Ahh Paree

9/28/2009

Paris is wonderful. I am so glad that we decided to stop by here. Don, thank you so much for the hotel room. It has been such a treat to stay in a nice place and sprawl out and relax without having to have our guard up 24/7. Last night we had decided to sleep in and that is exactly what we did this morning. We slept until 10:45 and took our time getting ready and out of the hotel. Sleeping that late was probably a good thing for me because Im sure that with all of champagne last night an early wake up call probably would have made me hurt.

Once we got out of the hotel we decided to enjoy a nice brunch at one of the cafes we passed on the way to Museum de Orsay (which is where we were going to start our daily activity). I just love the café scene in Paris. If I lived here, I think I would totally spend a majority of my time and money hanging out at cafes. Katherine and I split a nutella and banana crepe (my favorite crepe of all time) and a ham and cheese omelet that was served with a salad. It’s a good thing that Katherine and I both really enjoy the ham and cheese combo because it ends up being the majority of what we split. I also ordered a bloody mary just to ensure that I was going to be hangover free for the rest of the day. Where ever we go I am trying to eat native foods. So far in Paris I have eaten a quiche, crepe, and bloody mary. I would like to eat a French dinner, have an éclair, and a chocolate croissant.

For our daily activity we decided to take an open top, double decker bus around the city. This ended up being a fantastic idea for numerous reasons. We picked the bus up at the Museum de Orsay, which was fantastic because it was only a 7-minute walk from our hotel. Unfortunately the museum is closed on Mondays so we couldn’t go in. I think that we would have really enjoyed it, seeing that it is the home of more familiar paintings to us like Starry Night. We felt like the Louvre was a must, so I guess well just have to catch Orsay next time around. The bus tour was a pretty reasonable price, 27 euro I think for an all day pass. We rode the bus all over the city and saw everything. It was a beautiful fall day, which was just icing on the cake. It worked out really great because while we wanted to see everything, see is just what we wanted to do. We really had minimal interest in things like going to the top of the Eiffel Tower or touring around Notre Dame. We also learned way more taking this bus than we ever would seeing the sites on our own because the tour came with head phones that you could plus in and hear an explanation of everything we were passing. Wee also enjoyed our ipods on portions of the ride, which was very relaxing. Even better, if we were to go see the sites via subway, we would have had to pay for a subway day pass for about 10 euro and then navigate the subway ourselves, miss out on the beautiful day, and feel all nasty from being in the subway. The biggest bonus was being on the top of the bus provided great views and we had minimal walking, which was a nice change of pace.

There were a couple of interesting things I noticed around Paris. The people in this city dress so chic. Its fun to watch. You can just look at some people and know that they are French sophisticates. I am still not really sure what makes a brasserie a brasserie and not a café or restaurant. There are a lot of cars around here that are made by brands I have never heard of like Peroget. Also a lot of the brands I have heard of don’t have the series number on the back of them. Kellie, there are tons of jack russels everywhere. They are so cute, and the majority of them have Grayson’s body type.

We came back to the hotel around five to chill out and catch up on things. For dinner, we wanted to do a big, nice, all out dinner in Paris because it is after all a major food place. So we got a recommendation from the concierge of a classic French place to go. The place turned out to have a fixed price menu, which everything on it looked appetizing so I was sold. I was thinking about being brave and ordering some escargot in addition to my fixed price meal, but then chickened out and rationalized it that it would be too much food. We ordered some wine with our dinner and sat outside and watched the street. It was so pleasant. My dinner was French onion soup for a first course (it was delicious, I ate the entire bowl), then a beef stew type deal, and crème brulee for dessert. It was totally satisfying and worth the 30 euro fixed price.

At dinner, time flew and the next thing we knew it was 12 and we have to get up early to get to the train station (via subway, which hopefully wont be too much of a pain with our packs on and will go smoothly) and catch out 10:25 train to Brussels, Belgium. We have decided that we would like to make minimal usage of the subway and maximum use of our legs. I am so excited for Brussels. When we get in we are going to check into our hotel type deal (we may or may not have access to a shower, but hey we have a real cheap room to ourselves) then head out to a chocolate factory. For our night activity, we are planning on posting up at the Delirium bar. Delirium is my favorite beer so I am just ecstatic about this. I thoroughly enjoyed Paris, but I am ready to get back on the move. I like the pace we are setting of spending two nights in a city and touring for about a day and a half each place. With longer train rides with less frequent departure timesx and time consuming, necessary activities like laundry that might have to be adjusted, so well just have to roll with the punches.

If you cant see my pictures, try going to this website http://picasaweb.google.com/kshivar310. Also if you want to follow Katherine’s blog it is katherinedoreyineurope.blogspot.com

Bonjour!

9/27/2009

Today we took the train from Frankfurt to Paris. We got up early, got showered, packed and went down for another free breakfast. I’m telling you, free breakfasts are the way to go. We had made a reservation for seats on the 9:30 train and we couldn’t miss our train because we had paid for it and then it would have just been a waste of money. Our walk to the train station was very pleasant. They don’t do day light savings over here and it makes a difference. During our walk at 8 ish the sun was still on the rise. We got on the train and in our seats and realized that we were surrounded by a bunch of teenagers and had two little boys who liked to sing songs and kick the back of our seats. The teenagers acted like typical teenagers flirting with one another, which just goes to show that how you are at age 17 is pretty universal.

The boys behind us and the teenagers all around us simmered down as the train started moving and all in all it was a pretty enjoyable ride. We slept, read, caught up on typing, and enjoyed our market lunch of cheese, salami, bread, pesto, and tomato. Being a person who completely identifies with food, this meal totally put me in the best mood. Just the fact that the food came from an awesome market and was cost efficient made me happy. Plus we had some leftovers that we enjoyed later on. We got into Paris around 12 and had to figure out how to get from the train station to our hotel, which was more than a healthy walk away. We also had to book our reservation for seats on the train from Paris to Brussels that we are going to take in two days time. France has the funky train system so in addition to having our Eurail pass, we also had to pay 26 Euro for our reservation. I think that’s kinda lame and not really surprised that the French would be that way about their trains, but whatever. The guy who was helping us with these reservations was very nice in helping us figure out how to get to the hotel via the subway.

