Friends and Festivities in Munich!

During our mainland Europe tour, we had a few places we had to be at a particular time - Rome in early October to meet Jay's sister, Belgium in late October to meet family friends, and Munich in mid-October to see a friend of mine from graduate school. Heiko Methe sat next to me (well, back to back at lab benches) for several years when I was doing my PhD at MIT. He is one of the nicest people I have ever met, perhaps only outdone by his wonderful wife Daniela. They returned to Munich in 2006, and I last saw them in 2008 when I visited Munich for work. At that time, they had one young son. Jay and I were both excited to see them again and meet their now two sons.

We left our Swiss farmhouse relatively early, after one last run on the playground and a tearful goodbye to the cows and chickens. We had an uneventful drive to the Methe's home outside Munich, despite some construction right near their house which cause our GPS to repeatedly tell us, "If possible, make a U-turn" instead of giving us an alternate route. I found it hard to believe that we were on the right track, since the area all around their house is forest. But once we got close (like within a few meters of their street), we saw a few houses and quickly found theirs. It actually turns out that Daniela's family owned the land and recently partitioned it for multiple houses.

We only spent about 24 hours in their house, which they designed and built. But we had an amazing time. Their boys, although much older, took great care of our boys and Lanna. They trampolined, played on their playground, shared their Legos, remote controlled cars, and costumes, and even let the boys ride their scooters. This was amazing, as we have heard non-stop about how much our boys wish they had brought their scooters with them! The weather was terrible, but this did not stop our fun. Here are some pictures I took, admittedly not so good, but we seriously were enjoying spending time with them more than documenting the events of the day.

Trampoline and playground in the backyard

Sammy driving through the house

Joey engrossed in electronics with Philip

Then night was a little rough, as we had to get all the kids to sleep in one room and Lanna was getting some new teeth. Joey originally thought he would sleep in Leo's room (probably due to the quantity of Legos in there), but reconsidered when Daniela could not leave ALL the lights on. Once they were finally all in bed, we spent some time chatting with the adults and then went to sleep ourselves.

The next day, we took a little walk through town (in the pouring rain).

We then celebrated a Bavarian Harvest Festival with the Methe's as well as Daniela's parents and sister. Daniela cooked an amazing goose, which our kids all loved, as well as some delicious dumplings and cabbage. I should have taken pictures of the food, but I was too busy eating. I did take pictures of the table settings before the food, though.

We hated to leave this warm, welcoming home, but we had to make it to Strasbourg before it go too late for the next leg of our journey. We snuck in one last photo of everyone. Philip wanted to keep Lanna, but we told him to wait until she is done teething. We hope that we can convince the Methe's to come visit us in Philadelphia (or wherever we may land) someday!