Tuesday, May 26th (Day 3)

This morning I went for a great 4-5 mile run which included a tour of a very interesting cemetery! It looked more like a park or forest because of the number of trees and the gravestones were huge. Many had life-size statues and others were covered with ivy. Most were as tall as me.

It was a great night's sleep after a long trip over. Today will be our only full day in Munich - no traveling!

Abel and I ate breakfast at the hostel. It was about $5 for all you can eat and we gorged ourselves on yogurt, fruit, juice, banannas, apples, and meat and cheese sandwiches. It's now 6pm and neither of us are hungry yet. I ate an apple a little bit ago and it filled me up.

After our breakfast binge, we decided to walk to a large park that is called "English Park." It's twice the size of New York's Central Park and is very nice. There are lots of small rivers running through it that are just begging to be canoed or tubed in. The water is very cold! After a full day of walking it felt great to soak our feet!

The park is full of forest, open lawns, and water. There are joggers, sunbathers, and bikers. It's a very relaxing place in which you forget that you are in the middle of a city of a million people.

The city of Munich is loaded with amazing arhitecture! We have seen more breathtaking buildings in two days than I've seen in my life. Most survived the world wars and look like they will be here for thousands of years more.

The cars in Munich are also interesting. There are no rust buckets and very few old cars. I think anyone who is driving in downtown Munich must be wealthy enough to afford a pretty nice car. They must sell their old cars to people who live out in the country - that's my theory.

We walked many miles today, but also spent some good time sitting, lounging, and I even fell asleep in the grass for a bit. It was a great day of experiencing Munich!

We don't have a plan or tonight or tomorrow. We may just lounge around tonight and we are talking about visiting a museum that is currently displaying King Tut's mummy. This is pretty exciting stuff, as I believe the closest King Tut has been to Duluth is Chicago. It may be a once in a lifetime chance to visit his highness!!!

The evening finished out on a slow note. It poured very hard rain for quite a while, so we were housebound. We spent some time reserving hostels for Paris and Barcelona. Everything is good through June 4th except for this Thursday night in Paris. For some reason, that night is difficult to find a place. Friday night is fine.

I was finally able to make a phone call home just before midnight. There is a place right next door that has phone booths and allows you to call for 12 cents per minute (Euro cents). For some reason, numbers to Duluth don't work there, though other USA numbers work fine. I went to another place a block away and it worked fine. It's a strange world!

I spent some time with Abel looking over his journal writing for the trip. He's very good - it makes my feeble attempts at writing look pretty grade-schoolish. I hope to get his files and post them here.

I also need to work on pictures. We thought the camera memory card would connect directly to his computer, but no success with that. I don't have a cable for the camera, so I may need to buy one. I'd like to get some pics posted here.

Day #3 is done. Day #4 will be another day in Munich, followed by an overnight train ride to Paris. Should be interesting! We each have a 'couchette' reserved, which will hopefully make for a good night's sleep while we travel.