We arrive in Munich and make to Issing - Germany part 1

We arrived in Munich after a 'short' flight of only 6 hours from Dubai and didn't really need to catch up on a lot of sleep as we'd got over the jet-lag realatively well during the three days in Dubai. Had a couple of nice realxing days at Wad-wad Oma and Opa's place in munich with shopping in two different malls to get us some new clothes - we didn't take much so that we could go shopping! The first saturday they had organised another wedding party for us with almost all the family there which was really nice. We got some food in so that grandma wouldn't need to spend all day in the kitchen, which she really did anyway though to make a nice wedding cake for us! Hansi (mum's brother) took a couple of photos of all the family that was there which I'll have to find on one of the CD's I burnt and add later! But at least here's a couple of photos of the cake and coffee in the afternoon.




After the party on saturday we then went to my other grandparents in Hirzing on sunday. Given that we thought we were going to Germany to see family and friends we had a pretty busy schedule - Hirzing Opa had planned a few nice day trips which after consultation with us of course we headed off on. So no rest but lots of history and culture for Beck. And impressed she was! We went to a museum that had a lot of old buildings that were shifted onto the site to re-create an old village. You could walk through the houses and sheds and everything was labelled and explained. It was really well done. We also had a nice lunch there.


We also visited Passau and Hildegardt (one of Granddads friends) was our guide who spoke english which was nice for Beck. Most impressive was the Passauer Dom which has an organ with almost 18000 pipes and they had a lunchtime 1/2 hour 'concert' which taught Beck that organs can sound nice! We also went on a river cruise on the Donau on one of the other days which gave a different perspective of Passau and also a nice impression of the surrounding landscape - the forests looked amazing with all the different tones of green, red and orange as the trees were shedding their leaves before the winter cold. The other two days before we headed to Issing - the village where I grew up - we spent visiting three different churches and also an old castle. Lots of photos but too many to put on this website! So here a couple of the Passauer Dom and the organ inside it, and of Hirzing Oma and Opa outside the restaurant at the Aldersbach church (monestry).

From Passau we then caught the train to Munich and the S-Bahn from there to Geltendorf which is as close as the S-Bahn travels to Issing. Christel and Klaus - the parents of my best friend - picked us up from there. We spent three days with them in Issing and surrounding area showing Beck where I grew up. My best friend was in Berlin but we would go and visit him there later. With Christel and Klaus we spent a day at Andechs - another monestry with it's own brewery where often Australians and Kiwis can be seen dancing on tables and behaving badly. We reckoned it must have been the dark beers and the size of the handles! Beck thought it was probably lucky she wasn't allowed to drink otherwise she definately would have been dancing on the table after one of those 1L handles!

Also drove to the little church where mum and dad got married - Beck said they can't have had many friends given the size of the church/chapel. It's in a forest clearing so the surroundings are pretty amazing!


Beck and I went for a walk around Issing too and even got to walk through our old house that we used to live in. Nothing had really changed but everything seemed a lot smaller! Not surprising really given that last time I'd been there was when I was 13. We had lots of fun with Christel and Klaus even though Klaus became very annoying after he won a round of the card game phase 10 - he only refers to himself now as the champion! They are coming to NZ over christmas and new years so we'll have to train hard so that we can beat him when we play again!