More Travels

View from one of the lab rooms

This marks the third week that I have been in Germany, with two weeks in Stuttgart. I can’t believe that it’s already been that long! I feel like I was just home, but at the same time I feel like I have been here forever. So I guess I am just confused. But not confused enough to want anything to change. I like everything just the way it is. So let me tell you how things are.

Opera House

Tuesday we went back to work after the long weekend. On Wednesday night, Marissa and I went to the Opera. I get to say that my first opera was in Germany. Which is pretty nifty, really. The most impressive part of the whole night was that I wore heels the entire time. I mean, the singing and the opera house were alright I guess. Actually, the performers were incredible. The pipes on the lead singer were incredibly impressive. Everything was sung in Italian of course and the subtitles were in German. So I really had no idea what was going down. Fortunately, this allowed me to focus on the music that was being played as well as the music produced by the powerful voices on stage. The opera house was old and the seats were made out of wood. It was a little toasty up in the highest row, but Marissa and I quite enjoyed ourselves. It was a beautiful night with beautiful music and a beautiful friend. I swear I’m not trying to suck up to anyone!

Next to the Opera House

Inside the Opera House

Selfie!

Thursday began the World Cup of soccer. For us Americans, it doesn’t really mean much. But for the rest of the world, it is a very fun, very drunk, very anticipated time of the year. We went wandering around the city center for a place that was showing the game as well as serving alcohol. We found such a place and parked our butts for a few hours. The game didn’t end too late, which was good, because we had big plans for Friday.

Varun, Marissa, and I left work early to ensure that we would make it on time to catch our 8 hour bus to Berlin. During those hours, we talked, read, slept, and stared out the windows. We got to Berlin at 1 am, and my friend Erik picked us up. He was kind enough to let us stay with him for the weekend. Let me tell you, it was the strangest sleeping arrangement I have ever been in. The three of us squished onto a pull out couch thing meant for two small people. If we weren’t already such good friends, we would be after this weekend! In the room with us was Erik, his Mastiff-lab mix Theo, two birds, and six guinea pigs. It was an interesting mix of characters, but hey, it was free!

Olympic Stadium

Inside the stadium

All the audience entrances are made out of granite. Your favorite Dad!

What an awesome street name!

Saturday morning, the three of us ventured to the Olympic park. We were all incredibly excited to be there. The stadium was massive and shielded us well from the downpour that followed. We walked around the stadium and saw the pool and a big field. Unfortunately, we were only allowed to stay or a half hour because a car show was being set up. We walked around the outside of the park until we decided to pay a visit to the Berlin Wall. Instead of the memorial I had gone to two weeks earlier, we went to the East Side Gallery. This is where artists have painted a long chunk of the wall with different, colorful murals. I was super excited to have been able to see this part of the wall as well as the historical part. We bought pieces of the Wall, hoping that they are real and not purely a money making vehicle. From the Gallery, we went back to the same pizza place Camille, Megan, and I went to. Again, it was raining, and again, the pizza was superb. We waited for the fourth member of our group to join us. This fourth member’s name is Binja. I had ever actually met Binja before our pizza meal. She became close friends with my friend Amy while they both studied abroad in Australia last year. I had met her over Skye and through the things Amy told me about her. But meeting her in real life was so much better! She is a firm believer in making weird faces in pictures, she understands my sarcasm, and she is incredibly funny. A girl after my own heart. She fit in perfectly with our little group of three, and we happily expanded to four.

Wall mural

Marissa and me at the East Side Gallery

Another mural

After eating, we made our way to the Brandenburg Gate, stopping at all the touristy spots along the way. We walked and talked, talked and walked. As we made our way, I learned something very important: Germans love their soccer. Most of the stretch from the Brandenburg Gate to the Victory Tower was blocked off. Half the Tiergarten was also blocked off. Why was all this blocked off, you might ask me. And what does it have to do with soccer? Everything. It has everything to do with soccer, my fellow Americans. We don’t do anything similar to this in the US, but they were preparing for a public viewing of the first German game. They were setting up a fair to go along with the game. There was actually a Ferris Wheel! They were preparing for the public viewing at least on Saturday and probably earlier for a game on Monday. More details about public viewings in the next post. Once we discovered that everything was blocked, we took a train to meet Erik at another festival on the other side of town. We walked around this one for about an hour, just taking in the sights. From there, we found a beer garden to watch the nights’ soccer games. When Italy played England, the large group of Italians sitting in front of us were very vocal. They were also quite drunk, as per usual.

