"Oh Yah, Weinerschnitzel!"

I am going to say it short, sweet and to the point: I love Germany!! Everything was absolutely phenomenal--what an adventure!! It all started off with an 11 hour night train ride from Rome to Gesisenhausen (which is a town about an hour outside of Munich) where our host family lives.We met quite a few interesting people on that lovely train ride. One of which was a young guy, about our age, from Australia, Nathan, who was backpacking acorss Europe--just got up and left for Europe. Very nice guy. There there was the guy with his smelly dog that could barely walk and Brittany's drunk Indian "friend" who liked to visit our cabin on ocassion. The combination of these people definitely added to the adventure! :)

  

Enjoying our pastry at 6am!



We had a "layover" (I don't know if they actually call it a layover for a train ride, but I'm goin with it) in Rosenheim that arrived at about 6am and we were exhausted. Seeing as we met our new friends from the train, sleep was obviously close to nonexistent. I'd say we all got about an hours worth of sleep that night. We transferred trains after enjoying a delicious and much needed german pastry. I have no idea was it was called, didn't matter--we were hungry and tired. Reaching Geisenhausen was such a relief. The mom of our host family was there waiting for us with open arms ready to pick us up and had a delicious breakfast of eggs, warm milk, bread and chocolate cake waiting for us when we got to the beautiful home (chocolate cake for breakfast, you ask?! Yup! pretty much every morning as well!) Nothing could have been better. It was soo cold! (I'd say in the 30's and 40's!) and a hot cup of milk with cocoa definitely hit the spot. Brittany, Christian and I crashed after stuffing out faces with breakfast. A warm, comfy bed at a home was so perfect! Living in that family style again was just what I needed. I honestly don't know how to explain how wonderful of a feeling it was. I get excited again just writing about it. It reminded me so much of home--obviously, I am living with a family, but just the atmosphere and weather as well. It was cold, the leaves were changing color, we were out in the sountry side AND they even heat their house with a wood burning stove! What do ya know?!



My chocolate heaven dessert!



In Landshut!



We all finally woke up again at about 2pm and went to enjoy more German food that Michaela, the mom, made for lunch. The rest of the family (dad and Nadine, their daughter whose our age) drove us to Landshut to us around. Such a cute, historic town. It reminded me a lot of Stillwater. There was a castle to see, but it was closed. However we enjoyed watching the sun set on top of a hill overlooking the city. So I was definitely ok with the fact that the castle was closed--the sunset was too pretty. We hiked back down for some ice cream. Not just ice cream, but chocolate lovers heaven basically. It was out of this world. Ironically enough, the shop was called "Florence." hehe



The Hein family is jsut so much fun. They always have music in their kitchen, so when we returned home, Michaela made us all tequila sunrises and learned some traditional German songs and dances that are typically seen at Oktoberfest (which we unfortunately missed by 1 week). "Bruhst" (I have no idea if I'm spelling that correctly) is the German "cheers" and we did plenty of that. The thing to remember with this is that you have to make sure sure to make eye contact with the person you are "cheering" with. Why? If not then you are apparently stuck with 7 years bad sex. Don't ask me, that's Michaela told us! haha



At Neuschwanstein Castle!

 To get an idea of how cold it was, picture is having a little snowball fight and making snowmen on our hike up to Neuschwanstein castle in the Alps. Yea, it was cold! Thank goodness for all the scarves I got in Rome! They definitely came in handy this week! Neuschwanstein is a castle beautiful nestled in the Alps that was occupied by Kind Ludwig II in the 1800's. Most of it is actually unfinished, but what we saw on out tour was beautiful and the outside looks amazing with the Alps as the back drop. Oh Benjamin...this is our tour guide. He was about, I'd say, in his late 20's and probably the most fragile looking young man I've ever seen. But that's beside the point. First of all we entered the castle and we were greeted with "helloooo" (explaining this in person is much easier, so make sure to ask about Benjamin when I get home). We get to the first room of out tour and he begins his speech and begins to point out certain artifacts and paintings to us. But he barely points, he jsut ever so slightly lifts his whole hand and maybe 2 inches from his permanent position which is hands crossed over his chest. Too funny! But anyways, he was a good tour guide none the less.