So we get on the subway. Entering a new subway for the first time is always a stressful situation because you have to figure out how each particular subway works and everyone is different in their own way. We thought we followed the directions the train guy gave us and got out at a place that we thought was neat the hotel, but since we didn’t have a street map, we couldn’t tell for sure. We then asked an information person, who was not very nice to us we are assuming because we didn’t speak French and realized we had some more traveling to do and would then have to buy another ticket because we had already come out of the underground portion. So we decided to just bag it and take a taxi the rest of the way to the hotel, which didn’t end up being that much money and the driver was really nice. We were afraid that being obviously American and not knowing where we were going a taxi driver might take advantage of us and drive around randomly to raise the taxi fare. He didn’t do that and we were greatly appreciative.

When we got to the hotel, we were very pleased because the decorations gave off a very good first impression. The ladies in line in front of us at the front desk were in an argument with the concierge because online it said the hotel included free breakfast and it did not, a bit misleading. We also fell into this misleading assumption and were kinda bummed out that we weren’t going to get a free breakfast. We got into our first room and it is teeny tiny. I went to go to the bathroom and whoever used the toilet last forgot to flush or something because there was a turd sitting in the bottom of the bowl. Katherine called down and they were very apologetic and moved us to a different and bigger room. The hotel was claiming that the toilet issue has something to do with a plumbing problem and it was not a fault of the cleaning crew. We didn’t really care wither way, we just wanted to be in a clean, plumbing problem free room, so moving us fixed that problem.

After getting settled in, we started off on a walk to the Louvre. It was a beautiful day in Paris and it was a very enjoyable walk. It took us a while to walk down the gardens and get into the museum, but then we walked around the museum for the rest of the afternoon. Saw the Mona Lisa and lots of other paintings. We decided we like looking at paintings the most of art related things. While we felt like the Louvre was a must to see, it really didn’t have that many paintings in it that we recognized. Turns out Museum Orsay picks up with all of the ones that we would recognize and it is closed on Mondays (tomorrow). Oh well, that will have to be for a different trip. I had a great time walking around the museum making my own commentary on the art. I really don’t like taking art seriously and with a lot of these paintings you couldn’t. The babies in some of the paintings were absolutely ridiculously looking. I had a lot of fun making the serious paintings entertaining.

We walked back to the hotel to chill out for a while, catch up on things, book a hostel for Brussels, figure out our plans for the night, and freshen up a bit. Walking around Paris is great because people are everywhere and the little stores and cafes that you pass are interesting to look into. Elise you would be happy to hear that I did spot many rollerbladers. It really was just a nice fall day. When we got back to the hotel we were craving some coca cola light, so we ordered two from the hotel bar. Our bill total…11 euro, which is absolutely ridiculous for two bottles of coke. We decided to suck it up because we had already ordered them and didn’t want to cause a scene in addition to really wanting the cold beverage. So we sat down in the lounge to wait and have the bartender bring them over to us so we could enjoy them in a classy environment. When he did bring them over, he also brought some chips, sweetly coated, roasted peanuts, nd some little caprese skewers. We were so surprised by this and everything was so delicious that we decided maybe the 11 euro was a little more justified.

For our night activities we decided to go to a cabaret show, which was located on the Champs de Elysees. I was very excited about this. Originally we wanted to go to the Moulin Rouge, but it was sold out, so the show we ended up going to was Lido. The lady at the front desk helped me with making the reservation, which was really nice because she would call the theaters up and speak to the m in French so I am sure that expedited the process. I thought it was hilarious that while she was on the phone she would actually use phrases like “oooh lala” and “es superb”. So French, I loved it. We were told that it was on par and even better than the Moulin Rouge.

We walked to the show and got dinner at a café around the theater. Our tickets for the show were on the expensive side, but each ticket came with a half bottle of champagne, meaning that Katherine and I split a full bottle. It was good champagne too. Not too dry, but the real test will be to see how I feel the next morning. I loved the show. The singing and dancing and costumes are my favorite. Some of the acts were kinda strange like this one guy who got way too into his talent of yo-yoing this weird object on a string that was attached to the end of two stick that he held. He had put so much gel into his long hair that it looked like he had just dunked his head in water. The highlight of the show was an act done by these two extremely strong men. I had seen these guys on you tube before. They use each other to do all of these difficult lifts and acrobatics, while this serious roman music plays in the backgroung. While it s cool on you tube, it was even more impressive to see in real life. The show got out around 2, so we took a taxi (which happened to be a Mercedes) back to the hotel. By the way the hotel’s name is (K&K, which is so appropriate for Kaitlyn and Katherine). We decided not to set an alarm, sleep in in the morning, and wake up naturally, which will be a nice change of pace.

Solid Day

9/26/2009

Frankfurt is great. A whole lot better than Munich. Katherine and I decided that we were going to try to do more walking in the cities because then we would see more, not worry about figuring out the subways, and it would be cheaper. After reading in a book, we realized our Eurail pass would be good on some lines of the subway. We will have to make a mental note to check on that in each city to see if it is valid there. Luckily we got our hands on a free map of Frankfurt and it is an extremely easy and enjoyable city to walk in. Its crazy, but it seemed like everywhere we wanted to go, once we got in the general vicinity of the place, there were signs that would point us directly towards our destination, like signs from God. We thought this was great and so convenient. In addition to that we are getting very good at using maps and navigating about. I am really proud of us, both being self proclaimed directionally impaired people.

I don’t know if taking the Nyquil was that great of an idea going too bed at 1:30. We set an alarm for 8, then snoozed till 9 and it was still extremely hard to get up after that. We took showers then mosied down to breakfast. We are trying to stay at places that offer free breakfasts because then we don’t have to worry about buying breakfast and can save money that way and if we want to grab some bread or fruit from breakfast and take it with us for a snack or lunch during the day, that is also very cost efficient and convenient. Breakfast was ok. I had some cereal and barn popped into my head again with the taste and I realized it was because the milk was whole milk. At this point in my life, at the age of 22, after being raised all of this time on skim milk, I officially can say that I appreciate minimal fat in my dairy.

