A palace visit

Wed. Dec. 19, 2012

Just a small part of the palace

Today we slept in too long, still a bit tired from jet lag I guess. I drove (without Brad, even! I am growing up!) to the store with Lainie. We got the phone card from Aldi but of course it's all in German and I have no idea how to activate it. We also went to DM which is like Walgreen's. Lainie was just like at home...stuck in the make up section! We found some stuff we had been missing in the grocery stores.

We came back home and got ready to visit some palaces which are near Munich, about 45 minutes away. They are in a town called Schleissheim. There are 3 palaces. We first went in the one known as the “new palace.” This was funny to me since it was built in 1700! There was a royal dude who built these amazing palaces. This one was really ornate and gorgeous. And really huge! 

There is marble everywhere...floors, walls, and on the grand staircase. It was so pretty.

The family had many paintings that are displayed everywhere. There were apartments within the palace, one for the “elector” (a prince-elect), one for his wife (they didn't live together) and one for their son. The rooms were quite beautiful.

A ceiling...all were like this!

We wish there was a fire in here

We were the only ones in the entire place and were outnumbered by the staff. It must not get enough traffic to bother with heat because it was fffffreeeeeeezing in there! We saw pictures of how it looks in the summer and it has amazing gardens.

Still pretty in winter

Across a courtyard is the old palace. It was damaged at one point and is now a museum. Part of it contained old German items and old coins from all over. The other side of it is full of Nativity scenes from all over the world. I enjoyed these very much. They are so different! Some are very plain, some are ornate. They were all beautiful. We probably only saw half of their displays but we were all hungry so we decided to leave. We never went to the 3^rd palace as we were about to starve.

Just 2 of many, many cool Nativity scenes!

We stopped at a little restaurant attached to the palace that was small and quaint, but they only had soup, salad and beer so we left to find more variety! We found a bakery in town, but it wasn't a bakery like we wanted. They only had cakes. Bad luck (or, more accurately, bad German.  I thought I could understand better!)  So we just drove back home instead. Brad dropped Lainie and I off at our local store where we got some fresh rolls and a loaf of bread and some lunch meats. We walked home and had our late lunch.

Later I cooked my first meal since we have been here. We have been eating out, eating at friends' houses and eating leftovers. So I made Spaetzle noodles (they come already cooked; easy!!) with onions, some weird steak (German steak is not like ours. It was just...weird) and corn. It was pretty good!

Lainie and I took a walk around the block and now everyone is doing something electronic/TV related. I have been struggling with my internet connection and spend so much stinking time just waiting for my computer to load a website, it's crazy! I think it may be a bit better thanks to my FB friend Tim.  It would be devastating to not be able to blog all of this cool stuff!

Off to bed, to dream about life in that palace.  I can just imagine the well-dressed courtiers walking around there....