Basking in the glow...

So what exactly am I doing when I'm NOT planning the wedding? Lots, actually! The sun is shining and the boy and I are soaking it up in every possible way: grilling on the river, going to the pool and going to biergartens. It sounds cheesy, but it's reminding me of how we fell in love! What a setting.

Today it was so hot that my colleagues and I went to the English Garten and changed into bathing suits. We then walked a bit up the river that snakes through the park and jumped in, floating all the way back to our spot. LOVELY. It made it hard to go back to work, but it's easier knowing that I'll be meeting friends later on the Isar to go grilling for the second day in a row and the third time this week.

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Just to describe the scenery a bit, the Isar is the river that runs alongside Munich. I say alongside instead of through because most major cities with a river are built around the river, which makes for some beautiful pictures, but mostly a not-so-clean river. In Munich, the Isar served as the eastern boundary of the city for centuries, so while the city has certainly expanded around it, the Isar retains that off-the-beaten-path feeling. The best part of the river near Munich is, in my opinion, near our apartment. It's called "the Flaucher", a section of the river dotted with stony islands and scruffy trees and a long wooden footbridge connecting them. The river runs through in rivlets and waterfalls, and there are several pools deep enough to swim in, or you can just let yourself be swept along with the light current. The city of Munich actually filters the river water for swimmers, so there are no worries about icky side effects!

On a short side note, this is also the second area of Munich, after the English Garten, that is famous for allowing "FKK", which is "freie körper kultur" or "free body culture". NAKED. That's right. But don't worry, we were't. Makes for interesting site seeing...

This whole area is a griller's paradise, and we lug our portable Weber, some coal, blankets and torches down any day that's warm enough. We usually get a good enough crowd of our friends together to have a great gathering. Nothing tastes better after a long day at work than a river-cooled beer (cases of beer come in plastic crates here, so all you have to do to keep it cool is stick it in the river) and a nicely grilled steak. And when the sun goes down, we light up our wax torches and turn up our portable speakers. It feels like being in some sort of Munich-born Elysian fields. To me, anyways….