Family visit to Munich

At the beginning of July my parents came to Germany for their first visit since touring the world in their early twenties. It was nice to finally show them life in Munich including bier gartens, the Alps, and my pint-sized apartment. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate the entire time (sorry!) but I hope they had a nice time anyway. At the end of the visit my Tauji (uncle on my father's side) from India came - his first time ever outside of India! And even though he took a few German courses nearly half a century ago, he still managed to communicate. Hats off to him. Unfortunately my Mom took all of the pictures, but she was there too, believe me.

We had lunch with a distantly-related family friend living in Augsburg. Look - my father is actually smiling in this picture - no small feat.


These were taken on a trip to Schloss Linderhof, one of the 3 castles built by crazy King Ludwig II who bankrupted Bavaria with his love of castles built in hard-to-get-to places in the Alps. Unfortunately it poured the entire time, but was still picturesque.



My father wasn't too impressed by Ludwig's Taj Mahal, but imitation is the highest form of flattery right?

Finally a respite from the rain! This is the Venus Grotto, a custom built cave for Ludwig II to see Wagner's Tannhäuser opera, in which large parts of the action are set in a cave. The water is the stage and where the seats would normally be sits the orchestra. There is only one real seat which is, naturally, for the king. Supposedly it took days to heat in the winter and was one of the first buildings in Germany to use electric light bulbs. In the photo below you can only see the stage. I'd hate to have to rehearsals knee deep in water though.

My Mom liked the sheep on the side of the road we saw on the way back. The waterfall in the background is also pretty.



Finally some decent Munich weather to enjoy my local (50 m from my apartment!) biergarten. Prost!

Kletterwald (High ropes course)

This is just a short post on a very enjoyable institute-sanctioned field trip we had at my work. Basically it's supposed to be about spending time outside with your colleagues and developing friendships that will serve you well at work without all of the funny team-building exercises. It's also about having fun and ending the afternoon in a biergarten having worked up an appetite and feeling thirsty.

There were multiple options available, but I signed up for the Kletterwald outing (literally means climbing-forest, but is a ropes course through the trees). It was a ton of fun, a little bit of exercise and a great
test of balance and nerves.

A play on words for the name of the place. Those clever Germans!

A preview of part of the course:



Probably the most challenging parts were climbing up and down two hanging rope ladders. I wasn't lucky enough to have someone holding the bottom for me though!



This part was exhilarating; you step off a platform and are in freefall for a fraction of a second before swinging into this net which you have to grab a hold of. (That's me by the way)


More fun and rappelling down at the end of one section.