on the water and have a good laugh.  This also signalled for his watered down guests to leave.  Can you imagine?!?!  LOL. What nerve.  

This is the famous gazebo where Rolfe and Liesl sung "16 going on 17" and the Captain and Maria sung "Something Good." This is not the original site but it is the original gazebo.  The original site was on private property but the musical loving fans kept trespassing to get photos and singing so loudly that the owners requested the gazebo be moved.  So here it stands.  Not the same romantic background but it is still cool to see it. 

****Not so fun fact****We were not able to go inside; they keep it locked for people's safety. It used to be open before a 60 year old woman tried jumping from bench to bench, as Liesl did with Rolfe in the movie.  Unfortunately, she didn't realize that particular scene was filmed on a studio set in Hollywood where the benches were a lot closer than they actually are in this gazebo.  

****Fun movie fact****During the filming of the Captain's and Maria's romantic moment where they are confessing their love for one another and singing "Something Good", they were having a laughing attack.  Apparently the lighting system they were using kept making noises and in the middle of a take both actors would start cracking up.  They couldn't shoot a serious love scene with that noise going on in the background. They took over 20 takes to no avail. The director told them they needed to do the scene straight under the lighting they had provided or they would have to shoot in natural light to hide their faces.  As you can see in the movie, they chose natural light.  Their faces are in shadows a lot of the time and you can even see the Captain smirking a few times during their love scene.  :-)

This was shown in the opening credits

After a while we moved on with our tour and drove for around an hour or so through the hills and mountain ranges seen in he movie. Part of this tour was a sing-a-long so of course we sang along the way.  We sung "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", and "Climb Every Mountain".
****Fun Fact**** In the 1980s President Ronald Reagen played Edelweiss to welcome the Austrian ambassador and his wife as their guests of honour at a White House banquet.  Unfortunately the president thought this song was their national anthem when in reality this song was written specifically for the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music. Oops ;-(

We stopped at Lake Wolfgang (with this name we did think if of our dear friend Wolfgang from Switzerland) to admire the beauty of God's creation. This Lake was featured in one of the opening scenes of the movie.

****Fun movie facts****The little actress that played Gretl was not the most corporative and was a bit of a diva.  To get her to behave, they started giving little Gretl hot chocolate and chocolate cake. Whenever she started to act up she would be given these little bribes or to reward her for her good behaviour she would receive these too.  As you can imagine, little Gretl gained about 15 lbs. during the filming process.

In the final scene where the Von Trapp family is walking over the mountains, you may notice you never see little Gretl's face. That is because Christopher Plummer had his own "diva moment" and refused to carry the chubby little girl over the mountain and insisted on a stunt double being used.  

***Fun fact**** The mountain they are climbing in the final scene would have put them right into a Nazi hands.  The mountain separated Austria and Germany.  The real Von Trapps went by train to Italy, then to England and finally over to America.  Glad they didn't climb that mountain.  ;-)

The next stop we made was to the church where Maria and the Captain got married. Wow was this surreal. The movie makes this church appear as if it is attached to the Abbey, which it isn't, and it seems HUGE and grand but it was so little!!!! The wedding was filmed at is the Collegiate Church of St. Michael in Mondsee, Austria.

The entrance to this city is where Max and the Baroness were first introduced to us as they drove down a road lined with trees.  The Captain looks up and sees his kids playing, laughing in the trees, and having a splendid time.  Guess who else had fun in the trees :-)

We spent a little time here and got some home made strudel for lunch :) yummmm oh yeah, and a piece of Sacher Torte--some chocolate cake they say is a speciality on Salzburg (I wasn't impressed.  Maybe somewhere else would have been better). 

Cute little town

Treats!

On our way back to Salzburg we sung two songs.  We sung "Do-Re-Mi" first.  The last place we would stop on this tour was the Mirabell Palace's Gardens where the majority of this song  was filmed.  

****Fun movie fact****This song was filmed in 10 different locations and they did about 50 takes in each location to get this song to turn out they way they wanted.  

