Drunken Spiral across Europe, Day 1

Yesterday was day 0, which barely registers -- flight from SFO to Munich was 2 hours late & had me getting to my hotel at 9pm, majorly loogied. Today is my jet lag day -- as I will be useless until I adjust, I have scheduled no timed events until tomorrow night's opera. I suppose viewing the New City Hall glockenspiel display at 11am is timed, but it's free & requires no effort beyond walking a block in the next 45 minutes.

Observations:

• On the Airbus 340, I defy you to find a better seat than 57G. The economy section is 2-4-2, until you get to the last 5 rows, where the middle section drops to 3 seats. The flight wasn't full, so the middle seat was empty. A mere step from the little-used rear lavatory, which is bigger than most Manhattan apartments.
• Entertainment choices included the films Playing for Keeps and Here Comes the Boom.
• I'm 59 years old and I still seem to be the youngest person staying at this hotel.

Off to watch the glockenspiel now. I have precious memories of the It's a Small World clock. I hope this thing can measure up.

A backhanded compliment from Rick Steves

You all know that I base my life on the teachings of Rick Steves, but I am of two minds about his, well, bluntness. Lot of museums he describes as "disappointing," and recommends you skip, and I think, those people poured their souls into their museum and you cavalierly dismiss them? But then I do skip those museums, so I might be passing up a treasure or dodging a bullet.

Odds on the latter, actually. The Munich Stadtmusem is called by Rick "pretty hip for a city museum," which is in the faint praise range, but I kind of felt the same way. It is pretty hip for a city museum. It also has a gift shop and cafe, so I got to buy postcards and then eat (not easy on a Sunday in Munich, as it turns out). And I still have no idea if I'm supposed to tip the waitress.

TANGENT: Writing out the postcards while having my quiche & salad, I noticed something quite odd about my handwriting. Shaky & half-legible, that I knew, but i found myself over and over again writing the letter AFTER the letter I meant to write. LUDWIG comes out as LDI. I'm learning to leave a lot of space between letters so I can go back & fill in.END OF TANGENT

Stadtmusem also has a movie theater. They're showing Stroszek at 1830 and then My Fair Lady at 2100. The Herzog film is billed as "comedy/drama" so it won't be too depressing, will it? Will it?

So, yeah, hip city museum. I'm going back tomorrow. For ONE thing. They've got a painting of gnomes inspecting a giant human toe, with the gnomes in various states of undress. I didn't bring a camera, and they don't have that painting on a postcard. I HAVE to get that painting. Either that or Neuschwanstein...