The next morning, Sunday, we all got ready and then set out to find a bakery, our group of three had expanded to five to include Erik and Binja. We ate and then wandered around.    The main event of the day, and the purpose of the trip, was a concert put on by the Phoenix Youth Symphony. Yes, the very same Phoenix Youth Symphony I played with for 7 years. When we got to the church they were rehearsing. I did a quick scan and only recognized the conductors I’d had. All the kids were too young for me to remember. I talked with both the conductors I knew, two of my favorites really, and then we listened to the music. I, of course, enjoyed it immensely. I’m always surprised when my friends like my concerts. So thanks Varun and Marissa for either being stellar liars or actually appreciating the music.

Two of my most favorite conductors!

After getting nostalgic with PYS, we said goodbye to Erik. We still had almost five hours until our bus left. We just walked wherever we wanted to go. It was super relaxing. We made our way to the Victory Tower in the middle of the Tiergarten. We climbed the spiral staircase to the top and got a terrific view of the city. A note though: climbing up a small, tall suitcase with luggage is not advisable. From the Victory Tower, which we successfully conquered, we walked through the open part of the Tiergarten all the way back to the Brandenburg Gate. Here, we got hungry. We found some currywurst and then some fro yo. Then we walked a bit to Potsdamer Platz, a shopping and eating center. We roamed around and then decided that we were on vacation and needed more gelato. So for the second time in an hour and a half, we said a resounding SCREW YOU to health and diets and whatnot. We sat in the middle of the courtyard, enjoying the yummy gelato and the beautiful weather. We people watched and talked about Spongebob. It was a very enjoyable way to spend our last few hours in Berlin.

View from the top of the Victory Tower

When we decided we had been lazy enough, we made our way to the bus station. Where we sat and talked more. Our bus left at 9:45 at night and got us back to Stuttgart at 6:20 am. The bus was packed, so sleeping wasn’t easy. After making it to the bus station as regular people were headed to work, we stumbled back to the university. Once in my room, I put my things down and was out for another hour and a half. And that was the conclusion to a fun, exciting, happy weekend in Berlin. 

For an expansion on the public viewing phenomenon, check in at the next post. There will be plenty of information for us ignorant Americans. Until then, Happy Late Father's Day to all the wonderful dudes out there, and to all a good night. 

Forever and always, 

Taryn

Hallo Stuttgart

Let this be a fair warning, this post will be nowhere as visually stimulating as my last post. Since I got to Stuttgart, I haven’t had enough time or been in a position to take very many pictures. Which is sad and depressing, but hopefully forthcoming weekend trips will remedy that. In the meantime, let me regale y’all with my past week.

From Munich, I travelled by train to Stuttgart. My buddy and I had to haul my luggage up for flights of stairs, as Europeans don’t believe in devices so large as elevators in dorms. I have my own room with a sink, the most awkward set of storage known to man, and a closet with a door. I have no drawers anywhere, but shelves everywhere. I share a kitchen and bathroom with maybe 10 other people. There are three skinny fridges that beep when left open for more than 30 seconds. There are windows everywhere and they are usually open. It is also usually very dark in the halls, so I try to make sure I’m not so intoxicated that four flights of dark stairs would kill me. Another Wildcat is on the second floor in my building while another is one building over and the other is a three minute walk through campus. Having everyone so close together is really nice when we stay out late. Which happens often.

