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Some basic observations of the city of Munich, more closely in my area...I find that most restaurants in our are of Gartner Platz generally have two or more people eating at a time. It's very common to see them sitting across from one another so they can engage each other in private conversation over candlelight. It seems to be a very romantic city, and since the weather has been good people are out at all times of the night.

I have noticed some things that are very different from the Los Angeles lifestyle. The markets all generally close at 8, restaurants open til 12, bars til who knows when, and it stays light out til about 930 or so. Kind of reminds me of Seattle weather a little bit...especially with the rain we've been getting for the last few days. There is no smog that i can see, no dirty cars, turbo diesels are everywhere, and all the cars park within 3 inches of each other. There are naked women on the fronts of newspapers...McDonalds has a lounge in it and I believe they serve beer and wine...Bikes apparently never get stolen...most parked cars pull their side mirrors in so other cars or bikes don't hit them. Still working on figuring out if a German Shephard is still a German Shephard.

The restaurants are all very nice, too nice for me most of the time. It's just not possible to spend 15 euro on dinner every night, which is over $20 in the US. They all post menus outside and just about every one of them has a patio for people to take in the slightly cooler summer nights. I also have been seeing dogs just about everywhere you can think. Last night at dinner I saw a man walk up with three little dogs on a leash, sit down at a table outside, and have all three dogs just obediently walk under the table and lay down. It's like they know the deal around here. No begging for food, no barking. Many times you see dogs following their owners off leash...through the subways, streets, shops, wherever. But strangely there are no cats...hmmm...I'll be looking into this further. Might be a reason for the mice running around on the streets. But luckily so far I haven't encountered any rudeness by being an American walking into restaurants. It's pretty touristy out here and I try to speak as much Deutsch as I know to get by. I am good at speaking what I want to get, til they ask me a question in return then I give em the ole blank stare of fright as I wonder do I...

1. apologize and say I know little German? (Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch)
2. have someone from work jump in and speak German for me...
3. they figure it out real quick and respond in English to be accomodating.

Smoking is not as crazy as some said it might be in Germany, at least I have not noticed anyhow. But they do still smoke inside but I believe there is a Europe wide ban coming into play soon that will prevent smoking inside restaurants anywhere...might make a lot of other people mad...I think I will survive.

Last night, Curtis, Allen, and I went to a place called the Atomic Cafe. Apparently it is a place for all the 'kids' to go on a Wednesday night. And I do mean kids...I would say the average age was about 18-19...I saw one girl with braces...a lot of tight pants...everyone was sweating....and drunk. Pretty much what I did at that age only I had to do it at someone's house since it was impossible to get into a club or bar...or i'd be DJing the party. But nonetheless the place was packed...chairs, couches, barstools, dancefloor and every walkway in between. Even before we got into the club as we waited in line people were walking in the streets rediculously drunk, knocking over other peoples bikes accidentally and not stopping to pick them up. I felt a little out of place...althought the music was interesting, mostly english from what i remember, even some rolling stones at the end of the night. But if you are into Indie music you probably would've loved it. But the place seemed pretty cool, maybe just need to go there on a different night.

Atomic Cafe


Basically a lot has happened, it would be easier to describe it with pictures...but I've been not able or not wanting to take my camera with me everywhere. I really just need a camera phone! iPhone?

parker