A day in the life

View into our courtyard, with our apartment
building on the right.
(Yes, that's a trampoline, in the back...)

April has been calm, and "routine" (no travels, no visitors), so for my own memories later - and in case you're curious - I'll describe a roughly typical day for me here in Munich.
[Actually, the weather is finally improving, so my schedule may change as I spend more time outside.]


First, maybe it makes sense to include some pictures of my day-to-day setting.  I walk around this neighborhood a lot, so it's unlikely I'll soon forget what the streets and buildings here look like, but here are some of them, for the record...

Here is the view down our street.  Just opposite our entrance are several
buildings with lovely facades, which date from before the war.

Upon turning the corner onto the nearest cross-street, you really see a

 difference in the style (and attractiveness) of the buildings.

These were quickly built after the war to replace those

which had been bombed, and are not nearly as nice.

Mornings:
The alarm goes off at 6:40 and we're eating our muesli by 7.  Thankfully after many dark months it's now light out in the mornings...  The kids leave the apartment around 7:30.  It's great that they are so independent, and take public transport on their own, no worries.  (Although Julia, lately, is on her bike, and I worry more about her on the crowded streets and bike paths than on the subway).

Just for the record, here's the grocery store I'm in essentially
every day, a 7 minute walk away...

On the 3 days I go to my gym class I need to leave home a little before 9, so I putz around with a bit of housework or run to the grocery in the hour or so after the kids leave.

(If it's not a gym day for me, I join Thomas for a workout on the treadmill and cross-trainer in the basement of our building, while watching German news).

My fitness club, "Body Up Diva," is the entire top floor of this building
in Haidhausen (near our first apartment). The red banner runs along the
balcony, from which, on a clear day, you can see the Alps!

 It's hard to believe that my mornings at the gym really take all morning -- not that I'm complaining:  the 60- or 75-min classes end at 10:30 and they are really tough, so I'm sweating buckets by the end (air-conditioning in a fitness studio seems to be a foreign concept) and then usually sit in the lounge/bar area for a while to cool down.  Admittedly, I often have a coffee there with my new friend Liz for an hour (she's American, so it's not so great for German practice, but it is lovely to just freely chat without having to think about every word...)  A shower, sometimes groceries and errands (this is in our first neighborhood, which has much better shopping -- mind you with my gym bag and groceries I feel like quite the pack horse), and then with the U-Bahn trip back, I'm not usually home 'til well after noon.

I spend a fair bit of time in the kitchen.  My NPR app keeps me company!
(Yes, I'm still an NPR addict, although I should probably listen to
more German if I really want to be immersed.)

Lunch is usually left-overs, or bread and cheese, or I grab a sandwich from one of the many bakeries around.   Occasionally I'll have lunch with one or two of the women in our building I've become friendlier with (also English speaking, in this International Researchers living center).

Afternoons:

Practicing choir music takes a fair bit of time.  We have
a lot of concerts and relatively few rehearsals (since most
 of the choir already knows most of the repertoire so well!)

I usually manage a combination of a few choices:  Practice my choir music, practice my German, write this blog, figure out dinner and grocery shopping, walk around the city, read (rarely, actually -- I don't know why I feel guilty reading novels in the middle of the day...), or occasionally nap ;-).  It's lovely, but a bit unsettling at times to have such an unstructured and sometimes lonely schedule!

I often sit at the kitchen table when working
on my German grammar/vocabulary review
 book, or writing this blog...

Julia gets home around 3, and we sometimes go shopping together (if she's not burdened down with homework); Benjamin is not home until 4:40, and Thomas usually arrives an hour later.  We don't have nearly as many after-school activities as we do at home, refreshingly.  Just a viola lesson and orchestra for Julia.  (Benjamin has violin lessons, choir, and homework study hall during his school day.)

Evenings:
Twice a week I have Munich Bach Choir rehearsals, 7-9:30, so I'm gone the whole evening, and Thomas deals with a lot of helping kids (mostly Julia) with homework.  I'm not sure what we do other evenings  -- Julia often does homework, and we often all just talk together (often enjoyably even...), waste time on-line, go for a walk, occasionally play a card came.  At 8 pm we watch the German news together for 15 min.

 Luckily the kids are old enough to stay by themselves now when we're close by, so once or twice a week Thomas and I may walk around on our own after the kids are in bed, or head to our local pub for a Weissbier!

All in all, this year is a great experience for me, although I must say I miss a bit of the structure (but not the craziness) of my schedule back home.  I also miss my friends and colleagues, and the ability to joke and converse easily in my native tongue.  Luckily, new aquaintances in the choir here are friendly and chatty in German but it's sometimes frustrating that I can't spontaneously (try to) be witty...

Yesterday was really like the first
day of summer... and we enjoyed
it on our tiny balcony.

But I highly, highly, recommend a year abroad.  It's good to see other cultures and points-of-view from within, and certainly the change of pace (and the Weissbier) is very refreshing!

Mother-daughter trip: Venice!

Julia and I decided, very spur-of-the-moment, to visit Venice for a couple days at the end of her Easter school vacation, April 4-6th.

A classic view across the San Marco basin.  (We saw the sun, however, only for our last few hours there.)

The boys decided to stay home, and we girls found a good deal on both train fare and a small-but-central hotel for two nights.  The easiest train, direct from Munich to Venice, left at mid-day (Thursday), and seven hours later we were there.

