Munich, Day 2: Biking, surfing, and freezing

After freezing my ass off yesterday, I started today the smart way: by buying a long wool coat, a hat, gloves, and a scarf. That was followed by a visit to the Viktualian market to sample traditional German tourist food. You can have anything you want, as long as it’s brown. Bonus points if it’s fried or tube-shaped.

I saw a street performer… playing the piano!

And watched the glockenspiel (a glorified mechanical cuckoo clock in the town hall tower) at Marienplatz. It was… underwhelming. 15 minutes of my life I will never get back. As my tour guide later tells us, “Don’t bother. You can’t un-see the glockenspiel.”

After that came my day’s big event – Mike’s Bike Tour! Recommended by both my host and the MTV Guide to Europe, how could I resist?

I rode around Munich on a sweet cruiser bike.

I took many lopsided photos while riding, some over my shoulder.

I dined on sausage and fried dough in an outdoor combination beergarden/Chinese teahouse.

I watched surfers ride the “endless wave” in the Englischer Garten. I love the “surfing and swimming forbidden” sign. As my guide explained, it’s not that surfing is forbidden – the cops come and wave to him while he’s surfing every morning – it’s just so that if someone hurts themselves the city can say they told the surfer not to. This will be a recurring theme in my visit…

After the tour I soaked up more local culture, including the European version of “Forever 21”.

The streets are filled with the scent of hot cinnamon candied nuts.

And I saw my first German protest. More on German protests tomorrow.