The Morgenmuffel Gallery

Welcome to the Morgenmuffel Gallery!

It’s too early for words.

Here are highlights of our morning moments, from home and on the road…

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What is a Morgenmuffel?

The Grumpy Gnome, hiding from the morning sun

Morgenmuffel.

This quirky, fun gift of a noun from the German language describes a person who is extremely grumpy in the mornings and typically wakes up in a cross mood. The literal translation is the combination of the words “der morgen,” which is “morning,” and “der muffel” meaning “grouch.” A Morgenmuffel is a “morning grouch.”

Does 10am feel like an early start for you? Do you struggle to function between the moment your eyes open and the first cup of coffee? Does the bright, shining light of the morning sun send you retreating deep under the blankets in terror? You, my friend, may be a Morgenmuffel.

If you are, you’re in good company. The Grumpy Gnome is a Morgenmuffel in the truest sense of the word. Conversations we have around the subject of morning tend to go as follows:

When I ask The Grumpy Gnome why there is no such thing as a good morning, he responds, “Why are we up? We’re not farmers. I don’t have to plant crops. I don’t have to feed cows. My ultimate dream is to not be conscious for the first three hours of the day, to just snap into reality mid-task around noon.” When I ask if there was anything worse than the morning sun, he replies: “Yes. Stairs. They are slightly worse than the sun because they never end. At least the sun goes away at night. The stairs do not.”

Travel asks us to step outside our comfort zone, and abandon what we are familiar with in light of new experiences. Some of us prefer mornings; for others, evening is a much better match for their specific energy levels. The Grumpy Gnome and I often find ourselves on opposite ends of an energetic spectrum, with when we feel the most active and motivated. Even if you are traveling with your energetic opposite, you can establish a balance that supports harmony across different temperaments. If you’re traveling with a partner or a group, it’s imperative to respect each others’ pace and not pressure everyone to conform to an identical cycle. I promise you, there is something awesome to discover at all hours of the day. Whatever the length of your trip, allow yourself the space to check in and connect with how you’re really feeling. Express this honestly.

Knowing yourself and your energetic cycle is key in planning an itinerary and mapping out what you’d like to see, and when. One action that will help you achieve this is to research the operating hours of the top sites you’d like to check out while planning your trip. When the Grumpy Gnome and I visited the Louvre in Paris, we went during their Friday evening hours. It was absolutely perfect for us, because we were both in a higher energy to absorb the incredible art we saw, and the crowds were much lighter at that time of day.

Shape the planning of your time to your own unique energy, and honor how you are feeling. If you’re feeling really tired, allow yourself rest. If you can’t sleep and everything is closing for the night, enjoy a peaceful walk or try writing about your experiences in a journal. Self care is essential, as you will be experiencing so much at such an accelerated rate that you will need downtime to balance the high energy times. Good sleep, nutrition, and safety are pillars of your well being as a traveler that need to be honored, in order for you to sustain yourself and have the best possible experience.

Travel Story:

Rest is absolutely essential, which I have not always been the best about acknowledging. When I travel, I naturally shift into total ‘go’ mode—I want to see, experience, and live the essence of every place we see to the fullest. After stretches of days of walking miles and sleeping light, I often don’t realize how tired I am, and The Grumpy Gnome is a great partner for helping balance this driving energy.

One story that comes to mind is from when we were backpacking through the UK, in northern Wales. This was our very first trip abroad, in October of 2010. Our eighth day on the road, and a Sunday evening. We had clocked miles of hiking, having traveled by rail from London to Edinburgh to the Highlands, and were making our way back south on the train. Our next booked accommodation was a in Wiltshire, the following night. We thought we’d be able to travel by rail through the eastern side of the UK, but didn’t realize that the trains stopped operating earlier on Sundays. We were stranded in a little crossroads of an area in Northern Wales, called Llandudno Junction. This was before the international use of smartphones was common, when prepaid phone cards were a thing and we were navigating by paper Britrail schedules as we picked them up from train stations. A older, local man noticed we were standing at the train stop after the last one had gone for the day. We must have looked a bit lost, with our backpacks and wandering expressions. He kindly directed us to a nearby tavern. We went to the tavern, but they were unable to book any rooms due to renovations that were underway. The lady at the desk directed us to a hotel, a ways up the road. It was actually about 2 miles away.

We decided to make the best of it—we picked up takeaway Indian food, AND ordered pizza! We were so hungry by this point in the evening. As we walked into the pizza place, we were greeted by three middle-aged gentlemen standing around the counter. “Strange accents!” they commented, as we began talking with them. They asked where we were from, and we told them, “Chicago.” All three reacted, exclaiming, “Oh! You have good pizza there, don’t you?!” We laughed together and engaged in conversation. One of the men was the delivery driver, and he was actually about to take an order to the hotel we were walking to. He offered us a ride, and we thanked him. Of course, we instinctively got on the wrong side of the van, and he jokingly asked if we were driving. We climbed up into the high seat of a white box van crowded with stuff—I held a stack of warm pizzas in my lap, and our driver talked with us about the government in Wales. Once we reached our destination, we were able to book a room and settle in. We hung out on the bed, ate amazing take out food, took warm showers, and surfed through local news channels trying to follow the captions in what I believe was Welsh.

After everything we’d experienced on our backpacking trip, the simplicity of relaxing for a night and watching tv felt so strange. I had no idea how physically tired I was, or how much that simple night of staying in would rejuvenate me. I realized that I had been carrying a fear of missing out on things—and resisting anything too familiar to what we had back home. I wanted to be in the moment, really experiencing the places we travelled through. But, in going off of our planned path and staying in a small modern town for a night, we found a place we’d never heard of and connected with people who live there. It because a very unexpected, positive memory from our very first journey abroad. And I will never forget how we all bonded over the international reputation of Chicago pizza.

For those who are not Morgenmuffels, here are a few more fun German words to help you describe yourself:

Der Morgenmensch: morning person

Der Nachteule: night owl