Near the dorm

After beginning to unpack my room, I decided to go get some internet. I had to wait in line to be helped by a student worker. My situation was very different than every other students’, so explaining what I needed was a bit of a challenge. Eventually, the dude I was working with figured everything out for me. As soon as I left, I saw someone I knew and immediately latched on to him. When you come from the same school in the same program while in a foreign country, you immediately become best friends. It’s like kindergarden all over again. That is when Varun and I started hanging out. I told him how to get internet for his room as well. We went to the same guy who helped me and it went much faster that time. By the time I had told a third friend about the internet, the guy working even knew our emails. The Europeans may be ahead of us in many aspects, but their internet is not one of those things. I am currently attached to a 3 meter Ethernet cord. This is pre-dial up, people! Quite a blast from the past. After we literally connected to the internet, Varun and I ventured to the city center to find something to eat. We found some currywurst and then people-watched for a long time. As we talked, we discovered that we both knew my cousin. Nerds like to collect around other nerds, it seems. We left the city late, but I managed not to get us lost at all. I felt very European.

The next morning, Tuesday, it was time for paperwork. And then some more paperwork, with a side of paperwork. We had to verify where we are living, that we are actual human beings, the whole shebang. Once we had filled in all the proper boxes, we filled in more boxes at the bank, and then more boxes for some good German insurance. I believe I signed my name 482 times that day. The next stop was the city center to register as a student. There was a group of us who had to stay back. We took it upon ourselves to find the building in a city we had never been in before, where most of us don’t speak the language. We got nice and lost and totally disobeyed the instructions given to us. We learned an important piece of information that day: When a German tells you to do something, you do it. Thankfully, we found each other and successfully registered.

View from the top of the dorm

Another thing I have learned here is that the phone system sucks. Either that or the communication is bad or I am just really bad with technology. So it’s probably all three. But my adventures with my phone are still ongoing. I can receive texts, but not send them. The help line is all German. So for now, I’m living with phone calls and texting on Wifi. On a happier note, my friend Marissa is on this German journey with me. We are the same major at school and spent a loooooot of time together this year. Her parents live in Switzerland, so her dad came to drop her off. He took us out to lunch and gave us a lot of good advice about being abroad. After eating delicious German food and drinking delicious German alcohol, we made our way back to the university. Marissa and I went to the lab where I will be working for the next two and a half months. There we met a PhD student who works for my supervisor. He gave us a tour of both buildings where I will be working. They are both very cool and very different from the labs I’m used to at the U of A. After so much excitement, we all went to bed, excited to start our research in the morning.

My first day in the lab was fairly uneventful. There was more paperwork and more signing my name on the dotted line. What I’m supposed to be doing is using polymers to print constructs using a 3D printer, but the printer is three months late. So whenever that shows up, my life will be 5372943 times more interesting. We are all hoping it shows up soon. The girl in charge of the printer, and also myself, is named Carola. She speaks really awesome English, but for the first day I was so confused because her English accent came off vaguely Australian…? I soon found out that she had studied abroad in Sydney. Everything made more sense after that. The other girls who work with me are incredibly sweet. They don’t speak a lot of English, but when they do, it’s always helpful and funny. I ate lunch with them and their other friends from nearby labs. Lunch is a big ordeal, taking about an hour. We eat and then we go to this courtyard area and people have coffee and smoke. Lunch also happens at 1130, which is much earlier than I am used to. I left at about 5, walking through a slight drizzle.

Look Dad! Not granite!

I went back to my room, changed shoes, and then met up with a bunch of kids from the program to take the bus from campus to the restaurant where the Welcome Dinner was being held. It was out in the suburbs a little, so the streets were small and the houses were picturesque. Marissa, Varun, and I ended up sitting with Varun’s supervisor and one of his grad students. They knew a lot about pretty much everything, and we all had a very good time talking about many different topics. We got back very late from this dinner, being one of the last groups to leave on account of great conversation.

