The 1972 Olympic Park-from above&below

Hello all!
So much has happened and I have not been good about keeping up with my emails. This is an attempt to make a dent into the back log of our experiences. Here, we had a town of snow in the past few days. It was so nice to see the world around us turn white. Carlo even moreso than myself was just beside himself... He couldn't get enough of seeing the snowflakes softly falling to the ground. Above all we are still looking for an apartment. The search continues and of course it doesn't help that Carlo is busier than ever at work. He will have a huge week of traveling in February. I have an appointment to view a place on Wedenesday that sounds really promising.. We'll see... It is tough some days to stay focused and positive, yet mostly we can help each other get through it. The moment we will have signed the contract on an apartment we can look ahead towards other things and feel as we have truly "arrived" in Munich.

Today we walked to the nearby Olympic Park and enjoyed a fantastic view of the city from the 180m tall Olympic tower. WOW! Carlo and I felt a bit dizzy being so high up and after a good view and orientation of where we want to live and where we've already been, me made a quick decent with the friendly elevator attendant. At 14ft per second the elevator was a true marvel of modern technology. And we were glad that all that technology performed as expected. :-) On our way to the park we fed the local ducks, geese and other water fowl at the numerous lakes. I could even touch the gray geese, who loved the left over bread from breakfast I had stuffed in my purse. Even two swans made their way over the ice to take a bite... The numerous joggers passing us seemed much more graceful than the swans lumbering across the ice.
The Olympic park also houses Munich's Aquarium called "Sea Life" which houses many local but also far away fish such as sharks and rays. One of the coolest things we saw were unborn baby dogfish, a form of shark, moving inside their eggs. Two of them had already hatched, others were clearly ready to leave the cocoon of their hard shell. After a truly wonderful underwater world journey through tunnels and shipwrecks we braved the cold wind to treck all the way home through the Olympic Park. We were rewarded by a fireball-like sunset that was truly spectacular! The wind must have blown all the lingering clouds away as we could see the outline of the Alps clearly against the crimson sky.

Now we are back home and warming up with a cup of steaming hot tea...ahhh!
Hope you are all well, wherever you are.
Greetings to all!

A friend to stay over..

My friend Ina from Stuttgart stayed with us on Friday night, which was a really nice change of pace. We had a fun time at an Italian wine bar and decided to drive to the center the next day to see the city during the big snow. It was so old-world like! Big snowflakes falling all over the old historic buildings, people walking and crowding into bars and coffee houses. We met a couple of her friends for a cup of coffe at the San Francisco Coffee bar...which is one of the few smoke-free coffee bars in Munich. (Next to Starbucks of course!) Many young parents love these places as they provide a healthy stop-over for the entire family. Toddlers included. It was lovely feeling like one of the locals...which we are now.