Hint, hint...

Kelsey Salisbury
Helene-Mayer-Ring 7B/0457
80809 Munich, Germany

By the way... I have an address. Perhaps people have interest to send mail to Germany?

Anyway, we've had GORGEOUS weather the last few days. After the first five or six days of no heat and nights in the 30's and days in the 40's, I finally have heat and it's been in the 70's! Yesterday and today I left my room WITHOUT A COAT! (and didn't regret it)... it was great.

Anyway, zoo and BMW are gonna be pushed back a minute. I've taken to carrying a notepad around with me and jotting down things I notice. I thought I'd share...

The escalators here are the coolest things ever. First off, I like how they go up like 2 or 3 floors on one escalator. They are long. Second off, they aren't continuously running. If no one is riding on them for 30-60 seconds or so (there's a sensor at the beginning), they stop running. There are also certain "Wechselrolltreppe" (switchable escalators) which means they run in either direction. After they stop, they start up again in the direction someone wants to go. I think they're really neat.

There are no coins in fountains over here. Or at least the fountains I've seen. I noticed this about the time I noticed you never seen coins lying on the ground either. As some of you know pretty well, you can make like 30 cents a day picking up coins in the US, but I haven't seen a single one yet, and I've been looking...

Stores! I followed another exchange student to the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum (Read: Olympic Shopping Center, or Mall two stops away on the subway from the Olympic Center, where I live). It's a pretty big mall in Munich apparently. For those of you from St. Louis, it's smaller than West County. For those at UIUC, it's about the same size as the mall on Prospect. Impressive, Munich. But that aside... as we're walking through all these clothes stores I was amazed at how messy everything was. All the clothes were thrown about everywhere - on the floor, on the wrong table, inside out, just tossed down. It was a huge mess. The employees, by the end of the night, started to walk around and refold shirts and bring them across the store to where they belonged. It was interesting...

Dogs... so this is one of my favorite. This was also the case in Austria but never ceases to fascinate me. Dogs are much more a part of society here. First off, they're allowed in bars, in malls, on subways, in cafes, etc. Secondly, they usually don't wear leashes. Which means when you do see a dog outside a store waiting, it's usually just lying there patiently waiting. Walking the street you'll see a dog just trotting along, then he'll pause to wait for his owner to catch up and you'll realize he's out on a walk without a leash. They're extremely well behaved as well. Someone explained to me that it's because as soon as Germans get their puppies they start taking them out with them everywhere they go. At this stage you actually put more of a harness on the dog, not just a leash (like around the upper body). The more people the puppy meets (which it obviously meets a lot if it's going out every day with owners), the more accustomed to people it becomes so pretty soon new people are familiar and it's just really well behaved and doens't require a leash. I find this fascinating.

The other thing I've noticed is how different Munich and Austria actually are. Munich is a big city (third largest in Germany) and also quite cultured... thus all the American things I couldn't find in Austria (bagels, donuts, muffins, cookies, cheddar cheese, pancakes, etc.) already exist here. Starbucks, Subway, Burger King and McDonalds are the main chains here. I know where two or three subways are and I can find more McDonalds here than I know in St. Louis (I'm thinking of two... west on Manchester by New Ballwin area and Big Bend and Dougherty Ferry). The first cafe I went to here was the "San Franscisco Coffee Cafe", which is a large chain here that has a menu in English for coffee and serves large chocolate chip cookies, carrot cake and extra large Starbucks muffins. Actually, apparently muffins have been around in Munich as a craze only recently. I've also seen several bagel shops, like St. Louis Bread Co (Panera to the rest of you). Then I saw one restraunt serving "pancakes with syrup" on their menu. It was, however, located under both the breakfast menu and the dessert menu. But basically, the typical American things pretty much exist here, though they may be a little harder to find.
The other large difference is just that to be honest the cities in Austria I find to be a lot prettier... part of the reason is that a lot of Munich was destroyed after the war so they had to rebuild so it's nowhere near as old as most of the rest of Europe. Some of it is, still, obviously, and the architecture is still impressive, but it's a different feeling.

Anyway, I've also found out that if I take the elevator to the 15th floor (Read: 16th floor since Germany starts counting on our 2nd floor) and go out to the rough, you have an awesome view of the Bavarian/Austrian Alps on a clear day. I haven't been around when it's light out still on a clear enough day yet, but I've checked up twice. It's an impressive view regardless.

Bis bald!