Oh, and For All the Other Stuff I Forgot About

Slicing my foot open wasn’t the only interesting thing that happened to me this past week. I actually did a lot of fun things, believe it or not, and THEN I stepped on glass and rendered myself useless for at least three or four more days. Which is okay because I fully intend to read at least two more books, sleep a lot, watch a movie or two, and not spend any money, seeing as I don’t have any. Thursday, I get paid and it will be glorious to have money again. Until then, I will remain crippled. But my job duties prevail. Today I must take the twinners to the pool but I can’t go in. Cruel and unusual punishment, isn’t it?

Anyway, last Wednesday I left off saying that I was going off with some friends to watch the Germany VS Spain football/soccer game at the Olympia stadium. Well, we went and it was FUN. Even though they lost. This place is MASSIVE. It seats 20,000 and it wasn’t anywhere near to being full but it was still incredible to see that many fans go out to support their football team on a giant television. Americans don’t do that kind of thing. We sit in our living rooms with cheese balls, Tostito pizza rolls, seven layer bean dips, 18 packs of PBR, and Cheetos and watch from the comfort of our living room. Maybe if it was a real match, we’d get off our asses, leave our living rooms, and go watch… but not for a giant TV screen. Deutschland fans are one of a kind.

Me and Lauren, rockin’ our spirit

Fans in mass

Watching from our seats

Inside the UBahn after the game. Pure madness.

This, my friends, was one of the experiences of my time here in Munich that I am so grateful to be a part of. It’s a story that I will never forget and I can only imagine how much better it would have been in Germany had actually WON. Oh well, they went on to take 3rd place on Saturday night so GO DEUTSCHLAND! I am forever a football/soccer fan. World Cup is so much fun to watch. Hopefully I can be in Europe every time that it happens. That would be a fun tradition to begin. Three 1/2 weeks every four years for a World Cup vacation. Who’s in?

On Thursday I did the regular schedule all day. Morning with the family and then I went back to bed for a few hours (oops) and then went into the Englischer Garten and just relaxed in the sun and shade.

    

Thursday evening I met up with some friends at night to go to the Toy Town meet-up, which had been scheduled for Augustiner Keller biergarten. Navigating the SBahn and UBahn stops is easy now so that wasn’t a problem. I was a little bit late, mostly because I’d had to work right up until 8 pm but I was able to meet Lauren and Catherine at the right spot. We managed to find the biergarten after heading in the wrong direction only once but once we got there, everyone just magically found each other and all was well. We had some bier (ein Maß, of course) and then started rocking out to the German rock band that was playing at the front of the garden. They played a lot of cover songs in English and we had so much fun dancing on tables and rocking out to the weird German music. After the biergarten, we collectively wandered off to a gay bar called Die Bank, where all the TT-goers always want to go. I’m not sure exactly how many of them are actually gay but I’ve been there twice now. But it was fun. We had a good, German time – drinking bier, taking shots, and sitting on really comfortable couches.

It still impresses me that I can drink these, even after a month of being here.

German band!

The girls at Die Bank

I learned a valuable lesson that Thursday night: don’t forget that the UBahn stops running after 1 am on weekdays. If I can manage to remember this, I will never again spend 16 EUR on a taxi. Either that, or carry around the night bus schedule. Save myself some money, geez.

Friday was kind of a lazy day. I was a little burnt out from the night before so I chose to stay in for most of the day. Read my book, didn’t really do much. Every once in a while, this is just what I need. Friday evening I had planned to stay in but when Jessica called me, I made up my mind that I would, in fact, go out with her but after traveling towards her place for 30 minutes, I ended up getting a call from the Frau. She thought that I would be staying in tonight so she had made up her mind to go out so she wanted me to come home. She was nice enough about it but it was kind of annoying. I ended up going back home and I watched a movie and went to bed. No big deal.

Saturday was HOT. I went to the Englischer Garten with Catherine, one of my newest friends here, and we laid in the sun for about 30 minutes before we decided it was just too damn hot. We ended up going into the shade and sat out in the gardens until about 4:30 before Jessica showed up and we went into town. We had dinner at Pizza Hut which, SURPRISE!, tastes just like Pizza Hut in the states. I was under some grand illusion that all the chain restaurants will taste different here in Europe but they’re all pretty much the same. Except McDonald’s – it tastes infinitely better here. Catherine and I want to go to the Hard Rock Cafe soon. I love their food.

 Delicious.

Saturday night we went out on the town and I managed to buy all my drinks before so I didn’t spend a bunch of money at the bars. I got three bottles of Augustiner for under 5 EUR, a mini bottle of Jagermeister for 2,49 EUR and a can of Red Bull. Overall, I didn’t spend more than 8 EUR. Which is something I should do more often. Although now that I read back on that, that’s an awful lot of alcohol for one night. No wonder I ended up in the hospital at 4 am. Geez.

You can imagine what I did on Sunday.

Honestly, I slept all day. People kept calling me to go to the Englischer Gartens but there was no way I was going to be able to do that. I was in so much pain. I just laid in bed and either slept, watched a movie, read my book, or spent time online. It was nice though because I needed the rest, my body was trying to catch up from the traumatic event. 

Now I’m just trying to keep my stitches clean and out of the water so that I can get them removed without any infections or problems next week. Actually, 12 days. So, on July 23. Wow… that’s so far from now. Anyway, I’m going to try to  take it easy until then. Which means I’ll probably just be sleeping a lot and will finish 1-2 books between now and then. Both of those outcomes is okay with me.

I never knew that I would have to leave college to get some really good sleep!

Cheap Stuff in Munich and Poolside with Vee

Three weeks in and I’m still alive! Not that I anticipated death or anything… but I am seriously amazed at how fast time has gone by. I feel like I just got here yet, at the same time, I feel like I’ve been here forever.