Taking the Vaporetto (see more in the background) down the Grand Canal

What a simply fantastic city.  As much as I already "knew" Venice to be a city of canals it was astounding to step out of the train station and see a canal and boats where a road would be!  (The train comes across a long bridge from the mainland, through the lagoon, and ends up on one of the main islands, right on the Grand Canal).  From the train station, it was quite easy to get a ticket for the Vaporetto (bus-boat) down the Grand Canal to the San Marco basin.

Our first views of Venice, on the Grand Canal

The grey skies were unfortunate, but it was very exciting to take a boat ride down the canal and see the boats and bridges, and all the buildings standing right in the water!












By the time we checked into our hotel, it was getting dark, so we did a quick pass through the San Marco Piazza (St. Mark square, the famous central area) and enjoyed the view over the San Marco basin, before the rain started...







We couldn't get enough of the view across the the basin towards the San Giorgio Maggiore island.

And then we got our first glimpse of the world-famous San Marco Basilica on the main piazza.
(Part of the cathedral was under construction, so our pictures only show the northwest side... but it's still stunning.  More below.)
Just to the left in this picture is the 15th century Torre dell'Orologio (clock tower) with bronze figures ("the moors") on top which strike the hours on the bell.

Right, that's my wine.

We found a place to eat dinner right beside a canal, outside under an awning.  A little touristy but still tasty.

After our (fashionably late) dinner, we did a little window shopping before heading back to the hotel.

 We woke up the next morning, unfortunately, to the sound and promise of a steady all-day rain. Too bad, for our one whole day in Venice, but at least it kept the crowds down.

The Piazzo San Marco, flooded...

Flooding is so common, there are temporary, wooden, raised sidewalks -- apparently ready to go at short notice.  The stores and houses nearby all seem used to this...

Pumping out...

It was a good day for visiting the Dodge's Palace, St. Paul's Basilica, museums:

The Dodge's palace

The Dodge's palace was the seat of authority for the Republic of Venice for most of its 1100 year history (697 - 1797).  It's now a museum showing the residence apartments of the Dodge (Duke) and the many ornately decorated chambers of government (the Chamber of the Great Council, Chamber of the Council of Ten... seems like Venetian government history is something I should have learned at some point...)

View from inside the Bridge of Sighs

The Bridge of Sighs connects the Dodge's palace (which housed the courts, as well as chambers of government) to the old jail.  The famous bridge is so named because the view through the stone bars in its windows was the last sight of Venice that prisoners would see before their imprisonment.

Inside the courtyard of the Dodge's Palace

Adjacent to the Dodge's palace on the north side is the splendor of St. Mark's Basilica.  The very ornate Byzantine-style cathedral was intended to show the power and wealth of the Venetian Republic, but also to be a fitting resting place for the remains of St. Mark (the gospel writer).

Apparently (according to my guide book), the first St. Mark's church was built in 828 AD when two Venetian merchants stole the body of St. Mark from a monastery in Alexandria -- and received a triumphant welcome upon bringing it to Venice.  The current building dates from the 11th century and a sarcophagus in the cathedral crypt is still believed to house the saint's relics. (See more info here, it's kind of fascinating.  And there's a National Geographic article about the relics here too.)

Gilded mosaic ceiling dome in the narthex of San Marco

No photography was allowed inside the church itself, but even the narthex was highly decorated, and I took a few pictures out there, but they can't quite capture the grandeur of the place.

Detail of the narthex floor

The floors everywhere in the cathedral drew our attention especially: They are mosaic masterpieces, with designs and pictures made of multi-colored stone, and purposely laid unevenly, apparently to evoke the sea.

                                                                          

        

We filled the rest of the rainy day quite well:  wandering around (without crowds, as we came to appreciate the next day), eating good pizza, shopping for Venetian glass earrings, checking out the Museo Correr (the imperial apartments in there reminded me of our Munich Rezidenz),  and of course, sampling gelato.

For dinner, we trusted the guide book for a(n inexpensive) restaurant suggestion, and it was superb.  Al Bacareto did not seem too touristy, and we had some awesome Venetian specialties.

My dinner, with local seafood.

 Our tiny, but fine (clean, convenient) hotel lay on a meter wide "street" that I would normally have ignored as an alleyway between buildings.

The "view" from our hotel window...

Walking the footpaths of Venice is odd since the streets are generally quite narrow and so when following a map and expecting to find a major thoroughfare, it's funny to see a tiny alley labeled with the name of the "street" you were looking for. Transportation is only by boat or by foot (we saw some supplies being delivered off the boats and through the alleys on wheelbarrows-type carts).  You don't want to bring a lot of luggage to Venice... all the little islands are connected by bridges with stairs.  No handicap accessibility here!

When we woke up the second morning, it was merely cloudy, and by 10 o'clock we had blue sky and sun!  In the sunlight, this city is even more astonishingly beautiful, so for the couple sunny hours we had before catching the bus boat back to the train station, we simply savored our time walking around (and taking way too many pictures).

Early morning, bailing out...

Low bridge!

The canals started started getting
fuller as the sun came out.

Sun breaking out over the St. Mark Basilica 

With the sun, also came the crowds.

And the tourist stalls.

Just a few tourists, enjoying the
sun and a drink in the Piazza...

Piazzo San Marco looked a little different from the previous morning.

Happy Julia.. 

Happy Mom.

On the boat back to the train station

Lots of traffic:  gondolas, bus-boats, water-taxis, private motorboats...
(This is the Rialto bridge, one of the few over the Grand Canal.)

The view from the train station, with a canal where a road should be...!

Julia was actually tearing up when we finally had to enter the train station.  It is truly a beautiful, fabulous, city and it was indeed difficult to leave.