The beautiful Alps

The day was still not over after hiking the Alps, not even close! The night life was just beginning. haha. Nadine took us to a party that night. It was actually a party celebrating Lanshut's shopping center's 7th birthday! And did we ever dance the night away! There were 4 stories in the mall and I believe dance dance floors on all 4! We definitely had our groove going on all night and when I say all night, I literally mean all night--we didn't get home until close to 6am! :) We had a very relaxing Sunday to follow.



At Great Grandma's house!

 Me and Brittany were up by noon and ready to go. Michaela was having company over that afternoon for coffee and dessert. For one, I have come to really like coffee now and two, Michaela is a fabulous cook. She made apple wine cake and these amazing coconut balls. I am definitely going to be bringing home some of these recipes! It was so much fun listening to German conversations. I couldn't understand any of it, but Nadine was able to translate some for us. I now want to learn German. A tour of Geisenhausen was next! Again, another beautiful town, fit with about 14 churches for 6,500 residents! We stopped over at great grandma's house as well for some mid afternoon beer, which she loves! She is 97 years old and still living in her own home, so that beer must be helping :) She is an incredible woman. This family is simply amazing! We were all pretty chilled again so what better way to warm up that with some mixed drinks?! Take your pick, Michaela can make them all! I don't remember the name of mine but it was delicious: half a lime mixed with a big spoonfull of brown sugar, cup full of ice with a shot and a half of Bacardi and water to the top. Dinner was even better! It was some sort of Chinese soup with deep fried chips and bread! Now the day isn't complete without some dancing, of course! This time with the traditional dress of the Germans. Grab your steins, some German beer because you got yourself a party! We all felt 100% German that night!

Steins in hand!



We were cold!

 Next morning we got up to catch a train to visit Dachau's concentration camp and Munich's famous Hofbrauhaus! We get there and low and behold the one day we chose to go there, it happens to be closed! It's open all weekend but conveniently closed on Mondays. Good timing on our part. Oh well, Christitan, Brittany and I enjoyed wandering around the town and ending up sitting in a cute coffee/pastry shop for 2 hours chit-chatting.



Gotta love the Hofbrauhaus!



We hopped back over to Munich to meet Nadine after her classes were over and we were off to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner! Holy moly! That place is definitly everything it is cracked up to be! It was sooo much fun! i ordered my first beer, which was a Radler (beer and lemonade) along with half a bavarian roasted chicken with homemade german potato salad. I'm just going to leave it at that--it was just too good! We met so many awesome people but this blog would not be complete without mentioning Ted and James! They are 2 Englishmen, 23 and 22 respectively and both teachers. They bought us another liter and we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our night talking, games and eating. We actually ran into some other people from our study abroad group as we were leaving! Ted and James didn't want me and Brittany to leave. They promised they'd come and visit us in Athens as well. We got quite a few laughs out of these two. We had been there for 6 hours!! And unfortunately it was time to catch the train home. Quite an unforgetable night!



Our Austrian and English friends!



This is Ted and James, too fun!



Barracks at Dachau concentration camp



Dachau round 2! We decided to try and see Dachau again and this time we knew it was going to be open! it was an incredible site to see, but at the same a horribly eerie feeling the whole time. The museum is huge and there's so much to see and read, it was so interesting. The museum is actually set up in what used to be the "administrative" building during the 12 years Dachau was open from 1933-1945 (It is actually the only concentration camp to be open the whole 12 year span). We walked down to the crematorium and I felt sick to my stomach the moment we stepped inside--too eerie. I'll just say it was very profound to see.

The sun was finally shining that day so we decided to go to the Olympic tower in the heart of Munich to see the sunset. We hopped on the elevator which took us straight to the top for an overlooking view of all of Munich! What a perfect way to end our last day in Munich!

 

We woke up bright and early to catch our plane to Athens where the next adventure would be begin.

I cannot thank the Hein family enough for their hospitality and generosity. It was truly an amazing experience and I learned a great deal in that short week! I really had been missing the family life and home and they made us feel so welcomed and not to mention, made me want to live in Germany! One of the most memorable experiences of this whole trip!