Open air cafes abound.

I decided that this was the lion for me to pose with. I asked a women walking by to take the photo. She turned out to be an optics engineer from Austria and we had a nice chat about cameras and lenses.

Little shops like this one are to be found in every nook and crany of the city.

The integration of architecture and sculpture is apparent with every new “Platz” revealing an even more spectacular view.

Highly decorated lion statues can be found at every turn. Here a waiter pauses for a chat with his girl friend.

I arrived at about noon and travelled by S-Bahn to the city center. After checking into my hotel and grabbing a quick nap and shower I set out for some sightseeing. Despite having been to Munich over a dozen times, I have never really had an opportunity to see this beutiful city.

Today I am off to Munich on this Lufthansa jet. To say the German’s have embraced the spirit of the World Cup would be an understatement. If I had tried, I could not have timed my trip better to coincide with the finals. Although it was really just dumb luck, I am looking forward to seeing the final match in a German beergarten.

Final shot of the day.

I reached the end of the shore walk as the sun was setting and paused for this shot which for me captures the feel of the city.

As I was walking down the street, I came across what appeared to be a race in which all participants were wearing red dresses regardless of gender. Of the 500 or so “runners” all seemed to share a high blood alcohol content and to be displaying a lot of skin (this being a family website, I have posted the most conservative albeit least interesting photo). Only in California!

The waterfront features a maritime museum which inlcudes a collection of great sailing ships as well as more modern naval vessels.

Once again, even though though the moon was visible, it remained light late into the evening.

This morning I flew into Los Angeles for meetings in nearby Tustin. Half my staff at this location were out on vacation and I was able to wrap things up by around 3PM (good thing too, because by this point my voice had all but completely given out). I decided to make the 2 hour drive to San Diego rather than hang around LA and made my way to the downtown waterfront which is punctuated every couple hundred of feet with great sculpture.

Even though it was approaching 9PM, the sun was still up. I decided to head over the Golden Gate and made it to this great vantage point just in time to catch this shot of the city cradled by the bridge with the foreground in shadow and the bridge top and city in golden light. This photo is quite spectacular at full resolution and this little version hardly does it justice.