At some point in the past couple of days, we decided that we were going to stop by Paris on our way from Frankfurt to Brussels. This made sense for two reasons. Number one, there is not a direct train from Frankfurt to Brussels, so we would have to make a connection, which would be a hassle. Number two, Katherine had never been to Paris and really wanted to see the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Our original plan was to get up early and leave Frankfurt for Paris in the morning, tour the rest of that day, stay the night, tour Paris for the majority of the next day and catch a night train to Brussels. Katherine was on the phone with her dad last night and told him our change itinerary and he said in that case he wanted us to find the nicest hotel we could (within reason of course) and stay two nights in Paris on him and really do it up big. Needless to say, we were on cloud nine with this news. Originally I was shying away from Paris because I feel that it is a city you shouldn’t really slum it in, like with staying in hostels, it needs to be done in an enjoyable manner. Now we are doing Paris the right way and are ecstatic about it!

We went to an internet café across the street from the hotel (because wifi was incredibly expensive in the hotel) to book the hotel, look up things in Paris, check emails and such. The café smelled really weird, but it was .70 euro for a half an hour. We ended up staying more than a half our and the guy didn’t make us pay any more, which was sweet, so we were ok with just intensely purelling our hands after we left. We have a couple of cool ideas for what to do in Paris and will figure it all out more definitively in Paris but we are thinking tomorrow night we are going to go to the Moulin Rouge for a show! Well see.

After the internet café, we had to make a stop at the train station because we needed to make a reservation for the train to Paris tomorrow. Our Eurail timetable book told us that reservation was required for trains to Paris and apparently France has their own special line of trains. So we knocked that out of the way. It cost 5 euro each for a reservation, not too bad especially considering we wont have to worry about sitting in someone’s seat, etc. Hopefully everything will go smoothly. I am so very excited for Paris!

we walked across the river (the Rhine) to an area in the city (Museumufe) where a bunch of museums are lined up in a row. We checked in at an art museum that had a Boccielli exhibit first but it was 8 euro to get in and we weren’t getting too terribly excited about the artwork. The next museum we looked at was the Museum of Communication. With Katherine being a communication major and it only costing 2.50 euro to get in, this was a great museum for us. It turned out to have some very cool exhibits (even though a lot of the explanations were in German and we couldn’t read them). The top floor was all about the eating experience and how it has evolved over the years and over the world. I thought that was highly interesting. The next Museum we passed and checked in with was the Museum of Architecture. When we popped our heads in to see how much it cost, the man proudly and energetically told us that today was the free day and we were more than welcome to check it out. We cruised around there for a while. Neither of us know that much about architecture but it is still cool to look at.

At this point, we were becoming a bit over museums and hunger was setting in, so we headed off back across the river in search for Kleinmarket, which is an open air market kinda deal that is in a huge three story ware house, and we figured we would get lunch there. We also needed to find a bank and get some more cash because vendors definitely favor cash over here to credit cards. At the bank the ATM transaction worked, which was good to know, but we had no idea how much we were charged for the transaction (so we need to figure that out at some point even though it doesn’t really matter it would just be interesting to know). While walking around looking for Kleinmarket, we realized we were in the main vendor plaza that a book told us about. It was cool to be around action. We ended up getting hot dog type things right outside Kleinmarket because we wanted to get a Frankfurt in Frankfurt. It was really good, a big solid dog.

Then we went inside to check out the market. Once again, mom you would have absolutely loved this. Anything that you could ever want was there and fresh and samples galore. Katherine and tried everything. We ended up buying some really good pesto that we sampled, salami, cheese, and tomatoes for dinner possibly and definitely the train ride tomorrow. I was very stoked on the whole experience. We were starting to feel tired (I think our on the go movement finally caught up with us in addition to the NyQuil) and decided to head back to the hotel to take a little nap and freshen up.

Around dinnertime, we were still pretty full from our hot dog lunch and sampling spree, and I wanted to get some apple strudel while we were still in Germany, so we went out in search of that. We ended upon a really chic restaurant and had an extremely goofy waiter that did not speak English very well. He really wanted to talk to us, so kept striking up broken English conversations. When he asked where we were from, we told him the states, and he was like “Ya I know that place, Miami, LA…Tupac” haha. We were like ok we can go with that association. Then we were telling him that we were heading to Paris next, which he understood as we were going to see Paris Hilton, who is apparently making an appearance at a strip club the next night. It was just a bizarre conversation in general. We split an apple strudel and glass of wine and then headed towards a Guinness bar that was advertising games on a bunch of different TVs they had. We passed this place earlier in the day and were hoping that maybe we could get lucky and they would have an American football game on. Unfortunately we were not so lucky, they only had soccer on, but it was an Irish pub with a n English menu and Irish accent, English speaking waiters, which were refreshing to converse with. I got a Guinness and Katherine got a random pilsner and we had a very pleasant night just chatting and being out. We headed back to the hotel around 11 because we have to get up early tomorrow to catch a 9 o’clock train to Paree!

Some random things: Katherine has skype on her ipod touch. It is totally the way to go with calling back to the states. It is only six cents a minute and even if we have to pay for wireless access, she can pick up the network and use skype for free. We are not exactly sure why this it, but it works so we don’t complain. A quote that I heard explains a lot about why there are so many nice cars around, ambulances, garbage trucks, taxis, police cars are all luxury cars. “Germans are very proud that they do cars right. It is worth it to use to spend the money.” I feel that I have packed extremely well and prepared, although my watch battery is dying and therefore making it go very slow, which is a bummer. I have deemed Katherine the official time keeper.

Love ya Frankfurt!

9/25/2009

We are so excited to leave Munich today it was unreal. We got up, took our time getting ready and all packed up. I woke up naturally at 7, which I thought was bizarre because we had the opportunity to sleep in and I couldn’t. I’m thinking that maybe I am doing ok with getting 6-7 hours of sleep a night as long as I can close my eyes for 5-10 min once or twice a day. Well see how long that lasts before I crash, but for now its working out ok. I was moving really slow this morning, but that was ok because I did get up earlier. Katherine and I then went down to breakfast with all of our stuff, had breakfast, then checked out. All we had to do then was get to the train station, figure out the train situation, I wanted to buy a traditional German outfit, and then get on the train.

