Being here.

I had always imagined the Autobahn as a very wide, very intimidating super-highway – 10 lanes wide, cars speeding off to infinity. It turns out that it’s just a regular divided highway where you can drive really fast – 120 mph, I believe, is what we got up to.

I was picked up at the airport by this nice, middle-aged, English speaking couple who arrived at the tiny Memmingen airport with two paper signs bearing my name in large bold letters. The airport is so small, however, that I was sitting right in front of them as they walked in. No signs needed.

First impressions of Germany? Gorgeous. We drove through open wooded country before arriving in Munich. A light fog had settled in over the ground, as if der Vaterland was determined to greet me as the picturesque setting of Grimm’s fairy tales. I have since learned that this is a country without grocery bags, where people carry their groceries home in little canvas bags they bring to the store themselves, where you have to make sure you bring enough cash to the grocery store since they don't accept credit cards - of course I learned that the hard way. I have also learned that Germany is a place where Chip and Dale are Chip and Chep, where people can laugh about communism, 13 year old boys play concertos for prelude music, and Pentacost is a national holiday. It is a land where they use the word "bitte" like we use salt...or trans fat...or the word "green" - for everything, they have automatic two-way escalators, and a very strong electric current - on which I may or may not have partially electrocuted myself when plugging in my camera battery.

My first impression of Munich was merely that it was a big city. Sister Hoffman, the lady that I'm living with, took me out last Monday to help me buy a pass for public transportation...and also to try and teach me how their underground works. "I get it, I get it, if we want the U3 and it's not on the sign here...then that's not where we should go." We were out for awhile without seeing anything really noteworthy, so later, I struck out on my own. I went to Marienplatz, the city center, just to wander around. I've been back there twice now: once again on my own, and Saturday with a friend, a girl I go to church with, who generously offered to show me around the city.
With her, I saw the Rathaus-Glockenspiel play as well as a store where I can buy a dirndl. We went to this large market where I had my first sausage and took a picture with real Germans. REAL Germans, guys. We also walked around the Englischer Garten and watched the urban surfers - unfortunately, they weren't very good and there weren't very many.

There are parts of Munich, like the Rathaus and the Englischer Garten, that are absolutely impressive. Both of them are HUGE and gorgeous - one of them Gothic, the other one green. The Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan is probably the most beautiful Catholic church I've ever been in. The inside is all carved white stone and it's lit by high, luminescent windows.
Munich is big and it's old and I haven't run into any Nazis...yet. It's very easy to love a city when you see what it has to offer - and when it has more than pretzels and beer and very stoic people, though they definitely have more than their fair share of that. Their mustard is potent, their biergartens are popular, their language is difficult at best, Leiderhosen is everywhere...and I only have 11 more weeks to go.