The next day, I went back to work. This time, Carola and I were running an experiment that lasted two hours. So every two hours, we would walk from one building to the other, set up the experiment, and then begin it again, coming back two hours after that. In those breaks was some research on the computers. At about 5, everyone lost interest and the barbeque began. Each dorm has a party during the summer, and the one being thrown that day is always the best one. So my lab had a barbeque with about 15 people. I invited Varun and Marissa and we ate sausages and drank beer and laughed about stuff with everyone else. After we had eaten, we headed over to the party. I wasn’t expecting it to be a party party, but this thing was insane. There were hundreds of kids, tents sponsored by Red Bull and Jager, people on the roof, a stage where German rappers were performing. All the Germans thought that, being from America, I had been to parties like that one before. All I could do was just shake my head and look around in awe. Us Americans got tired and tried many times to leave, but everyone would just tell us to go get another drink. Eventually, we did get away from the chaos and went to bed.

Dorm party!

Friday morning was back to work. Carola and I continued to run experiments every two hours. At the end of the day, I was shown how to freeze dry samples. This fairly easy experiment involved liquid nitrogen, which I had never used before. I got to play with it, throwing it on the counter and watching it fizzle. I did a lot of the experiment myself, and even though I moved very slowly, it was nice to show that I can do something. Everyone was still tired from the night before, so I left at 3 and sat and watched tv until Marissa and Varun got out of work. We all met up later that night. Marissa had been out with a friend in the city center, so Varun and I joined her. We met them at the train station. They showed up with lemonade beer, or girly beer. Surprise! That was the only beer I have been able to have more than three sips of. (Spoiler alert: I had 7 sips.) We walked around a garden in the middle of the city. We came across the coolest, most badass playground I have ever seen. This was not one you would see anywhere in the U.S. It is what American lawyers would call “a liability.” It was two stories tall, with lots of ropes to walk across and rock walls to climb. It was very much German engineering. We swang, which never, ever gets old. Ever. There was also a zip line thing that you sat on and went down the line to the other side. When I rode on it, I got an extra push. When I got the other end, my direction changed a full 90 degrees. I also probably woke up everyone within a half mile radius with my screaming. But it was fun!

Train

On our way back, we got into a bit of trouble. At one stop, police got onto every car to see that we all had valid tickets. Students are supposed to ride free on weekends and after 6 pm. Unfortunately for us, our student ID cards had not come in the mail yet. Even more unfortunately, I had absolutely no form of ID on me because I am an idiot. So there was paperwork and phone calls and discussions to be had. I almost got a free ride back to the dorm in a police car, but we got it figured out before that became a necessity. Apparently it’s a fairly common thing to get this kind of ticket. All we have to do is show our student IDs to the ticket office and pay 7 euros to clear our very criminal names.

The next morning, we had four hours of intercultural training. I’m not really sure why this was necessary, but it was actually kind of fun. All the kids from the SUPER program were there, and we talked about different stereotypes related to all the countries we are from. There was even a sketch where Marissa and I got to pretend to be sorority sisters reunited after many years. We got quite a few laughs. After this, Marissa, Varun, and I went grocery shopping. It was definitely a different experience, because you really have to do things by sight instead of by reading the labels. But we desperately needed food, so we did what we had to do. We got lunch on the way, having donor kebabs. It’s a Turkish meal that involves shaved meat. If you think about what the meat actually is, you won’t want to eat it. But if you just eat it, your tastebuds will thank you. It was hot lugging all our groceries around, but it’ll nice to be able to eat breakfast this week! That night, we took some beer and wine to the gardens in the center of the city and sat on the grass and enjoyed the cooler weather. There were a ton of other people doing the same thing. I’m really hoping we do this again, as it was a lot of fun and seemed like a very European thing to do. And I am all about blending in with the Europeans and less with the Americans.