We got down to the station and figured out (by asking a train help representative) that we did not have to pay any additional fees for the high-speed train we were taking to Frankfurt and did not need to book a reservation for seats. Then we walked across the street from the station to a German clothing store and I bought an outfit! Im pretty psyched about this because then I never have to worry about figuring out another Halloween outfit again. For those of you who do not know, I hate Halloween because I always feel so much pressure with coming up with a good costume and it really is just not my cup of tea in general. Maybe this outfit will change that around for me.

A random fact….we were using the computers that the hostel provided to check our mail real quick in the morning and realize the keyboards are different. I don’t know why this never occurred to me but it was kinda weird to type on. The “z” and “y” are reversed.

We got on the train and sat down. I have never been on an Amtrack train, but Katherine said that 2^nd class on this train puts Amtrack trains to shame. It was really nice, much nicer that the Eurail train we took to the mountain so in every way it exceeded our expectations and made us feel much more at ease about traveling around Europe using the Eurail. We were a bit skeptical after our experience the day before. I mean we could even sleep on these trains (granted not laying down like you would on a sleeper train, but it would be without the sleeper train fee) and be good with that. It took me a while to get settled in so I wasn’t paying attention, but Katherine noticed that people were looking at the seat numbers and kinda giving us dirty looks. It never occurred to me that a train would have assigned seat like an airplane does. A lady plopped herself down next to me and was totally cramping my style. I thought it was really weird that she chose to sit in a seat next to me when I had everything scattered about.

There was a nice guy sitting across the aisle from us who started talking to us. Turns out, he works in NYC but is from Germany and is back to renew his working visa and visit his family (all expenses paid by his firm). He asked us if we wanted to get a drink in the restaurant car, which we absolutely accepted because it would be free. He and Katherine ordered coca cola lights and I got a wheat beer because I was feeling kinda hungry and knew it would fill me up a bit. This guy turned out to be extremely nice and was a wealth of valuable information. For example, he told us that the seats we were sitting in were reserved, that’s when we figured out we were probably getting dirty looks from the people who had reserved them but didn’t want to bother with making us move because we were “stupid Americans” and if they didn’t know English we would have a serious problem figuring our exactly what the problem was because we definitely don’t know German. He filled us in on a bunch of stuff like that. He also told us that paying for the Eurail individual trips is very expensive and we definitely got a great deal with our pass. I enjoyed talking to him and was grateful for the knowledge.

When we got to Frankfurt, we found our hotel pretty easy because it is really close to the train station. We decided to stay in a hotel because it was cheaper than the hostel, which was just a win situation in life. We checked in and the room ended up being pretty nice for 25 euro. The lady at the front desk asked us why we were in Frankfurt, like what are you here to see because there isn’t that much going on here, so that gave us a kinda bad feeling.

It was the afternoon, so we decided to walk to the botanical gardens and then go to a traditional German restaurant and get some applewine (what Frankfurt is known for) at a restaurant we had read about in a book. The walk to the botanical gardens was highly enjoyable, in addition to walking around the gardens. They were very pretty and it was a nice was to unwind. There were some great reclining chairs in a field that I took a little time to rest my eyes in. I took a picture of these chairs, they would be great to lie out on. Then we took the subway to the restaurant, Adolf Wagner’s. We do a pretty good job navigating cities, but the subway was pretty difficult to figure out, but we made it no problem.

At dinner we got a cheese, onion, and bread plate for an appetizer. I am not kidding that the cheese tasted like barn. That is the what popped into my head, with the manure smell and everything when I put the cheese into my mouth. Luckily dinner was much better. It came with a salad that had a dill dressing, which was funny because Katherine and I had literally been talking about dill right before the salad came. Then for our main course we split pork schnitzel that was served with onions and potatoes. It was very good, but heavy and fried. Im glad we ate it and tried it, but I wouldn’t go out to order it again. The applewine was not what I expected. I kinda wanted more apple flavor and it was more white wine flavor.

We were trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our night on the walk home, when we passed a coffee shop that smelled really good. We stopped in there for some hot chocolate and talked. Our waiter was a huge prick thought. We then walked home to the hotel and realized that Frankfurt is a very easy city to walk around in. We passed their red light district on the way home making sure to stay a safe distance away because it was night. Did you know that there are blue light buildings in the red light district and that means they are for gay men. Just a fun fact for yall. We got back to the hotel and it is just so nice to be able to sprawl out and not have to worry about your stuff, took a Nyquil to ensure a good night sleep, and hit the hay.

Great Day Gone Terribly BAD!

9/24/2009

This day was so memorable it deserves two posts. And… In Frankfurt our hotel charged some ridiculous rate like 18 euro per day to get wireless internet. So any “must use internet” situations we went to an internet café. As a result, I wasn’t able to post the blogs up everyday, and will have a mass posting when we get to Paris.

Today started off great, well not great but very pleasant. We woke up after a long night on the computer of dealing with my credit card problem and then figuring out our next steps. So as the day began, we intended to (as planned the night before) do a day trip to Zugspeitz, come back to the hostel and pick up our packs, then take our first real eurail train to another destination, which is Heidelberg for a relaxing night there at a quirky hostel. Unfortunately, I did a lot of the planning of this plan and it did not occur to me to check the Eurail timetables of train departure times or even to figure out how long this day trip might take. At this point, I had not looked at the timetable book to even figure out how to use it.

So we get off to a kinda slow start. I think we woke up around 7:30, went down stairs to do some work on the computer which I didn’t finish, eat breakfast, go back upstairs to shower and repack my pack, rushed to check out at 9:30, but we still hung around the lounge area for a little bit to finish up the work on the computer and get all of our duck in a row. A train to the mountain leaves every hour so we figure that by the time we got everything settled, we wouldn’t make it to central station in time for the 10:30 train, so we decide to take the 11:30 train.

Once we get to the station, I become aware that the train to the mountain is 1.5 hrs one way, so that is 3hr round trip travel time. In addition to that, the last train to leave for Heidelberg is at 7:23. That gives us around 5 hours to get up and down the mountain and factor in time to get back to the hostel to pick up our packs and get back to the train station. We figure that should be plenty of time and if anything we would just be cutting it close. As the day went on we figure out that we thought seriously wrong.

To get to the top of the mountain you get on a tram/cable car deal that chugs along the mountain, stopping at random stops for random amounts of time and eventually takes to you to a place high up on the mountain, where you can catch a wire tram/gondola deal to the summit. The cable car takes about an 1.2 hrs to get to the gondola station, where we had to wait 25 min for the next trip to the summit.

