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! |
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! |
Steins in hand! |
We were cold! |
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 |
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!
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