Kicking Munich Off Right

Stepping off of the train we quickly spotted Marina at the end of the platform. The Hardley's had hosted Marina (and Pia who we would meet with the next day) for one month in 2005. They both attended a language school during the day and lived with the Hardley's at night. On the weekends the Hardley's would take them to various places in California so they could learn about American culture and language.

They Hardley's had not seen her in the last 10 years, and she grew so much. She is now done with college and had a job in the franchise department at McDonalds. McDonalds is huge in Germany with over 1400 locations around the country. Munich is the central corporate location and often will be the test kitchen for new promotions and new products. One time a year everyone in the corporate headquarters has to work in a store for a few days so that they continue to have the experience of the customer and the stores.

She enjoys her job very much, though maybe not the few days in the store. She said that she always forgets what she should do and makes things harder for those who work there. :)

We bought tickets for the S Bahn metro to get out to Marinas moms house. They live just outside of the city center. Marina's mom Renata met us at the metro station to take our bags. She greeted us with a very large hug. As her car would only seat 5 people, Michelle and Marina walked the short distance to the house while the others drove.

At the house Renata had already begun a feast for dinner. Included were pork sausages, steaks, chicken and pork chops. As sides were an assortment of breads, a green salad and a homemade potatoe salad. Tim was an especially big fan of the potato salad, going back for 4-5 helpings of it. The new joke was that we were going to wake up in the middle of the night to find Tim eating a bowl of potato salad in the dark.

In addition to the food a variety of beers were brought out for us to sample. Marina had the variety so that we could find the kind that we liked before we went into any restaurants or beer halls. One of them, the radler, quickly became a favorite of the group. A radler is a mixture of beer and lemon aid. This helps to cut the percentage of alcohol in the overall drink and to sweeten the beer slightly. Michelle and Susanne also liked the darker beers.

It was all so delicious and we had a great time catching up and planning for the next few days of our visit. We finished the day off with strawberries and cream which was a deliciously simple way to end the evening.

Tomorrow we will get together with Pia and walk around the city center of Munich. Then we will see where else the day takes us.

Auf Wiedersehen!