Naked as a Jaybird

7/5

Our morning began with a walk to the English Garden. This is the largest central park in all of Europe. It boasted expansive grounds. A vast wonderland of trees, hiking and biking trails, benches and bier gartens, and sprawling lawns one of which is dubbed the nudist meadow. That is right, the center plaza of park is sprinkled with a few bronzed, but mostly reflectively white naked locals trying to soak up the sun. As we were told in Italy, the body is considered very natural in Europe, no one seemed to gawk at this spectical of human flesh. Being that your average nudist seemed to be man of more advanced years, we were rather inclined to avert our eyes. The church bells rang out letting sunbathers, joggers and toursits alike, know that it was time for Mittagessen (lunchtime). Back in our neighborhood, Greg was compelled to try the weiss wurst, as recommened by our table mate from last night, Bernhardt. The story goes that a cook had guests and ran out of the usual sausage casings, so he used a thinner casing but feared it would burst if he fried it, so he cooked the sausage in hot water instead, creating a milder softer sausage that Munich is now known for. Feeling that I had hit my meat quota for the year, I was satisfied with just a bite of Greg's and we headed for the open air market where I could have a lunch of chopped fresh fruit and a fresh Bavarian pretzel. After a pleasantly lighter lunch, I was feeling fabulous. I need to do more of those, like I would at home, and having a farmer's market down the street makes it so convenient. Our plans for the afternoon were far less exciting. Before leaving on the romantic road in the morning, we needed clean clothes. Having worn my last pair of clean socks yesterday, we knew we could not avoid this chore any longer. We had a good recommendation from Christoph, for Wash & Coffee which was only a few minutes walk from our place. Why bother to move the car and try to find street parking? We piled all off our ripened laundry into Greg's backpack and he hauled it down the street fueled by Munich's best sausage and beer. Of course there was the challenge of reading the washing machine directions in German and the fact that the European washing machine is a very different beast than the American variety. Once the wash was in, I vanished into reading my book. The clothes moved onto the dryer and I read so more. It felt as though only an hour or a bit more had passed when Greg said he was feeling bored. Apparently we were approaching the 3 hour mark and the clothes were not yet dry. This is not an issue we had to face in Tuscany as their was no dryer, rather the sunlight and outdoor breezes did all the work. On an increasingly overcast afternoon with no where to hang our wash in the big city, we were forced to wait on the inefficient machine to finish its cycle. Time pressed on, still not dry. Greg and I decided to leave the clothes, got a pizza, took it back to the pension and ate in the breakfast room with some beer from the fridge. Then back to pick up the clothes, still not dry! With our clothes still damp, we loaded them back in the backpack, opened our second story window for a breeze and decorated our room with our colorful clean smelling laundry. Hopefully it will dry completely by morning, or we may be forced to follow in the footsteps of the nudists from this morning.