Shameless donor selfie

On Sunday, a group of 8 SUPER kids went on a trek to see luxury cars. With 6 guys, this trip was a long one. We started off at the Mercedes museum. This building is huge and has awesome architecture. The tour starts at the top of the building, which you get to from space-agey elevators. It has a spiral build with galleries on the flat floors and history snippets on the curved parts. It starts in the 1800s at the top with the invention of the Benz motor and moves down until the racecars on the bottom floor. I saw many, many cars I wish I could cruise around in. After many hours, we made our way over to the Porsche museum. This one wasn’t as big and didn’t have the world history of the Mercedes museum, but it had plenty of cool cars. There was also a car to sit in and take pictures in. This was the guys’ highlight of the trip. After 8 hours of walking, we were all tired and hot. We didn’t do much else that night but try to stay cool.

Mercedes-Benz Museum

The first motorcycle

Inside the Mercedes Museum

All the old cars

Mercedes racecars

Outside of the Porsche Museum

Porsche trophies

Model shapes

Marissa and me in our new car

More Mercedes

Monday was a holiday, so we finally got to sleep in and catch up on tv shows. We finally got hungry and made our way to the city center for some food at around 2. Most places were closed, but we found Thai food to hold us over. It was 95 and 50% humidity and we were dying. I can do hot, but hot with humidity I cannot do. We were sweating like pigs, but too hungry to care. After eating our hot Thai food, we went down the street to a gelato bar. Here we each got three scoops of gelato, all of mine being fruit flavors. We tried to use the force to refill our bowls, but had no success. The rest of the day we again tried to stay cool, staying in our rooms and lying without touching anything.

The next few weekends we have some travels planned, so hopefully I’ll have some better pictures and more exciting tales. For now, stay cool my friends, stay cool.

Forever and always,

Taryn

Hey! My car!

The First Week

View from Newark Airport

So let’s start from the beginning.  The beginning being 6:15 am on Sunday, May 25^th. That was when my plane took off from Sky harbor. Four hours later, I landed in bright and airy O’Hare Airport in Chicago. From there I flew to Newark. The last three minutes of that two hour flight were flown parallel to Manhattan Island. I saw all the way from above Central Park all the way down to The Statue of Liberty, may she forever be green. And then I landed in New Jersey. Ugh. Thankfully I was only there for a short time before I boarded a plane that would take me to my final destination: Berlin. This was the longest leg of my day of flying, clocking in at 8 hours. It was a long eight hours, full of reading, and some free movie watching. I learned that airplane meals leave something to be desired, and that the aisle seats are probably the best for fidgeters like myself. I also learned that there is almost no room for all the carry-ons allowed on a single flight. It pays to be first on the plane, people. Finally, near 8 in the morning, I landed in Berlin.

Near the hostel in Berlin

This is where the stress set in. My roommate Camille and her friend Megan were supposed to get in an hour after me, but I had no way of contacting them, so I had to wing it. I am not good at winging it when I’m in a foreign country for the first time, alone. Eventually I found them and almost cried. It took many questions to figure out how to get to our hostel from there, but eventually we made it. As soon as we checked in, we went up to our four person room and I was out.

I slept for two hours. When I woke up, we decided to find somewhere to eat. We walked for a long time, all three of us being very indecisive. Finally, we just sat at the nearest table and picked up a menu. This meal lasted almost an hour, and by the time we were done, we were almost falling asleep in our chairs. After stumbling back to the hostel, we tried to take a one hour nap, but that quickly turned into four. When we woke up, it was 9 pm, and time to drink. We went to the beer garden in the back yard of the hostel. We stayed up until 2, and finally went to sleep like the rest of the city.

Organs inside the Cathedral

View from the top of the Cathedral

The next day, we slowly got up and out of the hostel. We attempted to get to the center of the city, but being from a town with zero public transportation, we ended up taking the right train in the wrong direction. After riding the entirety of the line, we finally made it to Alexanderplatz. We decided to walk until we saw something pretty. From a distance, we spied a sliver of an old building with a turquoise top. We wound our way through buildings until we could see what we were chasing: a magnificent, stunning cathedral. The Berlin Cathedral to be exact. We eagerly paid for a tour and were blown away by its beauty at every turn. The main hall is massive, with a beautiful set of organ pipes. We climbed many stairs to the dome, where we looked through windows at the view. We climbed even more stairs and ended up on the outside of the dome. And there, that is where the best views of the city can be seen. We took enough pictures for a whole photo album, but we couldn’t resist. Nothing else seemed quite as elegant for the rest of the day.

