Bavaria’s Finest, originally uploaded by Colleen Gomez.

Our first day in Munich…

So we arrived yesterday at precisely whatever time they said we would arrive…them Lufthansa folks are very efficient I tell ya. I admit, I got a LOT sad when we flew over our old neighborhood (pics on flickr) and over the Golden Gate Bridge. Other than that, the flight was great with the exception of what it did to my feet and ankles. Hideously swollen and I mean H-I-D-E-O-U-S. Like I can’t even look at them without crying. I have a hunch that eating all of that Taco Bell, which contains a SHITLOAD of sodium, hours before the 11 hour flight, contributed to my cankle condition…not to mention the alcohol that was consumed both the night before we left and the day of…and during. Hi.

The food on the flight was decent enough although I don’t think that the dinner roll will ever fully digest. I liked that they had real silver wear, even for us low class passengers, and the fact that they served us cognac(s s s) after dinner from a bottle and not a mini was pretty fresh too. Heck, the fact that they even had cognac was impressive enough for me to order three! The movie selection was good, the touch screen..eh, not so good. The only real complaint was that they did not pass out enough water or inform passengers that there was water available behind the curtain, next to the bathroom  and I really didn’t feel like being a jerk and ringing my bell every five minutes because I was parched (another contributing factor to cankledom I am sure).

As far as for Daisy, the littlest and most adored passenger on the plane, she made it through like a champ. Not once did she fuss or attempt to crawl out of her carrier. She held her pee for at least 11 hours and slept the majority of the flight, on her back, snoring. Such a good girl. I was most worried about what would happen at customs in regards to the dog because if there was anything missing they would have to put her in quarantine for something like 30 days. I did all I could to make sure that didn’t happen. I checked and double checked that I had all of the papers in order, stamped by all the right people and done within the correct time frame, but you never know until you get there. Luckily, my hard work paid off and we were given clearance! Yay!

Also, our luggage was the first to come off which was fucking fantastic considering the hassle we went through checking it in at SFO. ALL of our bags, two large cases and two small cases, were over the weight limit. We had thought we would be able to carry on the smaller bags but they were too heavy. So when the girl weighed Daisy I jokingly told her that I had put her on a “low carb” diet so that she would be under the limit, which of course, she was, and the girl thought it was funny as hell and hooked us up with our “excess” luggage fees which would have easily run us $500.00 (we ended up only paying $100).

The airport at Munich is very easy to navigate and our taxi driver, who was listening to music that was literally just a bunch of  “boing BOING boing BOING” sounds, took us on the autobahn which would have been disastrous had I not been so constipated.

We were tired though. I was grouchy and as I mentioned like 10,000 times, constipated and uncomfortable. Eventually we got to our hotel and settled into our little “loft” which we will call home for the next 30 days. In the evening, after shedding a few cankle tears, we had dinner at a little Italian restaurant next to the hotel and afterward we partied at the hotel bar until around 1am which was fun.

This morning I woke up with a hearty hangover and noticed that the cankle condition had begun to subside which sort of made me feel better until I noticed that the left looked more swollen than the right and  I thought that perhaps I had developed deep vein thrombosis which is when I promptly consulted Google MD and started to flip the fuck out. Fortunately, it is my feet which are swollen, NOT my legs and there is no pain associated with it, only a bit of redness which could be due to the fact that I had a bruise on that foot beforehand but if it gets any redder I will be taking a limo to the emergency room because I cannot die before visiting Italy.

After my meltdown, and once I got the voice in my head that was telling me that I was going to die, to agree with the voice that was sure I would live, we decided to take a stroll downtown but about five minutes into the walk it began to pour like crazy (there was some serious thunder and lightening last night too), and as we were heading toward an intersection two girls without umbrellas ran past and one dropped her wallet without noticing and kept on running for cover. We saw that she had dropped it, so we picked it up off the street and began to run after her, yelling out “EXCUSE ME, HEY! PARDON ME! YOU DROPPED YOUR WALLET!” She didn’t turn back because I doubt she spoke English. Thankfully, they stopped to take shelter underneath an awning and we were able to catch up to them and give the poor drenched girl her wallet. What a disaster that would have been for her… and what was equally as shitty is that we weren’t the only ones who saw her drop it, we were just the only ones to chase after her in the pouring rain…fuckers.

Anyclubfoot, after saving someones day we headed on over to Marco Polo Cafe where we enjoyed some pretty tasty pizza and two Bavarian beers which they like to serve with a HUUUUGE layer of foam on the top, unlike in America where foam is considered a bad thing.

Tonight we head to Haufbrau (sp) house… and tomorrow we are going out to a karaoke bar with a friend we made last night.

Things I have learned so far:

1. Even if the German beer tastes like Budweiser, don’t EVER tell the bartender…or anyone for that matter.

2. Never call a cafe a restaurant.

3. Do not wait for the taxi attendant to hail you a cab unless you like where you are currently standing. Do it yourself.

4. If they speak to you in English then turn and talk to their buddy in German right in front of you, they are most likely talking shit.

5. Don’t over tip. It is not customary to tip 20% here. 10% is more like it and even that is considered generous.

6. Food/drink is taxed 19%. How’s your mom n’ them.

7. There are bells (church??) that ring like every 30 minutes for at least 15 minutes, so pretty much all day non-stop starting at like 7am. One bell rung during our entire lunch which lasted 45 minutes. It is maddening.

8. CNN is worldwide.

9. There is no German porn on TV

10. The toilets here have very little water in them.

11. Food is cheaper here than in SF.

12. This hotels internet is SHIT and we had to pay $240 euros for it when we thought it was FREE according to thier false advertising website.

13. It’s not polite to point at Turkish people.

14. You cannot stream netflix videos from your laptop here.

15. Google will automatically slap the .de to it’s URL based on your IP and there ain’t not a damn thing you can do about it except for using igoogle.

16. I miss America but I am glad to be here.

…and in case you were wondering, after being constipated for nearly two days, both myself and my husband pooped without the help of laxatives. Oh, and Daisy also.

Stay tuned.