Singing on the steps.  It looses something when you don't have a whole clan singing with Julia Andrews.

There is one last song left to sing . 

 So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night.  I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.  So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu.

It was a wonderful day and an amazing tour!  It was definitely worth the trip to Salzburg.  Although we learned many facts that could potentially ruin the Hollywood magic, on the contrary, it made this movie more special to us.

On the way back to Bad Reichenhall we met a nice guy on the train named Julian.  When we got to our stop we asked him if he knew of a store where we could buy ourselves a new camera.  He said he had an idea of where we could go. He said he had a few hours before he had to be at work and offered to take us there.  It was very kind and we took him up on his offer.  We went to the first store, who suggested we go to another store only to be referred to yet another store.  lol  Julian was very patient in taking us all over town and interpreting for us. We did finally find a camera!  It was cool how God worked it out too because we had bought 2 spare batteries for our, now broken, camera before we left the States and we were able to find a replacement camera that used the same batteries.  Now we have 3 spares.  On top of which this particular camera was on sale! It was definitely a blessing finding this camera and meeting Julian.  After we purchased our new camera the three of us went out for ice cream.   

Julian, you were a total blessing and we are thankful we met you!!!!

On our way to the bus stop we walked past a store and out came Helmut.  He saw us walking by and wanted to say hello.  It was awesome!  We felt like locals running into people we know.  lol  I was not kidding when I told you the people here were the nicest people!

To top off the perfect day, we were looking forward to going over to Florian and Regina house for an evening of fun.  They had told us they got home at 6pm.  We weren't sure if they wanted us there at 6pm or if they needed some down time before having company.  We were also unsure if we were all going to have dinner together or if we should eat before going over.  Our etiquette says you need to bring something with us to present them as a thank you for having us over but what do we bring?  We thought about wine but Regina was pregnant so we decided against that. If we were having dinner we would bring a dessert.  It dawned on us we probably should have figured out some of these details before we parted ways the night before.  lol  We ended up going over around 7pm and bringing sparkling apple cider and Dickmans (remember this yummy treat we had in Hamburg?).  They were excited to see us and had dinner waiting for us all on the back patio.  It was super sweet.  We were overwhelmed by their kindness. We spent the evening sharing stories and getting to know each other.  I think we talked until 10:30 pm., and after a few more stories, I think we ended up leaving around midnight. They had to get up at 5 am the next morning for work so we said our goodbyes.  It was such a lovely night.  It felt so normal and natural to be with them. 

The four of us :)

 Florian and Regina, you will be amazing parents.  I hope this is not the last time our paths cross. 

After reading this blog do you understand why I said this is one of the friendliest places we have visited?  It was a humbling experience.  Steve and I hope and aspire to be like this to people we come in contact with in the future.This town definitely left it's mark in our hearts.   

      