The Berlin Cathedral

From the Cathedral, we walked around Museum Isle. Which is exactly what it sounds like: an outlet in the middle of Berlin that is comprised of nothing but museums. We left ancient history behind and walked to a place of more modern significance, the Reichstag. It is a very imposing building, gated off, but awe inspiring nonetheless. While we couldn’t go inside, we could take lots of pictures in front of it. Which we definitely did. So did the Asian tour group who seemed to be following us. They were very entertaining to watch as they bent down real low to take pictures with their big cameras. As funny as the company was, it was sobering to think how many speeches and what kinds of people had stood exactly where I stood. From there, we walked under the Brandenburg gate, stopping to take pictures like good little tourists. At this point, we had been walking all day and had worked up an appetite. We stopped at a pizza place. Not only did we make fast friends with the owner, Nico, I had the best pizza I have ever had ever. And unless I go to Italy, where Nico was from, this pizza will probably stand as numero uno in my book. We went back to the hostel then to change into warmer, drier clothes. Then we made the trek back to the airport to pick up our newest travelling companion, Emily. Still pretty jet laggy, we went to bed early.

Brandenburg Gate

The Reichstag

Best pizza ever. Ever.

The next rainy morning, we went to see Checkpoint Charlie, the only point on the Berlin Wall with a passage from East to West. More tourist pictures ensued. We walked through the extensive museum. Learning about the desperate attempts people made to get from the East to the West made me appreciate the ease of my own life. To stay in the East was death and to leave it was to risk death. Those who made the journey successfully were courageous and lucky. Very lucky. We tried our first real German food, currywurst. Which sounds pretty awful, but is really wonderful and delicious. No longer hungry, we visited the Topography of Terror, where the whole of the Nazi rule is mapped out. Aside from the horrific events we were reading about, it was also horrifically cold. When the past pains and the cold pains were too much, we went back to the hostel to warm up, and then left for Burgermeister.

Burgermeister is a very interesting place. It used to be a restroom, but is now a popular burger shack. The burgers are big and messy and yummy, yummy, yummy. We made another new friend, Erik. He works at Burgermeister and talked with us while we ate. Also note that it was totally acceptable that he take a break from working, have a beer with us, then go back to work. We agreed to meet up with him and his dog the next day for him to give us a tour of the Tiergarten. We did in fact meet Erik and his dog, Theo, the next morning. He showed us through the whole park. We also decided that when I move to Germany, I will be living in the Tiergarten. My future address is: Under That Big Tree Near The Creek With the Flowers By It, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany. Hit me up!

Checkpoint Charlie

Topography of Terror

Victory Column

Berlin Wall Memorial

We were shown more of Alexanderplatz and went to a Berlin Wall Memorial. We went back to Burgermeister that night for another round of messy goodness. We brought along some other friends for the ride as well. Emily left us to go to Prague, so the next day Camille, Megan, and I went on our next adventure: roadtripping from Berlin to Munich. Our car, Gloria, guided us flawlessly from our hostel in the capital to our hotel in Munich. The countryside was beautiful, green, full of towns with red roofs, and green. It was a six hour trip, but it was a fun 6 hour trip. I can also say that I have officially been on the Autobahn. Sometimes the speed limit is just crossed out, meaning you can go as fast as you want. We were going about 140 km/hr, and people were still flying by us. It was quite the experience.

When we got hungry at 10 that night, we went across the street to an Italian restaurant and had absolutely perfect tortellini. The next day, we were very, very lazy. We ate “breakfast” at 2:30 in the afternoon. Once we finally got off our butts, we went to the Olympic Park, where there was a Body Worlds exhibit. All of us being a health-related major, this was one of the coolest things to happen. As we quietly walked through the exhibit, we would whisper the names of bones and muscles and cells. We definitely geeked out. Then we explored the rest of the Olympic Park. This was the first Olympic park I had ever been to, and I continued to geek out. The park was beautiful and popular and awesome. There was one spot we stopped to sit, and it looked like The Shire from The Lord of the Rings. It was so green! There’s my Arizona coming out.

