Visited the old town of Munster, where Thomas went to uni. It's a really cute little town with old, original style buildings (that were rebuilt in the original style after the war), cobble stone roads and a buzzing cafe culture. All cafes are overflowing with people and the city has a really nice feel with some luxury shops, German bakeries everywhere with huge loaves of bread and lots of young people in this university town.

The only thing I don't understand is how popular the cafes are, it is quite strange to me because I haven't been able to find a good barista coffee since I arrived here - using condensed milk in my latte is not ok.

A highlight was visiting this quaint restaurant serving typical northern german dishes called Kleiner Kiepenkerl. We shared the Pfifferlinge mit Semmelknodel in Rahmsauce. It is a bread ball with a special type of mushrooms that can only be found in some forests in Germany, they are not grown on farms. Seems they are very sensitive to the conditions where they are grown in in the forest. The mushrooms kind of taste like oyster mushrooms except a different texture, they are soft but not slimy.

We visited the University of Munster and went to see the big bang theory guys in the Physics department. A lot of the scientists that Thomas used to work with were still there. We met his old professor Marcus Donath, who had just arrived back from holidays so we were lucky to catch him. He seemed like a pretty inspiring guy with lots of travel, genuine interest in people and a true passion for what he does.

As we strolled around the city we saw the three churches, and the castle where Thomas said 'some Earl of Munster used to live here' :) In front of the castle was a big sandy arena with two grandstands next to it. I was 100% sure this was where Shrek battled to become the knight to save princess Fiona. Or at the very least I wanted to see men on horses jousting. Very disappointed to find out it was some kind of regular equestrian event... *snore*

We finished off the day with a cold beer near the 'A lake' with some of Thomas' uni friends. I continue to be impressed by how well everyone speaks English, will be a long time if ever my German will be to that!