Munich

Well I'll give a few brief minutes to my first week of actual work. Some highlights were that for the first time, my team beat the Battalion Commander's team in Ultimate Frisbee. He gets pretty dam competitive so it feels good to beat him. On the other hand, my company's softball team got beat down 17-1. I signed for my apartment on Tuesday but it won't be ready until 22 June. But at least I got to move off of Jeff's couch and back into my own hotel room. He won't admit it, but I think he's gonna miss sharing a small living space with me. My truck got here on Thursday so that meant I had to say goodbye to El Scorpio. I will truly miss her. My job is okay. I sit in an office all day long, which is probably my least favorite part about it. I guess that's where they got the word Officer from. My bosses (I have many) are all pretty cool so far and I seem to get along with almost everyone I work with. The lieutenant is the red-headed stepchild of the Army. EVERYONE makes fun of me because I have some decent rank but NO experience. For example, yesterday they put an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) simulator under my desk while I was at a meeting and set it off when I sat down. It startled me a little bit but at least they didn't put the baby powder in there which would have exploded all over me. Oh well, I like to kid around.

Well John, Pat (another LT), and I decided to head down to Munich this weekend. It might have been John's last as he thinks he will deploy to Afghanistan sometime this week (the Army doesn't give you much notice). For mama g, this is the spot I was supposed to end up in but John will be going instead of me, so you don't have to worry about me for now.

So Pat and I hopped in the Tacoma and headed for Bamberg to pick up John. We got down to Munich at around 2200. It was pretty difficult driving the truck around Munich, especially the parking garages.


Friday night we got checked into the hotel and headed to a bar to meet up with some other friends from Bamberg. After a few quick stops at some bars we made it to a Mexican bar called "Salsalitos" and ended up hanging out with these German girls. They were nice and spoke pretty good English.


Cool building at night...


Saturday we did some sightseeing mostly at the English Garden. It's a huge park with some pretty famous stuff in it. We happened to stumble upon the river surfers which is something I have wanted to see/do since I was back in the states and saw it on youtube. I took this footage but my surfboard is in Army storage right now so I did not get a chance to try it.



We then made it to the Chinese Tower which is a famous outdoor biergarden.


It was still morning time so the place wasn't that crowded. But we decided we had to have a giant beer and pretzel.


It started raining in the afternoon but we kept walking around town anyways.


Marianplatz


Not sure what this is, but there was a lot of Greek/Roman influence in certain parts of the city.


Triumphal Arch...not sure why it's called that. Don't remember the last time Germany won a war...oh, sensitive subject.


If you don't know the multiple reasons why this is funny then stop reading this blog.


After the sightseeing we headed to the Haufbrauhaus which is the most famous bierhall in the world.


The had a traditional German band which is exactly what I had pictured Germany would be like.


There were guys dancing in lederhausens


And frauen in traditional garb


And they even cracked whips over everyone's head. Didn't really understand the point of this and it seemed really dangerous because they even let drunk people do it. Nonetheless it was awesome.


This place was a big tourist attraction. We drank with Italians (crazy as heck), Canadians, German Army guys, and even met up with the American girls we met in Nice. I'm pretty sure the Haufbrauhaus is a must for anyone who visits Munich. It sure will always be for me. I put more videos on here this time instead of pictures. Let me know if you like it or if I need to go back to more pictures instead.