The Whole Fam-damily, or Bavarian Travels

..And my ridiculous travel lifestyle continues.
The day after I get back from New York, my family flies into Munich. It was really good to see them, considering I hadn't seen them since September. They spent the first day (Saturday) in Munich, meaning my brother slept most of the afternoon and my parents napped and then got lost in the city. Really fun trying to guide them around via cellphone. That night we went to Starkbierfest, which is a bierfest during Lent when the Monks would brew stronger beer to feed themselves because they were fasting and needed to eat something...? Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it's a fun excuse to sing along to old American pop music and dance on tables and drink Maßes. It also meant that the first introduction my parents had to my friends was a drunk, table-dancing one. Quite the first impression, I would say. I think they enjoyed it though. My parents really loved the old music (think Elvis, Sinatra, the soundtrack to the first Dirty Dancing) and my dad and my brother got drunk and my mom just took lots of pictures. I've never seen my dad drunk before, so that was a lot of fun.
The next day we headed out to Schliersee, a smaller bavarian town cuz that's where our timeshare was for the next week. It was a beautiful place. The weather was still kind of cold and the lake was frozen over, but it was still really pretty. Crystal and Jana came out to visit us one day and also we did day trips to Salzburg, Neuschwanstein, Zugspitze, and just hung out at the hotel, played pool, sat in the hot tub!!, and just relaxed. I'd been all those places but it was cool to take a fresh pair of eyes there and to spend time with my family. Also, I finally got to go into the Catacombs in Salzburg. Really cool. Really creepy....but really cool. I was picturing like secret meetings and underground religious cults but I was disappointed when I found out that wasn't the point of the caves and catacombs. And apparently the little chapel in the cave is still used today. I thought that was cool.
It was a nice trip but I was definitely reminded of the things about my family that bothered me, rationally or irrationally. The weather was fairly good while my family was here so it was nice to be able to walk around in only about two layers instead of the usual 10. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much. Munich winters are freeeezzzing. So not fun.

The next Saturday we came back to Munich and I gave my parents the tour of the city. We went to the Residenz, Frauenkirche, Marienplatz; all the typical, cool, tourist sites that I walk by all the time and that I really should notice more often. The curse of living in a beautiful place. It all kind of blends in at some point. We also went to Dachau, which was a major downer. I'd never been to Dachau before but I have been to a concentration camp so I sort of knew what kind of mental effect it had on me but my family didn't. It was a rough part of the trip. Concentratin camps are never fun places to visit.

That Monday was really sad because we had to say goodbye to my brother and dad. :( It was really, really good to see the family and let them see what my life was like here. I miss them already but I will see them soon enough. I just wish everyone I know could move over here cuz I never want to leave Europe but that's a side tangent. The next installment of my European travels is coming. Slowly but surely, I will catch up on this blog.