At the summit it was totally worth it. It was very cool to say that we were at the tallest point in Germany and for a portion of the time we were up there we were in the clouds. We snapped some great pictures, saw some intense people climbing/hiking to the top of the mountain, but were aware to catch the next tram down, which left 20 min from our arrival at the top. Needless to say we weren’t up there for very long, but in reality after 20 min, if you are not eating up there or in the mood to chill out you are ready to go, there isn’t that much more to see.

So we catch the tram down and everything on the way down is taking way longer than expected due to random waiting periods. We realize that we will be able to catch the 5:04 train back to Munich, which will put us arriving in at 6:35 and give us roughly 55 min to get to and from the hostel for our pack pick up. This was not the case. I guess the trains didn’t coordinate their routes, because we were held up for 20 min at a random station so that another tram going the opposite way could get off/pass us on the tracks that we needed to use. We don’t get into Munich until 6:45 meaning that we have 33 min to do the pack pick up and it takes about 20 min each way to get to the hostel on the metro. We are running through the subway stations. At one point, I got on a train that’s doors closed on Katherine as she was getting on so she got cut off and we got separated. Thank goodness there was another train right behind the one I was on that was going to the next stop (the stop we needed) also that she could get on and we met up five minutes later. None the less it was stressful, but eventually realize we have no chance in hell at making the train to Heidelberg and need to reconsider our plan.

Mind you as we are on the train back to Munich, Katherine and I are stressing out majorly as we watch the clock tick by. We are trying to come up with every possible out of the box option that we can think of to either get to Heidelberg tonight or just not stay in Munich for another night. Our main issue is that we had already booked a hostel in Heidelberg and since we were below the 24 hr cancellation time slot, we are pretty sure that we are going to get charged for the night at the hostel anyways. The first thing we do at this point is cancel the Heidelberg reservation, which the lady cannot tell me if we will be charged the full amount or not.

The cost of staying another night in our hostel in Munich is 31 euro, making it a 50 euro night, but it would offer us a solid, safe place to sleep with showers and a free breakfast so that we are well rested and can just continue onto Frankfurt in the morning. I had an extremely hard time wrapping my head around this figure and come up with the bright idea of taking a sleeper train to a random point in Germany because we have this awesome eurail pass so it should just be a small fee, definitely less than 31 euro, and then we can just get on a different train in the morning and boogie on to Frankfurt for much cheaper. At this point we are at our wits end (we haven’t had a solid meal since breakfast) with figuring out this situation and tensions are high. Katherine does not think this is a good idea, but she humors me and we put our packs on and tromp to central station, via subway, to check this situation out. Mind you doing this movement with our packs on is no easy feat. When we get to the station, after inquiry, the eurail clerk tells us that it will be 20 euro a person to ride in the sleeper car regardless of our pass. At that point, I realize Katherine’s idea was much better even though it would cost us 10 euro more.

It was probably the best 10 euro I have spent so far on this trip because unlike if we were on the train, we got a good dinner and had some drinks (well we could have done this on the train plan but it probably would not have been as good and cost way more), got a good nights sleep, could take our time in the morning, got showers, had a free breakfast (which also gave us the opportunity to grab food for a free snack for the day), and not feel rushed or stressed when in taking the train to Frankfurt in the morning.

We started talking to a very nice guy who was checking us in (for the second time that week and on the same day that we checked out earlier) at our hostel and we come to find out that our hostel is the most expensive hostel in Munich, but also probably one of the nicest in Europe (so we were spoiled in that sense). Also it is a well-known fact that sleeper trains are expensive and bed and breakfasts tend to be cheaper than hostels. These are all good things to know when planning for the trip later on down the road.

So we end the night by getting pizza (again for our third meal in Germany) and beer. This put us in infinitely better moods and at that point we were ready to move forward. But holy cow, what a day. We learned a lot so that was a positive.

Other weird things about Munich. The eat bowls of radishes, whole radishes, with the green and leaves on them. I thought this was extremely weird thing to order to eat when you are out and drinking beer. People would always bring their dogs on the metro and most of the dogs were very well behaved. I wouldn’t recommend petting them because you don’t know how people will react and some of the dogs smell and feel bad. I saw my first german Shepard in Germany in a train station.

The main issues that we are having with planning is that for comfort reasons we like to plan about two steps ahead, but if things don’t work out the way we want them to for example like with missed trains like today, then we have to deal with cancellation fees (which is sometimes not a fee just paying for the whole thing without receiving it). But then if you don’t plan ahead you feel stressed out… and then if you plan too far ahead you feel overwhelmed. Finding the balance is very important and seems hard to do. I am sure that we will figure it out once we get on the move and into a routine.

Weird Night/Oktoberfest part 2

Last night was a weirder night than I expected in a lot of aspects. After our day of touring we laid down to rest for a bit. We set the alarm for an hour, but I think I only really needed to sleep for a half an hour and then was ready to go. So we cam downstairs to get some work done on the computer. I am having some major issues with the picture website. It takes forever to upload the pictures to the Internet, the way I am doing it. In addition to that, at most the max I can upload is five pictures at a time. In addition to that that, the uploads are not always very smooth. In addition to that, I am not sure if everyone can see the pictures. In addition to that, I am running through storage space on the picture site like crazy. In addition to that, I am very close to max storage capacity on my computer so I need to get rid of some things so that I have more memory. A main priority of mine is getting them backed up on the Internet in case something was to happen. I was working with Spencer on a way to make it easier for me, but this hostel is kinda whack and had restricted some bizarre websites from use on its network. For example, I couldn’t download the program that would help me with the pictures or go to a random wikipedia site and Katherine couldn’t check one of the sites she normally does. All of that being said, if yall have the time will you please let m know if you can see my pictures. I think if you can, it might have something to do if you are logged on yourself to your google account, but really I have no idea. All of the pictures are up that I have taken to date.

