Every time I visit Munich I’m homesick, reminiscing those 15 years I lived there: my apprenticeship, my work at several publishing agencies, my life as a student at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University, my work with an architectural photographer, my kids were born there and started school, etc. Many important stages in my life happened in Munich and it was not an easy choice to leave in 1998 to move to California! So every time I come back and visit, it is with great joy and a tear in my eye…..

When my sister Petra and her husband Erwin asked if we want to go to Munich for a day, of course I will say “YES”, despite the weather forecast or the traffic prediction. Munich is always worth visiting; it is the “cosmopolitan city with a heart” – Weltstadt mit Herz. This slogan was used from 1962 to 2005 for its city marketing.

We started the day with a visit to “Käfer”, a delicatessen store, that opened its doors in 1930 and offers the best of the best in any food related category you can imagine. They even have their own collection of dishes, which are collectibles in many households, because they are covered with “Käfer” – ladybugs 🐞

Another delicatessen store in Munich is “Dallmayr”, a store founded in 1700, but got worldwide attention in 1933 as a famous coffee roasting company. 2.8 Million people visit Dallmayr each year, that is twice as many as the tourists visiting Neuschwanstein! 3500 people work for them – no wonder, they produce 80,000 tons of coffee each year.

Bapas was our choice for lunch, a Bavarian Tapas restaurant. All the typical Bavarian specialties in mini-form / tapas-size are served there, so you can try a few of them without overeating – I love tapas, that logically means I love Bavarian Tapas…

And what did Ted and Erwin do while the women were shopping? They discovered the Michael Jackson Memorial, The Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Marienplatz, etc.

For dinner Ted and I were invited at my friend Lisa’s house where she and her husband Manfred treated us with a delicious meal: red lentil ginger soup, sauerbraten with dumplings and salad and tiramisu. Each course was super delicious and we sat and ate and drank and the time was ticking until late at night, when we took the train back and fell in our bed at 1am!

Lisa and I are friends since we were 21 years old! We worked for the same publishing agency in Munich and never lost contact all those years. This friendship is very special and every time we meet, we continue our conversation as if we’d just met yesterday – even when – in fact – our last get-together was 2 years ago!