Munich’s Spring Make-Over, Adventures in the English Gardens, Starkbierfest, Vacation Dreams, and Shameless Self-Promotion

Remember when I used to be really good about writing updates about my life? Those were the days. Ha. I promise you that I’ve been thinking about it – there just hasn’t been a lot of doing. I have so much to catch up so I hope that I can do it justice. This may be a fairly long update but I have a feeling that you won’t mind. :)

The best thing about my life in Munich right now is that SPRING IS HERE. And I don’t mean like, maybe spring is kind of deciding to show up… the season has done a full on, head first somersault into spring and it’s absolutely GORGEOUS. The trees started turning green sometime late last week and there’s no stopping them now. I imagine that sometime next week, Munich will be bathed completely in green and we will be in business. The weather has been absolutely breathtaking as of late – high 60’s, low 70’s for temperatures, blue skies, sunshine, cloudless afternoons. Lately I’ve been spending my days in the English Gardens, laying out in the sun with friends, picnicking, listening to music, and thoroughly enjoying the new season. I’ve gotten a few sunburns already – two or three – and as painful as they are, it’s always nice when you can say you got your first sunburn of the season in late March!

Here’s some pictures from our lay outs in the English Gardens that I graciously stole from my friends Facebooks and some that I stole from myself. Spring! Yay!

Rosie, Mike, Fio, and Max playing Frisbee

Down by the Isar – Englischer Gartens

Yep, those are naked guys. And no I will not zoom in. :)

Yours truly, enjoying a lazy Thursday afternoon in the EG with my au pair gal pals

With spring came another beer fest (not the real spring fest, just wait!). Starkbierfest (strong beer) hit Munich somewhere around March 19th and we managed to check it out that weekend and then again on the 1st of April. Basically, starkbier is like the kick ass version of regular brewed beer, just much stronger. The first night that we went, I had to babysit that evening so I didn’t fully enjoy it but the second time around, we made a day out of it. From 1 pm until 12 am, we partied at the festival – making (and losing) new friends and enjoying way too many liters of that strong beer. We loved it though, we were in full tracht wear – dirndls and lederhosen – and even had the customary monstrous pretzel to go around. We do love our beer fests here in Munich. Frühlingsfest starts at the end of April – the spring’s version of Oktoberfest, with the beer tents and midway rides, too. I’m super excited for that! Bring it on, Munich! You haven’t defeated me yet!

Starkbierfest @ Paulaner’s Nockherberg

Me and my new Australian friend, David @ Nockherberg
You haven’t truly been to a bierfest until you’ve tried to hold five or more liters in one hand!

The Nockherberg biergarten

We had to do something with all the liters we’d collected

For some reason, now that it’s spring I’m babysitting three to four times as much as I ever did. For the last three weeks, I’ve worked 3-4 nights in a row. Sometimes it’s just what I need but now it’s just starting to get monotonous. My host-mom has offered to up my pay 50 EUR for every pay check, which I’m pretty sure is illegal and out-of-contract, but I suppose I can be bribed! The only downside is that I’ve been getting really restless with the children and I’ve been losing patience at home. I don’t get to go out with my friends as often as I did before and now I’m feeling more like a work-your-ass-off nanny and less like a cultural exchange au pair. (In fact, I’m working right now. Eenie is finishing Bambie and Vee fell asleep so I carried her to her bed – I’m such a mom. C’est la vie!)

Easter is fast approaching and I have so much to look forward to! I’m planning a 6-day trip to Rome with Brenna (decided this tonight, actually!) from Sunday April 17th until Friday, the 22nd. I don’t know how I will pay for it but eventually, it will be figured out! I just have  to get out and go somewhere and it’s ROME!!! But more on that later… I still haven't booked the flight so once I’ve done that, then I’ll freak out! After that, my “Monterey Mom”, Christina, will be here for more than two weeks! I’m SO excited to see her, she has become family to me over the last four years and I am so happy that I get to see her while I’m in Germany. I visit her mom, Kathe, all the time and her sister Susie and her son, Dustin, have all been here already from California. It’s only fair that she gets the chance, too! She’s going to take me to Venice for a night/day trip so we’ll have plenty of girl gossip and time to catch up. I’m determined to get her to Frühlingsfest with me, too. I AM SO EXCITED. Christina, do you understand? SUPER EXCITED.

Once all of this passes me by, I’ll have time to catch my breath and realize that I’ll have just one month left in Munich. It’s just a little over two now. This is, quite honestly, something I don’t want to think about because it makes me sad. Just thinking about the day that I leave Munich and all of my friends makes me want to cry. So, for now, I will stop thinking about it. I do, however, intend to resume my “52 Things in Munich” bucket list. I did a few of them that I still haven’t written about and there are tons more that I have the chance to do but just haven’t. I think once my camera ate it, I lost inspiration to document those fun things. But I’ll take my little crap camera out and get back to business. I promise that will resume shortly!

I’ve been trying to make myself busy since I’ve been forced to stay home so often and so I got back into writing fiction. I might have mentioned my fiction blog here before but I’ll pimp it out again since I’m actually writing in it now. I’m not working on any specific projects – just prompt challenges to keep my creative mind working. But I hope you’ll check it out and follow it because Lord knows I have enough time to keep it up. It’s helpful for me to have encouragement, too, because I really want to be involved in my writing – I love doing it – but sometimes I fall short. Keep me on my toes! Suggest prompts for me, ask me to fictionalize events from the past nine months and I just might do it! Click on the graphic below (super cool points if you know where those lyrics come from!) and it’ll take you right to my blog. Enjoy!