so, an update on life in munchen. we live on the 4th floor here (5th according to states - here the 1st floor is ground floor and then they start counting), there's an elevator, but i try to take the stairs. just this week we finally figured out where to put the trash, and boy do they separate everything out. there's metal recycling (alum), plastic recylcing, glass recycle, paper recycle, 'biologishe' which is basically compost', and then everything else. apparently the hausmeister will get mad if you don't sort properly!

the weather has been pretty nice - we had sun and warm weather for the first 4 or 5 days, which was wonderful to help acclimate to the time, and handy to explore. now its typical weather here, which is sort of gray and a bit cool (at least for me!). it reminds me of my year in seattle and also my summer in london, actually. the ubahn and sbahn are great to get around on, and our stop is quite close. the grocery store, drug store, bread store, and dry cleaners are all off of this small square also nearby, on the way to the ubahn stop. on saturday as we were going to the grocery store (everything is closed on sunday!) the square was full of vendors - lots of fresh vegetables, fruit, cheese, and of course beer. the vegetables here are all very fresh, which is nice. not as many fruits, and hard to find citrus, but there are fancy markets in the marienplatz (munchen's popular central pedestrian shopping square) that carry all sorts of things.