Day 83.

As the calendar turns to September, we bid adieu to the summer, hot weather and European holiday crowds and welcome the crisp fall weather.  We also bid adieu to the Baltic countries and head for more mainland Europe. Riga to Munich is 28 hours by bus or train so we opt to fly this one with a layover in Frankfort.  The only minor hiccup is that our flight into Frankfort was supposed to be only 3 gates apart from the gate for our flight going out to Munich but instead we ended up at a different terminal.  With a short layover, we had to do a full-on mile long sprint to the original terminal and of course as soon as they get there, our flight is delayed an hour.  In the grand scheme of things, I’m certainly not complaining about this hiccup.

As we arrive to our Airbnb, things don’t look great, but I keep Leanne’s “don’t judge a book by its cover” motto in mind.  However; unlike the Riga Airbnb, the inside of this one pretty much does match the moribund cover.  We are not deterred as we know we’re going to have hits and misses with our Airbnb’s so we have to take the misses in stride when they happen. 

We are getting settled and the kids are in the living room talking.  Leanne and I are in the bedroom unpacking some stuff, when there is a shouting commotion in the living room. We come out of the room as the door is slammed shut with a force that rattles the windows.  I’m totally confused as all kids are accounted for so who just left the apartment and slammed the door?  The kids looked a little shell shocked.  “What happened?” I asked.  “Well, this older guy started pounding on the door and then just walked right into the apartment and started screaming at us in a thick German accent that he lived upstairs and we needed to shut the hell up and then he turned around, left and slammed the door shut after him.”

It appears the kids were the victim of a drive-by anti-Airbnb neighbor.  This took place at 7:30pm on a Saturday night (quiet hours don’t start until 10pm), there was no music playing and the kids were just talking.  Talk about someone who forgot to take their happy pills that morning.  Leanne and I conclude that the upstairs neighbor must be sick of the Airbnb crowd coming and going below him and he has decided that his most effective strategy is that as soon as he hears new Airbnb people arrive, he bursts in on them, shouting and doing his best to intimidate them into silence for the remainder of their stay. 

One of Leanne’s roommates from business school, Elif, lives in Munich and they’ve invited us over for dinner.  Leanne and I were last in Munich in 2001 for Elif and Otto’s wedding.  They now have two children Ayla (age 11) and Maximillian (age 15).  We arrive at their house and everyone introduces themselves.  It has been a long time since we’ve seen them so there is a lot of catching up to do.  We have a common interest in music as Maximillian is a very accomplished pianist, composer and conductor.  The kids go off the music room where Maximillian and John can talk opera and classical music while the adults continue to catch up.  We thank Elif and Otto for dinner and their hospitality and head back across town where the kids immediately crash in bed from the long day.