We had a brief English/German conversation with our Chinese hotel host this morning. Based on his pronunciation of German and English, I didn't think he was China-born, but I was wrong. He grew up in Beijing and went to college in Berlin (presumably East Berlin based on his apparent age) and went to work there. After his corporate life, he opened the hotel and a restaurant on the bottom floor (where we had breakfast) but he had to close the restaurant this year when there just weren't enough customers. He had visited the US for six months a long time ago and traveled all over, including San Francisco and our Chinatown. I told him I was a tour guide there.
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| Pretty church on the way to lunch |
Then we headed to our hotel in Munich, about 150 miles away. We arrived before noon, and were able to check in and unload the car in preparation for giving it back to BMW. The front desk clerk gave us a lunch recommendation about 10K away and we had a pleasant drive through a couple small burgs on our way there. The recommended place was closed and we scouted out the choices and ended up at a buffet with four options, all listed in German, none of which were in my dictionaries, and a waitress who spoke no English. I thought I was getting noodles based on the work "Knodel", but noodles are nudeln and I got a baseball-sized dumpling instead. Jim got kind of a pork hamburger and mashed potatoes, and I got about an 8-10 ounce slab of roast pork. The shop also had pastries and we picked up a couple for dessert to go with our last salami/ham/cheese sandwich for dinner. I am hoping it will be the last sandwich of that type for a while - it's been easy and often has been breakfast, but I've had about six month's worth in the last 6 weeks.
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| Last moments with our car.... |
Then it was off to replace the winter tires (which we never needed, but it was the law) with our real tires, wash the car, and turn it back in. Back at the hotel, we are working on re-packing to try to eliminate one bag despite having bought stuff. So far, so good. We'll see what tomorrow brings when dirty clothes and toiletries have to go somewhere!
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The view from our hotel window -- near the airport,
under the flight path, but quiet with the window closed. |
We had a brief English/German conversation with our Chinese hotel host this morning. Based on his pronunciation of German and English, I didn't think he was China-born, but I was wrong. He grew up in Beijing and went to college in Berlin (presumably East Berlin based on his apparent age) and went to work there. After his corporate life, he opened the hotel and a restaurant on the bottom floor (where we had breakfast) but he had to close the restaurant this year when there just weren't enough customers. He had visited the US for six months a long time ago and traveled all over, including San Francisco and our Chinatown. I told him I was a tour guide there.
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