Munich, Germany

 We left Italy and headed to Munich.  It was a long day of traveling and we got into our new place pretty late. Steve had found us an awesome place to stay.  We met our host, Fran, briefly before she headed off to bed because Sunday was going to be a big day.  She was going to a festival called the Kocherlball or the Servant's Ball and invited us to go with her.  The Servant's Ball is held in the famous English Garden; the same place Oktoberfest is held every year (side note: the garden is bigger than NY's Central Park). This lively event takes place at the Chinese Tower, where locals come dressed in traditional servant costumes or traditional Bavarian garb to Waltz, Polka, and picnic the morning away.  Oh yeah, you can't forget the beer. What would a party in Bavaria be without Beer?  The tradition of this ball dates back to the 19th century when the cooks and servants of noble families rallied together and decided they wanted to have a ball of their own.  Every Sunday morning during the summer they would meet at this tower, before work (4am-5am), and enjoy the merriments. Eventually, the authorities put an end to these parties due to fear of immorality. But a good thing never dies, so about 20 years or so the custom was reestablished and grew in popularity quickly. The Kocherlball is now held on the third Sunday in July from about 5:30am-10am. The locals say it is the best event to go to outside of Oktoberfest.
It was shear luck that we found Fran to host us and introduce us to this spirited event.  You know Steve and I can't pass up a period event or any excuse to wear costumes and dance.  ;-) Needless to say we had the time of our lives!  Since we did come in late and had a long day of traveling we were not quite as gung-hoe about getting up all that early so we let Fran meet up with her friends when the event started and we joined them all a little later.  I think we got there about 7:30am-8:00am.  The party was in full swing.  It was super crowded but so much fun!  Steve and I loved seeing all the costumes and Steve decided he wanted a pair of lederhosen.  I think he would look so cute in those.  When he saw everyone dressed up he turned to me and said, "this is what I expected Germany to look like."  LOL  Can you believe that?!?!?!  He thought people still dress like that today.  lol  He is so cute, I just love him. <3  After walking around a bit we found Fran and her friends.  They were all so very nice and included us with open arms.  We tried a bunch of traditional Bavarian treats and yes, even the beer.  Neither Steve nor I are big fans of beer but you know what they say, "when in Bavaria. . . . ." Oh wait, that is Rome isn't it?  Oops :-D  Well, whatever the case, we joined in the festivities.  It was an weird feeling, knowing we were drinking alcohol at 8am in the morning.  I felt kinda guilty.  lol  I don't know if it was to make myself feel better or to water down the taste of beer, but I got a Radler which is half lager and half lemonade.  After we had closed down the place the party didn't end there.  A group of people were going to continue on to a music festival and invited us to join them, so we did.  Unfortunately, the festival cost a pretty penny (35 euros each) so we hung out with them until the festival started and their whole group had arrived and then we headed back to Fran's.  I can't believe it was only early afternoon by the time we got back.  It felt like we had already had a full day's worth of fun.          

Walking into the park, this is what we saw.  It was awesome!  Everyone was spread out and picnicking together. Some people were dressed in traditional garb and some in modern clothing but they were all having fun.

Cameos by a bunch of people we don't really know but liked their costumes.  lol   The guy on the top right has a rocking beard. Can't you just see Steve in the same outfit as the guy on the top right?   

Love the duster in the guy's hat on the lower left.  The picture on the bottom right was one of the bests, in my opinion.  There were many nice outfits, but seeing as this was a servant's ball, I think this was the most appropriate :-) 

These eggs were on the table and I thought they were marble eggs.  lol  I had no idea they were hard boiled eggs until I saw someone peeling one and eating it.  They were so pretty! How come our dyed eggs don't look this good and vibrant?  I am definitely doing something wrong.  (as a side note, we went to another place in Bavaria and the hard boiled eggs were the same.  I guess that is how they differentiate between fresh and boiled eggs in the store.  This picture was taken in a store but they had the same thing at the festival)

Fran (our hostess) is the girl in the middle and one of her friends is on the right.  Isn't Fran cute?  She truly was a joy to be with.  I love how she was always smiling and genuinely happy to include us in this memorable event.   

Steve with Fran's mom :-)  Always the charmer, Steve won her over and she gave him the flower necklace wrapped around her hat.  

Neither one of us is a fan of beer but since we were at a beer garden, we bought our first beer in Germany.  

 I love these photos.  Steve decided to try the beer in the picture on the left and you can see how much he enjoyed it in the picture to the right.  lol Needless to say, I had to finish this one on my own.  

My Daddy would be proud :-) 

Where there is music, there is dancing!  Lots of Watlzes and Polkas :-D  The dance area in front of the band was packed!

We don't need room on the dance floor.  Steve and I make our own dance floor :-)  It was a nice Waltz  (one of my favorites dances).  I think they were impressed we knew how to dance to this music.

 These mugs were made out of glass!!! They were all being silly and sticking the glasses to their face.  I remember doing this as a kid with plastic cups with nothing in them.  These on the other hand were quite heavy.  I am sure it hurt a little but totally worth the fun!

