Munich

Is it a German thing not to have ironing boards in the hotel rooms? I was staying at a normal discount business hotel (95% of the people there were guys in dress shirts in a Holiday Inn type hotel) and you'd think they'd need them ironed. But the room didn't come with an ironing board. You have to call down to the desk and they bring it like 10 minutes later. The other business hotel I stayed at in Munich did the same thing, but Googling doesn't bring it up as a cultural thing. Odd.

The taxi ride on the way back was quite interesting as well, as my co-worker's flight was earlier than mine and we were running a little late. But on the Autobahn highways (something I didn't really realize until semi-recently: the Autobahn is not a singular road. It's a type of road, and basically like saying "Interstate" in the US) there are the famous sections with no speed limit, so we were doing 110 MPH down the highway, getting us to the airport in no time.

And I do love European short-haul plane travel. Food, wine, and beer, all included in the cheap economy ticket.

The metro ride back though was quite an adventure as my bag fought the metro, and the metro won. I was transferring at Chatlet, and normally I push my bag in front of me before I enter the metro gate. But this time I was in a rush and just pulled it behind me. Well for this gate, it was two half-doors that slide open and close in the middle to let people through. It then closed on my bag, and got it completely stuck. I couldn't tug or pull it any which way, and in the process, broke the pull handle. Luckily someone saw what happened and offered to help, so by us pushing on each side of the door back into it's pocket, I could release the bag. Unfortunately then my bag was on the opposite side of the gate than I was on! But I then noticed there was a gate for situations like this, so I opened it from my side, got my bag, and went through the gate like I should have in the first place. Unfortunately I had to carry it the rest of the way home since the pull handle had by that point snapped off. Oh the fun of public transit!

We get to do this again in two weeks since we booked tickets to Copenhagen on Easy Jet, which is one of the infamous low-cost airlines (like Ryan Air). So on there I don't think we'll get free sandwiches, and they have a very strict one carry-on bag rule (no one-carry on bag and a "personal item" that fits under the seat. Just one physical carrying vessel per person). We've also discovered that Denmark is incredibly expensive (though I guess probably like Paris then) so we'll have to make the most of it. And I'll get to increase my currency collection since they aren't on the Euro, and instead use the Danish krone. One of Kara's friends lives there so he can help point us in the right direction too.

We also have plans to spend this weekend in the Champagne region to celebrate our 4th engagement anniversary. No better way to celebrate than drinking champagne from the region in France it comes from!