Highly productive transit

I met Nicole for breakfast today; we had studied Thai Masage in Bangkok together and stayed at the some hotel. It was lovely to see her again and the venue was very atmospheric at Mariandl Pension’s cafe called Cafe am Beethovenplatz. It was a nice old building with an outdoor section.

I had enough time between breakfast and my next appointment to have a wander around a cemetery and English Park.

Walking around a cemetery would seem like a morbid idea to any Chinese but a European cemetery seems much less scary … it is peaceful instead.  Maybe European spirits are more at peace with themselves.

English Park is a huge park in Munich, bigger than London’s Hyde Park I read. It was lunch time and there were people out on their lunchtime walk or bike ride. Some will strip off their suits (and undies) for an all-over tan … or even a skinny-dip in the stream. This is Germany indeed!

After that, I met my former Couchsurfer (now a friend) Beatrice for a walk up to St Peter’s Church’s tower. As I was hot and sweaty already, she offered to be my porter carrying my bag up the tower.

To round-off the Bavarian experience, I had a bradwurst and we had beers in the Viktualienmarkt (the market) beer garden.  At the beer garden, you buy your beers and can bring your own food.  It’s like a picnic.  This wouldn’t be allowed in New Zealand as it is frowned upon to sell alcohol without food … it promotes irresponsible drinking.

This was a very well-utilised free 22h transit in Munich! I headed off to the airport for my Lufthansa flight at 2140 to Tirana which was delayed slightly, meaning I arrived at Nene Teresa (Mother Teresa) Airport just after midnight, instead of 2320.

In Tirana I met up with my friend Marie from Yemen days, staying at Freddy’s Hostel. We were meant to arrive on the same day but she had mistakenly booked to arrive yesterday. She hadn’t studied my flights carefully enough to notice my overnight, nearly 24h connection in Munich.