The next day we went to the Neuschwanstein Castle.  This was the castle that inspired Walt Disney's Cinderella's Castle. Since this is my favorite Disney princess we had to go here.  ;-)  To get there we had to catch a train for about 2 hours to take us from Munich to Hohenschwangau.  Steve and I got out the door in plenty of time to make it to the train station and catch our 10:45am train but the train never arrived at the platform.  We were there about 30-45 minutes early.  The screen above us confirmed we were in the right place and then 10:45 came and went without any train stopping to pick us up.  We asked at the counter and all they would tell us was the next train came in an hour.  There was no explanation of what happened to our train.  It was really weird.  Thankfully we weren't the only ones waiting so we knew we weren't going crazy.

Random Coffee advertisement at the train station.  lol  Look at this woman's mohawk and jewelry.  Ridiculous! lol  you know I always have to include some sort of fascinating advertisement in all our posts.  

Look what else I found in the train station :-)

Eventually we did make it to Hohenschwangau. We got in line to get tickets to go inside the castle and the only tickets available were at 6:15pm. They were pretty crowded.  Plus if we wanted to wait there could be a possibility we would miss the last train back to Munich. We went back and forth on whether or not we wanted to wait 4 hours for a 30 minute tour and possibly miss our train and have to spend the night. We had come all the way to Germany and this was one of the things on our 'must do' list.  On the other hand, we had heard from some other people as well as read reviews about the tour and they all seemed to say the tour was a bit disappointing. We could, however, walk around the grounds for free and at our leisure.  The tour was only if you wanted to go inside the castle.  We decided we were happy to walk around and explore the grounds by ourselves and skip the tour.
The castle was beautiful and another dream come true.  It was quite romantic for Steve and I.  For those of you who know our engagement story you can understand why this was so special.  For those of you who don't know our story, the short version is: Steve proposed as a prince on a white horse, built me a castle (or should I say, our friends built us a castle, Steve funded the project) and threw me a ball where we danced until midnight.  He basically turned me into my favorite princess for the day. He even gave me a glass slipper, so coming to this castle together was a very special and memorable moment for us.

Steve saw his first squirrel in Europe!!!!!  Guess who took this picture ;-)

 After we got off the train, we had to take a bus up to the town below the castle.  These are some of the buildings in this charming town.  I loved them.  They have so much character don't you think?

Our first view of our castle. . . I mean, the Nueschwanstein Castle.  I was a little star-struck, I am not going to lie.

I got to hold the castle in my hand.  :)  Yep, that is it way up there.  The last picture was zoomed up.  Now it was time to walk ALL the way up there!!!!

Castle entrance

Family Crest

Walking into the castle

The courtyard

Two lovers kissing under the clock tower <3

I loved this horse decor on the door.

King Ludwig II loved his dogs

On our way out of the gates with perma-smiles on our faces

We took lots of picture (of course and you have only seen some of them.  I have spared you from looking at all of them.  You are welcome.) and admired the beauty and familiarity of this castle.  We decided we could get used to a view like that.  "Yep, used to it.  Guys, I want a castle." (Disney fans?  Yep its from Tangled) After seeing the castle, Steve decided he wants to build us a castle.  I told him I would be okay with that but we probably couldn't afford it unless it was made out of Legos.  He thought that was so funny!  I was picturing a model castle made of Legos and he was picturing a full scale castle made of Legos.  lol  Isn't it funny how we could have two very different pictures in our heads.  We laughed about this a lot and thought about starting a donation campaign where we ask people to send in their old Legos until we collect enough to make our full size castle.  lol

The view of the countryside below the castle.

The view of the castle as we walked down the hill.

A different view of the castle as we walked down the hill.  ha ha ha

The two of us with our castle in the background.  Say goodbye!

