Surfers in Munich

Ah, hello blog world. Nice to see you again, I forgot about you for a while. No, that's not true, I just found other ways of  procrastinating.

Now I'm Munich and tomorrow - Salzburg. It's friday night and I'm sitting in my hotel room. I feel like I should be out exploring the night life in this new city, but I'm not. I'm on my computer. Talking to cyberspack. But I spent whole day exploring and my body is still tired from jet -let. I only arrived yesterday. That isn't a lot of time for my body to recover. Maybe other people can adjust in a day, but I need a good 2 -3, at a mnimum. I try to wear myself down a bit during the day so I can actually fall asleep when i should - 9 hours early. The hardest part is getting out of bed at 8 (or 11pm a home).

Today I learned, the best tour of a city is via bike. I took a 3 hour bike tour of Munich and it was awesome. There wasn't as much information as a walking tour might give out. There's just less chance for talking when you are on a bike. However, you get to see so many more sights and do so much more. We saw so many cool things,  the residence, fountains, the spot where the third reich movement started  - ie the beer hall rebellion, the hofbrauhaus,etc. but the best place of all was the English garden and of course the sufers.

Now some of you may be thinking about your geography and questioning my sanity. "isn't Munich and landlocked city, and isn't Germany as a whole a landlocked county" is what probably crossed your mind. Well, yes and yes, but that doesn't stop dedicated people learning how to surf.

See, there is this man made river. at the beginning of the river there is, well, a rapid for a better term, that looks like the back of a wave. So theses guys (and 1 girl) grab their board and have at it. It's a different type of sufering. They ride the back of the wave instead of in the curl, at the front, because there is no curl. They stand waiting their turn and when it is, they jump on their board and start trying to surf. no waiting for a good wave, no swimming out in to the ocean looking like a yummy seal after every try. Nope, just go back and forth on the same 20-30 meters over and over again.

Even i could see who had been on real waves and who hadn't. It was just the way they handled the board. They obviously had gone beyond what was presented to them in Munich.

And to make it even better, they were surfing in the most amazing parks I've ever been too. A lake, rivers (at times 3 but usually two) a beer garden, old naked men sunning themselves (ok maybe that wasn't so cool) Why does it always have to be the old, overweight guys? like, really? at least a speedo or something. Anyway.  There weren't too many of them and everything else was exceptionally pretty to look at, so I'll forgive. See, aren't I nice?

Then I walked, and walked, and walked. I saw lamborghinis, an outdoor in the plaza yoga class, and the beginnings of a free outdoor opera performance (I think, i was too tired to stay). Could you imagining the complaining you'd get if you did that in sac? Who's paying for this? How much do those security guards make? You closed off the street for what? Are my tax dollars being wasted in this piece of crap? And yet, here, its cool. well, the street was already closed to cars, but still, makes you think.

And now I'm here. back in my room, ready for another nights sleep (I hope)