That gets me started on the subject of this hostel. Now why this hostel has been great in the sense that it is clean and offers free breakfast, it is pretty weird in the sense that there are a ton of middle schoolers running around. It seems like to day there are more older people milling about, but yesterday was it was like woah, I feel like I am riding the school bus again. Katherine and I were working on our computers in the lounge area and then all of a sudden we were swarmed by a bunch of kids that were sitting down really close to us. They all packed in and it turns out it was the location of their group meeting. All very strange. Then last night we were talking to a guy from Wisconsin and a weird Spanish speaking security guard yelled at us to be quiet. He yelled at us in a foreign language (not quite sure which one) when he obviously heard us speaking American English to the other American, so we obviously had no clue what he was saying. Our facial expressions also should have given that away. Apparently we were being to loud after curfew, but then he came and sat down with his buddy, had a coffee and a beer, and were speaking Spanish so loud. He then did a 180 in attitude towards us and tried to chat it up. It really all was very strange.

Then my mom got in touch with me about some immediate problem they were having with my bank in Colorado, which needed immediate attention by me and only me and they couldn’t tell her any information. So I am trying to get this all figured out through email and “secure” messages on the bank website. Turns out my credit card with that bank had a random $3.74 charge on it that was an “advance” to a loan. Honestly I have no clue about this charge on the credit card. So then that had late fees on it and long story short I “owe” the bank a whopping total of $20 something dollars. So immediate I know. This irritated me because with the so-called “immediate” issue they were being terrible with responding to my emails, were not flexible or understanding (they asked me to fax my signature, really I’m in Germany staying in a Hostel) with my situation, when I left Colorado all of my account balances were at zero and my account should have been tagged inactive like I requested. All of these things started to stress me out, in addition to the fact that we were supposed to be planning out next move at the time. So after spending way more time than I wanted to on the computer, I left the bank guy an email telling him that I was at my wits end and he needed to think outside of the box with me to help me get the situation resolved if it needed immediate attention.

So then we went to see Oktoberfest again, but at this point it was pretty late and we still needed to eat. We ended up splitting a donor kabob in one of the train stations that had a food court area. To our credit we are doing fantastic with splitting food to reduce cost and it is way healthier for us that way. Im going to go on a super tangent right now. Every one here is so skinny and the food here is bad for you. I don’t get how they do it. Any who, after eating we were on our way walking to Oktoberfest for a good portion because we weren’t quite sure the stop that was at the place. It was dark and their drunk people were everywhere and it wasn’t the best situation we could be in, but it wasn’t the worst either because we were on a lit city street where other people were also on it.

We finally make it to Oktoberfest and naturally everyone is hammered. Oktoberfest is funny because it is like a large adult carnival. Truly, super drunk people are everywhere. Its quite amusing, especially because eon the metro they look like they are going to feel terrible the next day. The whole party kinda reminds me of my friend Aussie on Australia day. Lots of German pride and getting real riled up over it. I’m totally glad I got to see and experience it. It was a little more difficult for us to get into it because we didn’t really know the words to any of the German songs they were belting out and didn’t have a reservation at a table (being two little girls just starting off our adventure, we weren’t bold enough to be pushy to just sit down at a table). All that being said, I don’t think I need to go to Oktoberfest again. On our way out we saw a bunch or real drunk people either laying or sitting on the ground while the masses were trampling over them to get out of the park. Obviously they were super out of it. Then trying to get on the metro with the masses was chaos, luckily we made it work pretty well for us being the metro stars that we are.

· Also I would just like to comment the exact ride wild maus (that used to be wild izzy) that was at Busch Gardens, was also set up at Oktoberfest. Take that however you like.

We got back to the hostel and then had to do some major work on deciding where we are going today because our time staying at this hostel is up (it is very expensive so that is a good thing) and we are pretty ready to leave Munich. It was a good place to throw ourselves into to begin the trip, but it is wild here, kinda dirty, and it is time for us to mellow out. My dad sent me an email yesterday asking me how I was doing on jetlag. I replied that I didn’t think it had effected me that much, which ended up being a total jinx. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep until 3:30 for a 7:30 wake up call. All that being said we decided to do a day trip to Zugspitz (the tallest peak in Germany) and then head on toward Frankfurt. It should be a nice change of pace there.

We woke up this morning and kinda rushed around for the 9:30 check out. Thankfully, we can leave our big packs at the hostel while we go on our day trip to Zugspitz so we don’t have to carry them around all day. We just need to book a hostel for Frankfurt, repack out packs and then we will be on our way.

First Day in Munich

Today was great. We were super productive, saw a lot of things we wanted to see and do a lot of things we wanted to do. We woke up at 7 and came downstairs and worked on the computer for a while. I uploaded some pictures to the Internet from yesterday, but I am not sure if the site works the way I want it to. I’m in the midst of figuring all of that so that the pictures are up for public viewing. In addition, the site doesn’t upload the pictures that easily and it takes a long while. Then we ate some breakfast (oranges, smacks cereal, and lots of water) complementary of the hostel. Did some more work on the computer while we had our coffee, which was essential to jump starting our day. Went upstairs to take our first showers since we left the US and were pleased to see our extremely weird roommates were already gone. After showers, we got ready for the day and then headed off.

We had to buy another day buddy pass for the metro and of course it was all in German so we did not understand how to use the machines that dispensed the ticket. Luckily a nice man that also spoke English was around to help us. We haven’t encountered a mean person yet. Everyone who we asked in English to help us was more than willing to. We got our ticket and headed towards the BMW museum. I’m telling yall, in the 36 hours we have been in Munich, Katherine and I have learned to more than efficiently use the metro. I am extremely proud of us. We zipped around on it all day and even took a bus at one part of the day. Public transportation seems to be agreeing with us. It is so convenient and I almost find it soothing to ride, if it weren’t so dirty. It is impossible to walk out of the metro and still feel clean.

The BMW Museum was pretty cool. I took lots of pictures of really nice cars, and other BMW transportation vehicles. There were also some cool ads that the company uses in Europe displayed around, which I found enjoyable. I am truly amazed at the number of luxury cars that people drive around here. It far exceeds the number in the US. I wonder if it is because they get a discount because they aren’t foreign? We weren’t there very long because cars don’t get us too terribly excited. From the BMW Museum, we headed to Vitualienmarkt.

