A Little Life in the Alps

It had been about 22 years since Sheila and I first set foot on the cobblestone streets of Munich. That trip marked my very first visit to Europe, and I still remember getting lost together in the beer halls and back alleys of this beautiful city. During our last European adventure with Cedar, we stayed mostly close to home base in Chernex, Switzerland—so it felt especially exciting to kick off the winter leg of our journey here, surrounded by the festive glow of Munich’s world-famous Christmas markets.

Germany is basically one of the countries that invented many of the the Christmas traditions we hold dear, so we were eager to dive headfirst into the holiday spirit. No better place to start than the iconic Marienplatz, home to one of the largest and most storied Christmas markets in Europe.

My excitement was briefly tempered by a flood of texts that came in just before we landed. News had just broken about a foiled terror plot involving plans to drive cars into German Christmas markets… in roughly the same region we were heading to. A few friends were messaging to warn us against bringing Cedar, citing safety concerns.

Here’s the thing: I’m nervous about a lot of things. My brain often jumps to worst-case scenarios. Sheila, on the other hand, is the yin to my yang. Not that she’s careless—she just doesn’t spend as much time doomscrolling social media as I do. The truth is, the world can seem like a seriously scary place if you only focus on the worst of it. Something I need to work on changing.

I reminded myself one of the reasons we travel is to show Cedar how much incredible beauty there is in the world. Avoiding these experiences feels, in a way, like letting the bad guys win. So I kept quiet about the texts and we stuck with our plan. And I’m glad we did.

From start to finish, our time in Munich was incredible. We stayed right downtown in a great hotel, and our flight with Lufthansa was smooth as butter. I laughed at the relaxed, matter-of-fact voice of the pilot as we descended: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are arriving in Munich. Thank you for choosing Lufthansa.” Cedar slept through the last 15 minutes of the 9.5-hour flight (his specialty), but perked up quickly once we hit the customs desk. Our Uber driver, Hamidullah, was a gem— very eager to chat and show us photos from his past work as a bellhop at one of Munich’s top hotels. Turns out he’s met Ronaldo, Messi, Zidane, and, of course, Thomas Müller (we got on the topic as we passed the Bayern Munich stadium). He helped us orient ourselves downtown, and after dropping our bags at the hotel, we grabbed a quick lunch. Jet lag was creeping in, so we took a short power nap to recharge.

As dusk settled, we made our way into Marienplatz. We passed the open-air skating rink, bustling with laughter and music, and wandered through rows of wooden stalls filled with handmade ornaments, candles, and Christmas treasures. We grabbed mugs of steaming glühwein (hot mulled wine) and apple cider for Cedar, then found a spot to sit and watch the sun disappear behind the Glockenspiel and the white lights of the market flicker to life. What a place!

For dinner, we headed to the legendary Hofbräuhaus. Thankfully, we found it much more easily than we had on our first trip—back then, we had to ask for directions from a priest who was already half in the bag from his own celebrations. This time, we walked straight in and were seated at a long wooden table. Cedar was stoked to get a pretzel the size of his head, while Sheila and I toasted our return to Germany with beers that matched. Oompah-pah music played in the background, and the vibe was exactly as we remembered it: joyful with a side of rambunctious.

One thing about the Lums—we like to squeeze every last drop out of a day when we travel, jet lag be damned. The litre-sized beers might’ve even given us a second wind along with delusions of joining the polka band, but we made the responsible choice and wrapped up our night and made our way back home to the hotel. We had a big travel day ahead.

A perfect start to part two of our adventure.