Getting to Lviv: Back in Munich

The work trip to Munich was sudden, lasted only 3 days, and I brought with me some viral nastiness from home. My boss and I made it outside for dinner one evening, and that 15 minute walk through the old town of Freising was the only time we spent outside.

Among other disappointments from that trip: I ordered a pilsener when we sat down to beer with colleagues, turns out this is usually an after dinner beer. I took some ribbing from our Israeli sales manager, who had been taking a good deal more than ribbing all night over the latest occupation of Palestine. When we sat down for dinner, I made it through one bite of my soup and then white knuckled a trip to my hotel room where I slept off said viral nastiness.

When my boss and I left Munich, I arrived at the airport feeling pressed for time - and then waited. I picked up chocolate, some gummi bears, and a book for Axel. All of the high-end duty free shops had big sale signs in their windows but at the end of the day, a Burberry scarf is a Burberry scarf.

My fondest hope for the trip back through was that I might score some more gummi bears. On my way off the plane, I realized that one of my colleagues and her husband had flown from San Francisco with me. They would have two hours to kill before their flight to Torino, me before my flight to Kyiv. They were routed through a gate for EU citizens though, and I went off to try and find some hryvnia.

Eventually I did. The kindly woman at the Western Union exchange laughed at my request for 200 of them. She said she had 99 of them, or about 15 dollars worth. "Enough for Taxi maybe." "Better than nothing." I tried other wings of my terminal, but all other exchanges were dark. I grabbed a big bottle of water, and then sat at the Aerobrau. My weisbier was 10 Euro cents cheaper than the water. I had to show my passport to buy the water, and to write down the name of my home city.