München is the name for Munich in German

This morning, I walked to a bakery and got us a baguette and some cute petit fours.  Today was Nova’s day to not feel well with a fever and dry cough. 

She said she felt okay so we went to the English Garden.  It’s a large park with beer gardens in it.  There is also surfing that people do on the river there.  We got a family day pass for public transport and took a tram to the southern edge of the park then walked north on walking paths looking for the surfing area. 

We found turbulent water but no surfers.  Maybe we were too early or in the wrong place.  After walking around in essentially the woods for a half hour, we found a beer garden.  It was before noon but there were already people several beers deep at the tables.  My mom got her morning coffee, I had a sparkling juice, Nova had a Coke and Esme had an ice cream bar. 

From there, we looked for a playground and found one at another beer garden.  Nova was a little worse for wear at this point.  She was cold even though it was fairly warm out and had no appetite.  We ordered a half broasted chicken and fries and it was absolutely delicious. 

Today was a national holiday for the assumption of Mary so lots of things were closed.  Restaurants and beer gardens were open but all grocery stores and shops were closed.  Unfortunately, this meant we could not shop for Nova’s dirndl today, though we did check to make sure the store wasn’t open.

We made our way through the park to the closest bus stop, checking the two resale shops on the way (both closed).  Nova was feeling ready to go back to the apartment and it was much hotter outside of the park than it was inside, so we went back for an afternoon siesta.  Nova took some ibuprofen and the girls played on their devices while my mom and I took a nap. 

After a few hours, the sun had gotten low enough that we could walk in the shade to Hofbräuhaus.  I heard they had live Bavarian music and wanted to check it out.  My mom went there when she visited Munich almost 40 years ago. 

First we all got dressed up.  Although there are some people dressed in dirndls here, I would not say it’s the norm but we did it anyway.  I braided the girls’ hair and off we went. 

We did some window shopping.  The girls don’t have much money left from the 100€ each that they earned this summer so it was probably for the best that the stores were closed. 

We got McDonald’s for the girls for dinner then went to Hofbräuhaus.  There was a live Bavarian band but it was super hot and crowded inside.  We found a spot to sit and Nova and I danced but we decided it was too hot to sit there and left.  I was a little disappointed there weren’t any outdoor venues with music.  I expected to hear more folk music in Munich than we did.  One funny thing, while walking around Hofbräuhaus, two people stopped me thinking I was a waitress because of my dirndl. 

We got an ice cream and made our way back toward the apartment.  We ended up back at Viktualienmarkt and their beer garden.  It was not as crowded as Hofbräuhaus so we decided to take a table and get some food and drink.   My mom got bread dumplings and sour kraut.  The dumplings were like her mom used to make.  Our waiter spoke German to me and when I didn’t understand him, he pointed to my dirndl as an explanation for why he assumed that.

Esme wanted me to take some pictures of her in the dirndl so I snapped a few using portrait mode on my camera and they came out pretty good.  We will look for a dirndl for Nova in the next city we are in and I will do the same for her then.  I did snap a few for her in the dirndl from our last trip but she was being a little silly. 

It was a nice trip to Munich.  I wish I would have planned at least one more day here (especially with the holiday today) but we made the most of our short trip to this beautiful and historic city.