We saved the art museums for today for two reasons:#1 admission is only 1euro today... and #2 it was forecasted to rain all day.So after sleeping in a bit, we headed for the first museum on our list: the Alte Pinakothek.I was pretty sure I was going to like the Neue Pinakothek, with works dating from the 18th and 19th century, better, but Rick Steeves had talked a lot about how cool the Alte Pinakothek is, so we figured we should check it out.

We had the most ridiculous time getting into the permanent gallery.We didn't realize it at the time, but we didn't enter the museum through the main entrance, and we found ourselves in what I am guessing now to be the main entrance for the special exhibitions.When I went to go buy our tickets, the woman asked me if I wanted a ticket for just the main gallery or the special exhibitions as well.We didn't want to spend a whole day there, so we opted for the main gallery only tickets and grabbed the pin indicating that's what we had paid for.Then we headed for door #1.I had literally only gotten one foot through the door when one of the museum workers stopped us and told us we could enter that exhibit without the special exhibitions pass.So we tried door #2.Same thing happened.When the same thing happened when we tried the final door #3, I finally decided to ask where it was that we were supposed to go because clearly we had no idea.The guy told me in a really annoyed, I don't have time for you voice, "It's upstairs."Well we hadn't seen any stairs or an elevator, so I asked him where we could find that.His response was "I haven't the faintest idea.You'll have to go ask someone else."

Pfft! What an art snob! & keep in mind, this whole conversation was in German, so it's not like he could have been annoyed that I was expecting him to speak English... We found the elevator eventually, but unfortunately my experience at the Alte Pinakothek was already pretty tainted by the rudeness of the museum staff, so we didn't stay terribly long.I did really like seeing Alexanderschlacht, or the Battle of Issus.It was amazing how detailed the artist was able to make the battle... not to mention the lighting of the piece is really interesting, too.

Our next stop was the Neue Pinakothek. So. Much. Better.The staff was really nice and friendly and they had a really helpful map that we used to find the pieces that I really wanted to see—van Gogh, Monet, and Caspar David Friedrich—because we were both quite hungry and ready for the fish market.We didn't spend a lot of time here because being in an art museum hungry is not very enjoyable, but we did get to see quite a few works by the three artists, including Sunflowers by van Gogh and The Bridge at Argenteuil by Monet.So I was satisfied =]

Since the weather looked like it was going to stay nice after all, Nathan and I decided to change our plans a bit and visit the Englische Garten after getting lunch. We ran across some sort of fish festival on our way to the fish market we had seen the other day, so we decided to eat there instead =] It was really yummy... and just makes me miss fish even more!After our food break, we headed for the English Gardens, which is a large park in the center of Munich.& when I say large, I mean HUGE; it's even bigger than Central Park in New York (I think, don't quote me on it, though).We had no idea where most things in the park were, but we really wanted to see the infamous surfers that surf on part of the river, so we headed toward that section of the park.It looked so cool! But it's really dangerous... definitely nothing anything I would ever do, but very fun to watch =]

Susan called me as we were leaving the surfing spot and asked if we could meet up with her at Odeonsplatz in a half hour. Nathan and I still needed to go buy bier steins at the Hofbrauhaus (I think Nathan brought about 9 home!), so we headed there first and then walked to Odeonsplatz. Susan showed us around a few places we hadn't been yet, including the Atrium of the University of Munich. This is where Sophie and Hans Scholl of the White Rose distributed flyers criticizing the Nazi Party. They were caught and beheaded, and today their memorial consists of "flyers" scattered across the ground of the university. I did a project on the White Rose Movement when I was in high school, and I think it's a really neat and fitting monument. It was kind of crazy to see the Atrium for myself.

After seeing the university, Susan took us back to her apartment for coffee.We sat and chatted for a while, but she had a test the next day so we didn't stay too long.Nathan and I were both pretty tired, and I think the knowledge of spending the night on the train wasn't helping, so we decided to head back to our hostel to relax in the lounge a bit before we went to the train station.We didn't do much relaxing when we got back, though, because there was a group of guys from England dressed in various animal suits and singing "Like a G6"... the things you see while traveling...