Munich versus Germany

Munich is a very clean and pretty city. One complaint in Germany is that Munich has more money than many other regions. I don't know if this is true, but I will say, they love to beautify their city. Here is a large statue undergoing a major renovation outside of my office. They erected a protective cover while work is going on for several weeks. If you look closely, they still paid to plant hundreds of flowers around the base of the work site to keep the city beautiful.

It's nice in my opinion.

The circle closes...

August 9th last year we left the USA for a new adventure in Bavaria.
Today marks the end of one chapter with Daph and the kids heading back for a short summer visit.

When I dropped them off at the airport, Daphne and I couldn't believe it has been a year here in Germany. When the kids come back in 4 weeks, they will begin school again just as we did in 2009.

You can see from the pictures that they were in good spirits and looking forward to some familiar sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of their previous life. (you can also see my wife purchased a 7Euro bottle of courage before the flight.)
My wife is becoming more sentimental as well. She took the kids to the pizza place across the street from our apartment for lunch before I drove everyone to the airport. This is the same place we went for lunch when arriving on day one last year. She wanted to bookend her year in Germany. She's come a long way. We all have.

It's been fun sharing this roller coaster of a year - but it's been more fun to live it. All the while, our family getting closer and learning about what's important.

Czech it out...

4th in the Prague!

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Prague, Czech Republic. Prague offers us many things: close via car at only 3.5 hours, very English friendly, wonderful local beer, and many,, many great tourist sites dating back 1200 years. Some of the small downsides: no Euro accepted, Germany was playing in the world cup during the weekend.

Daphne was really looking forward to this trip and arranged most of the weekend. The kids were not impressed until they learned the hotel had a pool. Youth.
Daph hired a personal tour guide for the first day who walked us around the city and showed us most of the sites and provided historical context. She helped us with architecture, history, religious topics, recent history... everything.
When visiting the largest castle in the world (by some measures) we learned about the Catholic bishops being thrown out the window to begin the bloody 30 year wars in Europe. We also learned about Prague being the capital of the Holy Roman Empire when some pretty bad things were done by the Catholics. We went to the Jewish Ghetto to see where the 110,000 Jews did not survive 1945 and the Nazis.
The kids were having some trouble with all this. The guide then mentioned that only 5% of the population goes to church regularly and the population is the largest atheist population in Europe. Julia said she understood.


As usual - our gang had their own interpretation. Julia was happy that they had "American Malls" with 200 stores in one huge building. Dave liked learning that the king would come to church in his pajamas. Brian liked the pool. 4 swims in a 2 night stay.
We even did the changing of the guard at the castle and took our picture with the guard. Somehow, powder blue is not threatening.
Great trip.