Munich, Germany

The Cal Poly gang :)

The German Castle

Tracy and I sporting traditional German dresses!

The tent we went to at Oktoberfest

Inside the tent

The rides by the beer garden

So Germany, where do I begin? This was perhaps the best weekend ever. It was nice seeing familiar faces and meeting up with friends from school, it made me feel a little less far from home. I left right after class with only a small backpack, and flew to Paris and then connected there to my flight to Munich. I was a little nervous traveling by myself and not speaking a word of German, but I was relieved that almost everyone spoke English and that I fit in surprisingly well- everyone had blonde hair! In France people look at me weird wherever I go because they know that I am not from France, I think my lack of dark hair and eyes is a give away! So it was really bizarre to go to another country and not get any weird looks. People would come up to me and ask me questions, I’m assuming directions, in German, and were surprised that I didn’t speak German. It was difficult though to find my friend Tracy in the airport. In France I can pick out all of my American friends from a mile away because most of them have red, blonde, or light brown hair. Spotting someone among a sea of blonde girls in Germany is a bit of a challenge.

We finally met up and took the Sbahn train to the central station in Munich where were met up with our German friend, Mathise. He studied at Cal Poly for spring and summer quarter and was nice enough to let us stay with him this weekend! We went out on the town for awhile that night, and in the morning Mathise and his friends made us a traditional German breakfast. This consisted of white sausages and pretzels with sweet mustard. The sausages looks kind of gross and you had to peel the skin off of them which was difficult for first-timers, but they ended up tasting amazing! And I don’t know what it was about that sweet mustard, but it was so incredible! We ate a lot of pretzels and sweet mustard this weekend. After breakfast, Mathise and two of his other German friends took us on a tour of the city. We went to a nearby castle, the English garden, the opera house, Hofrauhouse, their war memorial, and even walked through the university where our German “tour guides” go to school. It was fun getting a feel for the city! We also went to a department store to try on the traditional German dresses. People were wearing them everywhere, not just at Oktoberfest- in the airport, downtown etc… So naturally we felt a little left out because we didn’t have one. I found the perfect German dress, but unfortunately it was 129 Euro, a little out of my budget, so I just took pictures instead. :)

The next day we went to Oktoberfest-and what an experience that was! We got there at 8am to make sure that we would get into a good tent. We went to Schutzen Festzelt, which is supposedly one of the best ones, and the least touristy. Again, it was nice knowing some locals to give us the inside scoop. We split into two groups because there were two lines to get in. There was one point where everyone started rushing towards the door and no one had actually opened it yet-so the stampede of people were shoved back and everyone almost fell over at once. That would not have been good! When the doors finally did open we all ran into to try to get one of the good tables that you can stay at all day. Even though we were some of the first people there we didn’t get the good tablesL. It ended up being alright though because we got a table in the section that you could only sit in until 1. And since it was only 9am at the time, which gave us plenty of time in the tent. After 1pm we went to the section with the good tables and made friends so that we could join their table. At 11am they started playing traditional German music and everyone got so excited, stood up on the tables, and started dancing. Mind you that everyone was wearing traditional German dresses and all the guys were wearing lederhosen. Later, when we moved to the other tables, they started playing all of this American music like Hey Jude, YMCA, etc… All of these German people knew the words too and were singing at the tops of their lungs!

We got tired of the tent after awhile so we went outside into the beer garden. There were tons of roller coasters, ferris wheels, and swings out there. They also had lots of food stands so we snacked on toasted almond, and surprise, surprise, PRETZELS! Except the pretzels at Oktoberfest were bigger than the size of my head-they were enormous!

Around 9pm. we went back to Mathise’s apartment for some R & R and then went out again to meet up with some of my besties from Cal Poly, Alex, David, Brandon, and Nate. It was great to see them!! Alex and David are studying in Copenhagen, Denmark and Brandon and Nate are studying in Barcelona, Spain. It was so chaotic at Oktoberfest that we weren’t able to meet up there so we had to meet up later. We were meeting them at a metro stop and all of a sudden a familiar voice screams my name, and I look over and it was Brandon- their whole group had been standing right next to me for almost five minutes. We all planned to meet up in Germany when we first decided to go abroad, so I’m so glad that everything worked out! Prost!

I definitely didn’t want to leave. It was my first time to Germany and I got a really good impression! This was the first weekend that I hadn’t traveled with my Pau friends, so I was excited to come “home” to see them!

This week we have placement exams for our french classes, ugh. I’m excited for my pilates class and swim practice this week though. I’m taking a pilates class taught in french and there are only four other American kids in the class. It’s pretty funny listening to her trying to explain the “neutral spine” in French- they have to use so many more words to explain the same thing. It was pretty easy last week though, so I hope it’s more challenging this week. I went to my first swim practice last week too. I was in a lane with all french kids who were really nice, and seemed impressed that I was joining the french swim team. They did have to help explain the sets to me though, but now I know all of the strokes etc, so I should be better prepared for this week. Just for your info-incase you ever join a french swim team- freestyle is “le crawl”, backstroke is “le dos”, butterfly is “le papillon”, and breaststroke is “la brase”.