German Roadtripping selfie

Munich Olympic Park

Pole vault pit at Olympic Park

"The Shire" in Munich Olympic Park

We walked over to the BMW Museum, where they had cars set out that you could sit in and be a super tourist. So we sat in them and took pictures. It was great fun. Next, we wanted to see the university. We never ended up seeing much of it, though. When we walked up out of the train station, we heard people. Lots of people. We had walked into the middle of a street festival. We were so confused, but then we saw food and alcohol, so we stopped questioning anything. We walked the length of the street, seeing a skateboard park, a drum core, concerts. And beer. Beer everywhere, all the time. When we reached one end, we walked the other way. In the middle of the festival, we came to a stage with three boys in white suits. We stopped to watch and soon realized they were playing old rock and roll music. Like Elvis and Lynyrd Skynyrd. What? We were confused by these three German boys playing old American classics, but we stopped caring after we designated each of them to one of us to be our new, musically talented boyfriends. As we continued on, we saw many more beer stands, many types of food, and many, many people. We stayed very late, but even still, the party wasn't really over.

The next morning we went to Dachau, one of the oldest and deadliest concentrations camps put into use by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. The town of Dachau is beautiful and peaceful, but the atrocities witnessed there have tainted its image. The camp itself is nowhere near as imposing as it was in the twelve years of its operation. It is a massive compound that is, once more, full of chilling details about the Nazi reign. It could almost be beautiful, if one forgets the thousands of people who were killed there. For someone who has always wanted to see a concentration camp, it was both a fulfilling and unnerving experience. From serious to hearty, our next stop was the famous Hofbrauhaus. The place is massive. Indoor seating, outdoor seating, tables and laughter everywhere. BEER. BEER ALL THE TIME. SO MUCH BEER. An unfortunate place for a person who doesn’t like beer, but for those who do, it is paradise. When the waiter asked what we wanted to eat, we pointed to something and went with it. Megan and Camille got 1 liter jugs of beer, as did everyone else around us. The atmosphere was jolly and hungry. And drunk, a little drunk. We tried to find the Glockenspiel after that, but we just ended up wandering aimlessly. We found some building that looked important, but have no idea what it was. There was a river that made for many pretty pictures. After a while, we needed a bathroom, so we went back to the Hofbrauhaus. This time, we basically walked into a proposal. This became a very loud affair, being surrounded by loud, drunk tourists.

At the BMW Museum

Munich

Our new boyfriends performing

All the walking of the past week had made our feet sore and calloused. We were ready for a little relaxation. We went back to the hotel early so that I could be ready to take a train to Stuttgart in the morning. Yet, because we have no idea about any kind of public transportation, in the morning I missed the train I had bought a wonderfully cheap ticket for. The next hour consisted of waiting in line and being shuttled from person to person trying to get another ticket so that I could get to Stuttgart eventually. I was so incredibly thankful to have Camille and Megan with me then. I would have been crying in a corner if I had been by myself.

 Finally, another train came and finally, I boarded it. It was another drive of green pastures and small towns full of red roofs. When I arrived, I was met by my buddy, Joaquin, and two other students from Toronto. As we took the train to the university, we talked about the weather, forgetting that no one knew how to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit.  It started to rain again, but I had finally arrived to my home for the next two and a half months.

Dachau Concentration Camp

The Hofbrauhaus

Surprise proposal!

And then, my first week of travels was over. Some parts went by slow, so I could savor every moment. Some days went by so fast, as I was eager to keep seeing and experiencing. There is so much more out there for me to be a part of, and I can’t wait for it all. I have already done so much in just a week that I can’t even imagine all the stories I will have garnered by the end of this trip. Have no fear, there will be plenty more for me to share. Until then, sorry for the wait, but please enjoy!

Forever and always,

Taryn