Reading this week:

• The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi

The title of my last post was “It ends in Regensburg,” which referred to the cruise but not this series of Eurotrip posts, don’t you worry! The thing about Regensburg is that it doesn’t have an international airport, so getting home again was going to require getting to Munich first. To accomplish that, we left the ship pretty early on our final day of the cruise. It’s exactly like a hotel, in that they want you off sometime in the morning so they can prep the cabins for the next round of guests. We had a lovely breakfast and the ship had arranged taxis for us to the airport. My super amazing wife and I head out alongside most of the rest of my family, with our immediate destination as the train station. And from there we caught a train and were on our way!

A brief pause to evaluate whether I would go on a Viking cruise again. I think most definitely someday. My parents paid for this trip as part of the 40^th wedding anniversary, but a quick look at their website reveals this same trip costs about $2700 per person (plus airfare). That does seem worth it. The customer service on the cruise was top notch, with staff remembering your name and preferences and working hard to make sure you have a pleasant time. The food is good and the tours they arrange are indeed pretty interesting and well-run. A Viking cruise suffers only in the same way any cruise does, in that the time is a bit whirlwind, but it was a lot of fun. However, I don’t think we’re going to sign up for another one soon. They do seem to cater to a slightly older crowd who is willing to give themselves over to the steady hand of Viking; mom had wanted to go on a cruise instead of just a generic European vacation specifically so she didn’t have to do any of the planning. My super amazing wife and I are still young and foolish enough to plan overly elaborate vacations on our own, but I could easily see at some point becoming a Viking aficionado. Those world cruises don’t seem like too bad of a deal, really.

But in the meantime and until I save up for that, we were off to Munich. We arrived fairly smoothly at one of the Munich airport hotels, dropped off our stuff, and head on into the city. To get there we took the S-Bahn, which also went smoothly but took a little bit longer than expected. All our trains this day were a bit delayed, which goes very much against stereotypes. Emerging from the train we walked around the Marienplatz admiring everything. On our way back we happened upon a performance of the Rathaus-Glockenspiel which was fortunate timing. Off the Marienplatz we poked a little ways into the Viktualienmarkt (open-air market) and checked out a shop or two, and then got a Munich-appropriate Taiwanese lunch.

This all brought us to our major destination in the city: the Museum Fünf Kontinente! This is an ethnographic museum, and I found it because I was searching for Africa museums in Germany. The website is unassuming, so I didn’t know what to expect, but upon arrival the building is very assuming. It is yet another undeservedly under-trafficked museum. It had a lot of cool stuff.

Upon arrival we got the “combo” ticket so we could also see the special exhibits. Before getting to those we started off at the Islamic art which was, per usual, gorgeous. Many if not most things had English labels in addition to the German, which was convenient for us. From Islamic art we then went into the exhibit on Oceania which was likewise filled with gorgeous and mesmerizing pieces. One thing I wish I understood better about all the collections was the how or why of it. I suppose it is an ethnographic museum so they filled it with ethnographic stuff, but like, there are some Benin bronzes in there with little reflection of how they were there.

One section did have an explanation, which was an exhibit on Myanmar. It came with a disclaimer that it was curated in 2014 when the prospects for Myanmar are different than they are now. The items in the exhibit came largely from a collecting trip circle 1910 when the museum sent a dude out there to buy a bunch of stuff, which is a dream job if there ever was one. This was followed by an exhibit on Japan celebrating 160 years of German-Japanese relations featuring art by a guy that was on the Perry expedition. The art was apparently from his second, non-Perry visit, whatever that means for its perspective.

I of course liked the sub-Saharan Africa stuff the best. One of the special exhibits we had gotten the combo ticket for was “Merci Maman” all about the Malian art of painting on busses. It included some interesting thoughts on the culture, like the bus boys (conductors) being the “heroes” of the operation, which is not how I experienced it in Zambia. They made some hay of how artists will put both Putin and an American flag on a bus without seeing a contradiction. Based on her experience however my super amazing wife didn’t see a contradiction at all, she figured people just know both groups give the country money.

In the non-special-exhibit bit of Africa, one thing they did was mix in contemporary art with the more ancient stuff, which is an interesting comment on both. Some pieces from the DRC included masks and costumes made of Kinshasa trash which is an interesting take. Another claim to fame for the Museum Fünf Kontinente for American visitors is that it houses one of the Yoruba veranda posts carved by Olowe of Ise that inspired the design of the National Museum of African American History & Culture.

At this point after a long day we were beginning to lose steam so we kinda zoomed through the North America section. It was interesting to see North America through a German lens. They kinda mashed a lot of stuff together, or more accurately stuff from a particular culture would be spread throughout, despite a sign explaining that “Indians are not all the same!” The final room we perused was full of Peruvian artifacts, including a few textiles that were 2000 years old, which always blows my mind. It really brings you so close to the past.

Full of the treasure of five continents we made our way back to the hotel via the scenic route through some more shops. And then after a night at the hotel it was off to the airport proper to catch our flight and head on back home, our Eurotrip at its final final end.