MUNICH, GERMANY -- The last leg of our three flights from Milwaukee arrived right on time: 8:45 a.m. from Amsterdam, via Newark. The final flight came courtesy of a subsidiary of KLM called Transavia, which is surely the wackiest airline I've ever flown. And it's not because they speak Dutch, which is a crazy-sounding language if you, like I, have never heard it before: it has a certain rhyming cadence that makes it sound like it's made up on the fly. No, the Transavia staff was decked out in jaunty, bright lime green attire, tight-fitting and stylish. Their retro outfits matched the brightly upholstered 737. I might've enjoyed it more had I gotten more sleep out of Newark.

Instead, we arrived in Munich with about an hour of sleep under our belts, despite our best efforts. Fortunately, the Munich airport is logical and efficient, and in just a few minutes, we hopped aboard the train to the city center.

The outskirts of Munich, by train, look an awful lot like the trip from Milwaukee to Chicago on Amtrak. It starts out rural, then gets suburban, and finally urban. The train is silent, efficient and all the travelers speak in quiet whispers. That alone felt distinctly different from the States.

We felt fairly certain that the closest subway stop to our hotel was the Hauptbahnhof Central Station, and we found that stop easily. Once we appeared into the daylight, however, we felt fairly turned around. Most people here speak quite a bit of English, and we asked a kindly-looking fräulein directions to the street we needed. She sort of sent us the wrong way, but 15 minutes later, we successfully found our hotel and dropped off our bags.

With a mere 24 hours in Munich, we knew we had to pick our spots. So we grabbed our maps and made a bee line for the Marienplatz, the center of Munich. We got there just in time for the 11 a.m. glockenspiel performance, which is sort of like an old-fashioned Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic stage show. The kids gathered in the square enjoyed it more than we did, so we moved on to the Viktualienmarkt.

The Viktualienmarkt (no, I can't pronounce it) is an open-air market, filled with sausage shops, bakeries and fish stores. Both my wife and my internal clocks were fairly screwed up by now, and neither of us were hungry. But we thought it would be wise to try to eat something, and while the several sausage shops looked good, I had no idea what was what, so I mistakenly opted for a piece of pizza. The slice had a topping of fish, and after one bite, I couldn't continue. I grabbed a cold pretzel to tide me over.

Walking back from the market, I spied my first Milwaukee sighting. On the gate of a shop, someone had slapped a Nomad World Pub sticker (see photo above). I guess it's true, you can never really leave Milwaukee.

Next, we headed north to the Residenz, a sprawling palace built my Germany's monarchs centuries ago. The tour cost 6 Euros, and we doodled around for about two hours. Much of the palace was destroyed during World War II, and the audio tour made sure to mention it at every occurrence. Munich, in general, didn't fare too well during the war, and it's interesting to see how such a historic city has come to grips with the loss of culture during a campaign that they themselves started.

Speaking of which, that's about as much as I'm allowing myself to dwell on World War II while here. People have asked me, a Jew, how I feel about buying a German car tomorrow and visiting Germany today. I admit that I struggled with some emotions, but ultimately came to the conclusion that Germans today have nothing to do with the sins of their grandparents.

Nonetheless, it does feel a little weird to be here. There are a whole lot of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Bavarians running around. But there are also a ton of brunettes, and our hotel lies in the Turkish area of town. Our incredibly gracious cab driver on the way back to the hotel told us the Munich is friendly to immigrants. Not sure if that's true, but people seem to get along.

By 2 p.m., we felt like walking zombies and had to take a short nap. There was simply no way we'd make it to tonight without one. So we slept a bit, showered, and now I'm writing this blog. We'll hit a beer garden for dinner and make it an early night. Tomorrow morning, we pick up the BMW at "The Welt," and hit the road for Strasbourg. I'll blog again when we're in France.

Just a few random observations about Munich before I sign off:

Every car on the road, with very few exceptions, is a BMW, Mercedes, VW or Audi. Even the taxis are Benzes. The cops drive Bimmers, and I've seen a total of two American cars so far (and they were both Daimler Benz models).

The city is nearly spotless and is very quiet. We haven't seen a piece of trash, and everyone speaks in their "inside" voice even when outside. It's actually quite nice.

As best as I can tell, Munich smells a little like an old man. Every city has its own scent, and while the smells aren't as pervasive as those in Mexico or in the Caribbean, this town has a faint, stale odor that smells like an old man's cologne (Get it ... Cologne? -ed.). My wife says she doesn't sense it, but I noticed it the moment I got off the plane, and smell it now, even in our tiny but clean hotel.