We love seeing markets in different places, so that is where we started Saturday morning. We passed the time looking at the different stands, finding a few fruits we've never seen before (like salak and loquats, which I have heard of but have never seen), and drinking freshly squeezed juice until it was time to go to Marienplatz and see the glockenspiel chime. Twice a day the figures move, dancing and jousting while bells ring. L loved the Glockenspiel. She was "ooohhh"ing the whole time.
We were cold watching the Glockenspiel, so we decided to go to lunch in a nice warm beerhall. But first we had to split up. The girls and I checked out Dallmayr delicatessen to see the specialty foods. E and the littles searched for diapers. When they finally found a shop (which was surprisingly difficult) as they were leaving an employee went up to them and asked if the kids would like a stuffed dog. The would, and were each given a small stuffed animal. T names his dog Duncan.
We all reached Hofbrauhaus at the same time and were lucky to get a table before the lunch crowd completely filled the place. The kids loved it. The enormous pretzels were a hit, they liked the food, they were fascinated by the size of the beers (S wants a huge beer mug for her root beer floats), and L enjoyed dancing to the oompah band. S noticed that the food was all very salty. I told her that would make people want more beer. She thought that was sneaky, and wondered how anyone would want more than one of the huge beers. Later I was walking with R and she said, "I can understand wanting to drink beer in Munich as sort of a novelty since beer is a German specialty, but why do they want to drink huge jugs of it? A small glass would be better."
After lunch we went to the Munich city museum to see its puppet and carnival exhibits. The puppets were mostly creepy and occasionally racist, but there were some very interesting ones. It was fun to see their costumes, and that some of them had interchangeable heads. There were many puppet theaters of all different sizes and they were all elaborate and very cool. The carnival stuff was a mixed bag. The carousel animals were interesting. Some things, like the fun house mirrors and king kong were fun. But the room with freak show and horror stuff was unpleasant, and S didn't even want to go through it. L is in the funhouse mirror picture. It's hard to see her because she is so small. Below are some of the carousel animals. T liked the cars best, but the bunny makes the blog post because it is Easter weekend!
The best part of the museum, by far, was the musical instruments exhibit with interactive stations. The kids played gongs, drums, tubes, steel drums, etc. There was a station where they could listen to samples of different instruments. There were instruments from all over the world and interesting facts about them, like an explanation of how African drum messages work. And there was a 1/32 size violin that R loved.
R and S play a steel drum. That thing on wheels that looks like a cannon is a huge drum.
After the museum the kids were tired, but it was too early to go home. E, S, and the littles continued on to the toy museum. T had the camera there, so his pictures will be in a separate post of his special photos. R needs clothes very badly, so she and I went shopping. She got a very cute dress at H&M, but it was mobbed, so it was hard to find anything else. The entire tourist area of the city was so crowded it was hard to get around - like leaving after a fireworks show. R and I had missed the deadline for meeting the others to ride the subway back to the hotel (E had our family ticket) so we had a nice walk back.
The kids settled in and watched cartoons while E and I went to get some takeout food, including some really good Afghan food and pizza from a little shop where everyone was speaking Italian.
T at the toy museum
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