Vitualienmarkt is an open-air market that is open every day. I read about it in a book that was entitled something to the effect of places you must eat and drink at around the world. I looked it up on the Internet and couldn’t find exact direction on how to get there with the metro, but it did say that it was behind St. Peter’s Cathedral. So Katherine and I looked at a map and guess where St. Peter’s was and took the metro there with the intentions of figuring it out when we got there. Where we got out of the metro was in the main shopping district. There were a couple of building that looked like they could be St. Peter’s so we just started walking around. After a while we got hungry and decided it was time to ask someone. They pointed us in the right direction and we went around the corner and found it!

Mom you would have absolutely loved it. Fresh fruit, meat, cheese, olives, places to eat outside, great stuff to look at, oddly enough a bunch of olive bars. We decided to get lunch here and decided on splitting a mini quiche and a bunch of grapes, all for 4 euros. The quiche was a Lorraine quiches so it had fresh ham in it and the lady selling the grapes let me taste a bunch of different types of grapes and pick out which ones I liked best. I don’t understand why anyone would buy grapes that had seeds in them. They are very tricky. We sat on a bench, people watched, and had our delicious lunch, which ended up being surprisingly filling.

At this point I would just like to reiterate that there are so many people walking around in legitimate, traditional, German clothing. I’m talking about dressed to the nines in a leighterhosen and had and the bodice dresses. I am very curious if this is a normal thing, or just something for Oktoberfest.

After lunch, we headed towards the Dauchau Concentration camp. All I can say about that was woah. This was the part of the day where we had to take the metro and the bus to get there. We weren’t sure if our metro ticket worked with the buses, so we just got on the bus and it worked! There were guided tours and audio tours available, but Katherine and I both agreed that we were glad that we opted not to do those because it would have taken much longer than we cared to be there. The whole situation of the Holocaust is really just unbelievable that it happened. It is crazy how mob mentality can take hold of people so that they do the most inhumane things. Being there drained us. So we went back to the hostel to take a little nap, reenergize, catch up on some things, figure out dinner, figure out where we are going after Munich. Tonight we are going back to Oktoberfest for round two. There are some things that we didn’t get around to last night that we would like to get done.

Tomorrow we are leaving Munich and going somewhere to be determined in the next hour. We are trying to keep busy most days so obviously we can see the most in our time here, but it also helps with sleeping when we are worn out!

Oktoberfest part 1

Katherine and I took about a 2 hour nap to help us get some energy that would help acclimate us in the time change. We got up around 4:30 and decided to get ready and go over to the Oktoberfest area and find dinner then checkout Oktoberfest and see what was up over there. We ended up getting dinner at a very cool little Italian (go figure our first meal in German is Italian) place, whose windows opened up. We split a caprese pizza and had some beer. It was really very good. Then we headed over to the Oktoberfest park.

Oktoberfest is wild. Busch Gardens really did a pretty good job with the decorations and the bad in the center that can be risen up and the dancing. Everyone is drunk, and standing on their table benches, dancing and singing along with the band. One random guy told me to hold on a minute then grabbed my ponytail and sniffed my hair. It was extremely weird and we promptly hightailed it out of the immediate area. It is very hot in all of the tents. Apparently all of the tents are beers that are brewed in Munich. They also serve food, which includes chicken breasts, radish bowls, pretzels, amongst other random things. The other part of Oktoberfest is a like a country fair with fair games and rides. Tons of people dress up in traditional German get ups. I am so tempted to buy a traditional German dress and just be that every year for Halloween. It was really just craziness all over and the beers are HUGE, but moderately expensive.

All of the taxis in Munich are Mercedes and so are the Ambulances. There are so many nice cars over. One random guy that was sitting by us a dinner (he was from Kuwait) wanted us to take a picture of him in his “car” (which was a pretty sweet Mercedes) on his Nokia phone. Needless to say the picture didn’t turn out very well. It was a weird situation, but he was very appreciative that we helped him.

Katherine and I have finally got the Munich metro down. In reality its pretty easy if you pay attention and read the signs. I had no idea about this, but Katherine taught me that normally the location next to the line on a specific train is a place further on down the line so you can tell where the train is going. That in addition to our handy little map have allowed us to navigate the city with ease. We ended up buying a buddy pass, which saved us 2 euros! Haha how do you like that for budgeting. I was watching this guy drink a beer on the metro and didn’t know you could do that. I still don’t know if that is totally normal or if he was just a rule breaker.

We are going to take a Tylenol pm and get a good nights sleep so that we are rested for a full day of sightseeing tomorrow followed by another round of Oktoberfest.

We have arrived in Munich

We made it into Munich, got our bags, got on the train, and to our hostel a-ok. It would be really helpful to know German, but oh vell. The way things sound is completely different from the way they look like they would sound to me, so listening out for things is pretty much useless.

When we were at the Norfolk airport they made me stick my shoes on the top of my pack and put the top of the pack over them. I didn’t get to do a solid job of adjusting the pack top so I was a bit nervous that during the handling of the travel something would happen like a strap would break and I would lose my pack top and my tennis shoes. Both wouldn’t be a catastrophic crisis but a major bummer none the less. Luckily the bag went through just fine and everything arrived safe and sound.

Other than that little snafu, I feel extremely prepared about this trip. In addition to having my really soft purple sweatshirt, having my computer with me will be a huge sense of comfort. Although Katherine and I were commenting in the airport how not having a cell phone gives us a sense of nakedness. Every time I feel something vibrate, Im like oh someone is calling me and then I realize no silly, you don’t have a phone on you.

So at a grand total, my pack weighed in at about 40lbs and my messenger bag 15lbs. So the most weight I will be carrying on me at one time will be 55lbs, which isn’t too bad considering that the majority of the pack weight is on my hips.

The international gate of the airport was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I feel like international people dress similar to us, but they add a little flair, like patches and colors, all the way to the extremes of wacky hair-dos and piercing. Everyone at the international gate was speaking different languages. I realized that while I was sitting waiting for the plane and messing around with my camera, I have minimal knowledge of how to use it to its full potential. The grossest part of it all was their was a piece of ham on the seat next to Katherine, just sitting out and greasy and gross.

