Now in Stockholm

Hello hello! This is another pre-written blog entry courtesy of lots of time spent on a train.

Our journey north is progressing slowly but surely and by the time I post this we will have arrived in Stockholm. (Yea verily.) With a little luck, we may get snow, though there's no sign of it yet. Merry Christmas!

Germany was great. We stayed with my uncle Gene's sister and her family. They were very welcoming and made us feel right at home. On Thursday and Friday we explored Munich during the day then went back to eat dinner (bread and cheese and salami) with them.

What struck me most about Munich was the frost. We just don't get frost like that in California! If Katie hadn't corrected me, I would have thought it was snow. Everything was white from all the ice! It looked spectacular, but it was literally freezing cold.

On Thursday we went into the Residenz, the former seat of the Bavarian government. It's a palace far too big for its own good. I don't know how many first and second waiting rooms we saw. I think everyone who ever lived there built their own wing with a new bedroom/throne room/etc. We waltzed in the beautiful grand hall, in honor of Edwin. :-)

On Friday we went to BMW world in the morning where we "test drove" a BMW on a simulator, posed on motorcycles, and became unnecessarily excited about liquid hyrdogen. After lunch we went to the Deutches Museum and stayed there until closing. It is an enormous museum with a litle bit of everything. Katie actually got lost for 15 minutes trying to get out of the astronomy exhibit, it was that big. We didn't see most of the museum, even though we spent hours there. But we did see ships, airplanes, space shutles, glassware, experiments demonstrating the various properties of light, a flight simulator, and a math coerner. The math corner tried to explain this magic trick with rings, but we could never make it work right.

After the museum, we went to the Haufbrauhaus, which is an old, historic brewery turned restaurant/bar. Most of the people there were drinking beer out of the biggest mugs I have ever seen. I ordered the smallest beer on the menu (it was only half a liter...) and even Katie admitted that it was pretty good beer.

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We're in Sweden now, which is great. It's ridiculously dark, though. The sun set about 3:30. We spent our evening doing laundry and making candy. All around a successful day, I'd say.