When we were done admiring the castle, we headed back to the train and caught it just in the nick of time. On the way back there was a tour guide of some sort telling the history of the castle and it's creator King Ludwig II. The king's story was quite interesting.  Before visiting the castle, I had read about it online. Apparently, he came into power at a very young age.  The king was inexperienced and very shy.  They say the pressure of being king at only 19 years old, eventually made him crack.  It seems as if he retreated inside himself, some would even say he went insane, and started spending all his money on building unnecessary castles to bring him peace and joy.  This castle being one of them. At age 41 the king died.  There is much controversy over Ludwig's death and it is still a mystery to this day.  The official record states he committed suicide by drowning himself in Lake Starnberg.  Others believe he was assassinated.  His body turned up only three days after he was declared legally insane. It was fascinating to listen to King Ludwig's story.  The guide was really good and kept us all on the edge of our seats as he told the two sides to this tale. We didn't purchase the tour that took us inside, but we had a wonderful guide on the way back.      
When we returned to Munich we freshened up a bit and then headed out into town.  We had invited some people we met over the last few days to join us for dinner at a traditional Bavarian food restaurant and for a beer afterwards at a brewery.  Unfortunately, we never met up with anyone, but we had a great time anyway.  Steve and I always have fun :)  We had a delicious dinner and walked around town for a bit.  It was beautiful at night.  Along the way we found an ice cream stand and picked up a little treat.  They had dark chocolate ice cream that was so dark it was almost black.  It was heavenly and a perfect way to end our evening.

This was our dinner menu.  It was funny because you could buy the menu if you wanted to take it home. lol  Thankfully they had them in English too.

Dinner Time!  Steve loved his potato pancakes with apple sauce :-)

For you Feldmeyers and for the family friends that know our tradition about Knoedels, this is an authentic Knoedel with pork roast.  Yummmmm :-)  

The Brewery we went to after dinner

 I loved these Restroom signs

Inside the brewery.  It was very lively and full of energy.

They had a live band playing traditional tunes  :)

Fun painting of a barmaid on the wall

Our last day in Munich we spent looking around and seeing some of the sites.  I really wanted to go back to the English Garden and look around.  We went for the Servant's Ball but we didn't take the time to walk around and enjoy it's beauty. Since it was almost lunch by the time we got there, we decided we would have lunch there too.  When we were just entering the park area we passed by a horse crossing sign. Normally this would not have stood out to us except this horse was carrying Waldo.  Where's Waldo, you ask?  Steve found Waldo!!!!  He is riding a horse in the English Gardens in Munich, Germany. lol  It was so awesome! We went to get the camera out so we could take a picture to help us remember and so we could share it with you but it was then we realized our camera was broken (and we didn't have my iphone on us to take photos with either).  :-(   It was a huge bummer for many reasons.  First, we have no pictures to remember and share our memories of this day.  We were going on to Salzburg later that night and had planned on joining the Sound of Music tour the next morning and we would not have a proper camera to document all those exciting memories. And Steve's parents just bought him that camera for his birthday in April, with this trip in mind. Needless to say, we were kinda bummed.. . okay, okay, very bummed.  There was nothing we could really do about it so we went ahead with our day (although now it had a little grey rain cloud hovering over us the rest of the day).  After walking around the park for a while we went to the Olympic park where the Olympics were held around 40 years ago.  This is one of the only parks that is still active after the Olympics were over.  The pool is still used to train in so we went in to take a look.  It smelled like chlorine.  Go figure. We both thought if we were hard core swimmers it would be pretty cool to be able to swim there.  It would be so inspiring.  It was getting pretty hot and we still needed to get ready to catch our train so we decided to head back to Fran's place.  Along the way we walked past the BMW factory and museum.  We didn't go in but the building was pretty cool.  It was fun to see it and say oooo and ahhhhh. We stopped by a store on the way to get some stacks for our trip and some flowers for Fran.  Steve also picked up huge jar of Nuttella since we liked the German kind the best (Yes, there is a difference.).  We hoped it would last us until we were done traveling through Europe.  Then we got our stuff andwere on our way to Salzburg!  
Thank you Fran for deciding to take in some couch surfers after a few years of not having any.  We know it was not an accident but a blessing.  You were such a joy to be with and made our experience in Munich very special.  We hope to see you again!  Maybe next time we will see you of Oktoberfest. :-)