The plane was supposed to leave Philly at 6:40 but we didn’t really take off until 7:50, which could have been worse. They did every announcement on the plane in English and German. It was funny. It was a 7 hr and 40 min flight from Philly to Munich. We were served beverages three times and two meals which turned out to be pretty delicious (a fettuccini alfredo and then Danish). They also offered a refreshment bar somewhere in the plane, but I never made it there. Preferred seating just needed up being a good view of the tv and first picks on dinner and beverages before they ran out. Unfortunately no business class. In reality, business class didn’t look that different from economy. I sat next to a very cool kid whose parents dies a couple of years ago so he has spent his time traveling and studying abroad. He was super helpful on places to go and see because he had been pretty much everywhere, his name was Zach.

So when we got off the plane, we realized that helpful people were legitimately wearing leiterhosens (sp). The man that checked us through customs asked more questions than the other officers seemed to, but we breezed by him no problem. We got on the wrong train originally, so took a more scenic train to the hostel. I was pretty pleased with how much easier we got to our hostel by train than I expected. Once we got off the train, I supposed we looked a little lost, so a nice man came up to use and asked if we needed help and pointed us in the right direction.

In Germany so far they are playing American music (Im listening to Hey Delilah right now). A lot of the houses remind me of the Busch Gardens roller coaster Alpengeist, which I figured was decorated pretty stereotypically, but I guess not really that far from the truth. There are BMWs and other nice foreign (but not so foreign cars) everywhere.

So Katherine and I are pretty whipped from our travels. We wanted to be champs and see some places today, but I don’t think some major touring is in the cards for today. Right now we are sitting in the hostel (which from the check in lobby area looks pretty nice, well see how the dormitory look soon) catching up computer business and waiting for check in at two. I am having a delicious dunkle beer and can already feel it starting to take effect. For a pretty majorly large, heavy, beer, it was only 1.9 euro. I thought that was a pretty good deal. We are very very tired girls so our plan is to sleep for a while, then go and check out Oktoberfest tonight. That way we can tour a good bit tomorrow day and hit up Oktoberfest again tomorrow night.

We are only staying in the Munich hostel for two nights, so I guess we need to figure out where we are going after Munich pretty soon. When we figure that out I will definitively let yall know.

Departure Day at the Philadelphia Airport

***Disclaimer: I am not proof reading this. The most you will probably get is a spell check. Most of the time this will be my stream of consciousness, which I hope you enjoy.

Katherine and I have officially begun our European adventure! Right now we are sitting in the Philadelphia airport waiting to board our flight to Munich. It is delayed a half an hour, which is I suppose is natural and pretty lucky considering it is a nighttime flight. Our flight from Norfolk to Philly was only 36 minutes, which was fantastic and a lot faster than I expected. Katherine and I tried to sit together (Katherine was sitting in the window seat in the aisle behind me and I was in the aisle seat) and the lady would not switch. It was kinda bizarre because in all honesty it wouldn’t have changed her seat selection. It would however remove her from sitting next to a baby. I’m chalking it up to maybe she had a little crush on Katherine. Bahaha.

Mom, Dad and I had a delicious lunch at Felinis and then met Katherine and her mom, dad, and John at the airport. We had to figure out how we were going to put our packs on the plane and finally settled (mostly because of the pushy and not that helpful TSA people) on just duct taping the straps to the pack and hoping that all goes well. We said out goodbyes and were off. Security was a breeze, so that is a good sign to start off the trip with.

At the Philly airport we checked in with the Munich desk and asked if there was anyway that we could get our seats changed to sit together. The lady said that she only had preferred seats open right now and that if we wanted to do that it would be $515, but if we cam back in a little bit, she would open them up and we could do it for free. So we went and got dinner, which we spent entirely too much on for two beers and two salads, and came back to try for the seat change. The lady gladly gave us the newly opened preferred seating, and now we are sitting together in row 13 of a big plane. We are hoping this means that we got bumped up to business class, but we will just have to wait and see.

We are sitting in the international gateway of the airport. The people who are sitting around us definitely look like international travelers. You should really see some of the outfits. One man is wearing all lime green, including lime green corduroys. I tried to get a picture of him, but it didn’t turn out very well and the flash went off so he realized what I was doing and it was pretty awkward.

The Philly Airport offers free wifi for college students. All you have to do is show an information desk your student id and they give you a free wifi coupon, which is nice because it enables me to update you good people. I think it is totally absurd to charge for wifi in a public place. Everything is about nickel and diming these days.

We should be landing in Munich at 9 in the morning. Our plan is to buy a one-day ticket for the Munich Metro and take it to the hostel. Check in, get organized, and then push hard through jetlag by seeing some museums (Deschutes and the BMW). Hopefully that will help with acclimating to the time change. The next day we are going to do Oktoberfest, which I am very excited because it was a huge focal point in the trip for me.

Welp thats all Ive got for right now. We should be boarding the plane soon so I am going to sign off. the next post should be from EUROPE! I know, how exciting! I hope all is well with everyone. Take it easy!

Is this really happening?!?

Hello Everyone!

I have officially entered into the t-minus 24 hour countdown until Katherine and I depart for our grand European adventure. Right now, I am in the midst doing all of the last minute things and final touches on trip preparation. Hence, the reason I am setting up this blog. Obviously, I will send out an email to yall so that you know where to go to follow my travels.

I packed my pack this morning, and the total weight came out to about 40lbs. That's not nearly as bad as I expected, but still it looks monstrous when I put it on and I wish I had a little more wiggle room in case I decide to buy some souvenirs. Not having any place to put bought items, could actually be better for my wallet. I am also carrying a messenger bag, which I am sure will come out to be about 20 lbs for airport travel. Ill just have to wait and see how I am feeling tonight about what makes the cut and what stays home.

I am also setting up a site for pictures on Picasa. Both this blogging site and Picasa are done through google, which is nice because it can all be linked to my gmail account.

Considering that I decided to go on this trip moderately recently and don't really have that much of a set itinerary, I don't think I have ever felt more prepared for a trip. I am going to take that as positive sign to kick of the trip with. With the exception of a few other things, like going to Colorado for school, I don't think that I have ever felt this strongly that I need something like this in my life right now. I am super excited just to take in the whole life experience. Hopefully (and as lame as it is) this blog can help yall see what Im up to and enjoy it also.

Well I just wanted to get this set up and see how everything worked to I could let yall know. I hope everything is well with everyone in your respective parts of the world.