Miscellaneous and Munich

Kids Activities:
Hayley is on a 5 day, 400 km (250 mile) bike trip to Vienna this week with the whole 9th grade class at her school.  I guess there is a paved, level bike path all along the Danube river to Vienna and the 9th grade at our school does this bike trip every year.  Hayley bikes from home to the train station every morning on her way to school, along with Jason, Camilla and Rand, so she's not entirely new to biking.  I thought she might need some more conditioning so the two of us took a two hour bike ride one day.  I was weak and shaky at the end and she hardly noticed.  I suppose the fact that she's done swimming every year since she was 8 contributes to her stamina.

This was not included in the steep price of attending this school.  We had to pay a pretty penny to send her on this trip (and every 9th grader was expected to go), plus we had to buy her special padded biking shorts and moisture wicking shirts and get her bike checked and make sure it had a basket on it.  They must think that anyone who goes to this school is rich!  I guess maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Hayley were our only child.  But we also had to pay extra to send Rand to Berlin for a week with his whole class, Jason to Berlin for a week with his whole class, Jason to Brussels for a few days with MUN (Model United Nations) and extra for each away swim meet the kids did.  Plus we had to take our turn hosting athletes from another school for a tournament that took place at our school.  (We had these two nice, 12 yr-old boys from Frankfurt at our house for 2 days for their basketball tournament.)

I'm a Webelos Leader in Rand's Cub Scout Pack.  There is only one Pack in Munich and it is sponsored by the Munich International School, the other international school, not the one we go to.  We have several families from England in our Pack.  I was at a meeting of leaders and we were discussing our families.  One lady said "Well we knew you had a little one from the nappies when we were camping".  I was wondering if I had taken naps during our campout a few weeks before and she had deduced that I must have a toddler at home to be so tired.  I thought that was pretty astute of her and I didn't even remember taking any naps.  Then another lady translated for me and told me that nappies means diapers.  (I had found some diapers in a backpack I was using at camp and showed them to everyone laughingly.)  So this was a case of someone more experienced than I translating from British to American for me.  (At a campfire everyone was discussing football and I said "Oh, you mean soccer" and they all grimaced in a friendly way.) (Speaking of Fussball and World Cup, we were all sitting in our living room the other night with the windows open.  Germany was playing another team and every time Germany scored or did something well the whole neighborhood rang out with cheers that we could hear very, very well!)

Oh yeah, Miles is potty training.  I think we're about three weeks in and he's almost there.  He stays dry at night, has since the beginning, it's just those darned poopoos! 

Criminal Activities:

I finally got the letter in the mail telling me my fine for my parking lot accident.  It said things like "you are accused of ...", and "in order to avoid a trial you must pay 400 euros by this date".  (Of course it said those things in German so I had to use Bing Translater to get the gist of it.)  Crazy!!  I still don't know what's going to happen with the other parties car.  My insurance agent said I could decide at the end of the year whether to have my insurance pay for the other car or whether to pay for it myself (600 euros).  If I have the insurance pay for it my premiums will go up.

Medical Activities:
In order to get a prescription refilled I have to call my doctor's office and tell them I need a refill and for which medication.  They say okay and tell me to come in.  I take Miles on the bus and train and then a fairly good walk to get to the doctor's office where they hand me a prescription.  Then I take the hour long trek back home.  So it takes most of the morning just to get the prescription and then I have to take it to the pharmacist and come back later to get the medication.  I really miss the automated call to the pharmacy and pick up the next day system we have at home!

Munich:
A couple of weeks ago there was a Monday holiday, Whit Sunday (they get Monday off too), and Eric and I went to downtown Munich to look around.  We've been to Italy and France but we haven't explored Munich very well.  Camilla was with friends, Jason and Hayley had homework and Rand would rather stay home and play games.  So we went alone, just the two of us.  (That was nice!)  First we took the elevator to the top of the Rathaus (pronounced Rot-house, city hall) and looked out over all of Munich.  Then we went to 4 nearby cathedrals, all within a short walking distance.  All of them were big and beautiful.  Why did they need 4 of them?  And those are not all the cathedrals in Munich.

The first one was the Frauenkirche.  That means church of ladies, or in other words, Church of Our Lady, just like Notre Dame.  This is the main, official church of Munich and is where the Archbishop of Munich presides.  The current Pope was the Archbishop of Munich previously.  This church is large and imposing but surprisingly plain on the inside.  Of course it was severely damaged in World Ward II, as was most of Munich, so maybe they didn't have enough money to completely retore it.  (Munich is a city that made a conscious decision to rebuild everything the way it was instead of with new, modern designs.)  There is also a St. Peters and a St. Michaels close by, each with a colorful story behind it.  The last church we visited was the best in my opinion.  It's called the Theaterinerkirche because it was built as a church and monastery for an Italian order called the Theatines.  It was built by the ruling family to celebrate the birth of their son and heir.  I think he was 30 years old when it was finished!  The inside is mostly all white and so intricate and beautiful!

We learned while visiting these churches that Munich was considered by the Pope to be a bastion of Catholicism standing firm against the encroachment of the Reformation under Luther and others in the north of Germany.  So the Pope sent lots of gifts (like skeletons of saints) to the churches in Munich as rewards for their faithfulness.