I’m enjoying myself more and more with every passing day. Not that I wasn’t before but I am having less bad days and more good days. Less wanting to go back to the states, more wanting to be right where I am! Of course, it helps that it’s cooled down significantly over the last two days so I haven’t been sweating to death. Usually, at high noon, when the sun is torturous but I don’t want to be in my room nor do I want to be outside, that is when I start getting cranky and homesick and tired. But it always passes.

This week so far has been fairly uneventful. I ran low on my money for some reason, mostly because of my monthly train pass and my phone credits. And then other random stuff that adds up a lot faster than you’d think it would. So, as a result, I keep myself busy by doing things that don’t cost money. Like sleeping when it’s too hot or reading my book. I’m on my fourth one now. Or wandering around town and doing things that cost under 3 EUR like climbing church towers to see the whole city.

Which, by the way, was totally worth the 200-something steps I had to climb and the burning lungs. Because there was a cool breeze up top and the most beautiful sights I’ve seen yet. I was so glad I did it, even if it was painful.

 
Also, it’s free to inside the churches so I’ve been doing that too. And the churches aka kirches are incredible. They are so beautiful. You can’t really understand their beauty until you’ve been inside one. I guess I could say that they’re gorgeous and overuse my synonyms but you get the idea. I wanted so badly to just sit down for ten minutes and take it all in but I was afraid I was going to get in trouble, like they would know that I wasn’t Catholic, or something. So I didn’t sit down but I did enjoy, regardless.

It’s also really cheap (actually, it’s free) for me to just wander around the city and take pictures of random things. I don’t really have to talk to anyone and sometimes I listen to my iPod, sometimes I don’t. I love just walking around, even if it’s somewhere I’ve already been. But, occasionally, I run into really cool stuff like this:

   
And, of course, what would a traveler’s wanderings throughout Munich be without a few shots of the famous, Marienplatz?

The blue skies really help make my pictures look even better than they really are. :)

And no traveler’s day is complete without a wait and a ride on the Ubahn.

This is photographic evidence of my Tuesday – exactly three weeks after I arrived, this is how I spent my day. I came home to make dinner for the girls and Helen surprised us by coming home early. So she ate dinner with us while the Frau disappeared (I have no idea) where she went. I just made dinner without command and the girls were happy. Confused, but happy. Vee spent the rest of the evening and the following morning asking me where Helen was. But it was cute to see how sweet they are on Helen and how excited they get to see her. Someday, that will be their reaction to me!

Earlier today, I picked Vee up early from the kinderhaus and took  her to the pool, Eenie didn’t want to go so she stayed there. It was early enough that no one was there and we had the pool all to ourselves. We just played in the water for the first hour or so and then sat around in the sun bonding. Vee is the twin that doesn’t seem to like me as much as the other so it was nice to have her be sweet on me. Although when she talks, half of the time I have no idea what she’s talking about. Haha. Between her German accent and her misuse of English words, most of the time I just pretend that I know what she’s saying. Sometimes I can figure it out but Eenie is much easier to understand. Vee likes to say, “I know it not in English.” Haha. 

Right now I’m getting ready to go watch the Deutschland vs. Spain soccer (er, football…) game with some friends. We’re going to the Olympic stadium here in Munich and there should be upwards to 20,000 people there, watching the game. I’m really excited and I promise some good photos of that for the next update.

Maybe I’ll get myself a vuvuzela on the way there… or not. I hate those things!

World Cup Weekend

I don’t know why but I’ve walked away from the weekend feeling extremely home sick. I don’t know why exactly – I couldn’t pin it down to any single occurrence. I think it’s just the end of a long week and the heat is getting to me. It’s kind of overwhelming, the feeling of wanting to be back in California, and although I know it will pass – Munich is good to me! – it’s hard not to give in to the longing for things that I’ve left behind. I miss stupid stuff like Aquafina, shopping at Target, Coke with ice in it and free refills. I’m always missing my family and friends and sometimes the realization that I can’t visit them on weekends or holidays hits me harder than I’d like to admit. I’m still trying to make friends here but it’s hard because everyone is so established and they’ve got their friends and routines. I’ve had a hard time coordinating schedules or getting a hold of the new people that I’ve met. So far, Jessica has been great. I love spending time with her, she’s a great friend and I think we get along so well because we’re both figuring it all out together and it’s so new and exciting for both of us. I’m not going to give up though – don’t worry. I’ll make more friends, I’m not worried about that, but I guess I just expected it to be easier or faster or something.

Although my dearest, most wonderful sister-cousin, Christy, said that she would send me a comfort/care package and I couldn’t think of one thing that I wanted more than that. In fact, any letters, postcards, or pictures sent from the home states would be incredibly thoughtful and very well received. I couldn’t tell you what I’d give to have St. Ive’s Apricot Scrub in my shower or even just one bottle of American, fancy-pants water like Aquafina or Dasani. My taste buds are doing happy dances just thinking about it. So, when Christmas rolls around, if you’re wondering what I’d like to have – think only the simple necessities.

Putting my homesickness and sad faces aside, it was a pretty exciting weekend here in Munich. Deutschland played in the World Cup against England yesterday(Sunday).  The USA played Ghana on Saturday but it wasn’t very exciting – the US doesn’t really care about soccer like Europe does so I don’t think we were very invested in the outcome. But Sunday was on fire for the football fans here in Germany (which is pretty much everyone). The whole country seemed to make all their plans revolve around the game.

Jessica and I went into the Englischer Gartens and just basked in the sun for about an hour before we rode bikes to the Chinesische Turm biergartens to watch the game. Before we even got there, when we were still lying out on the grass, we knew that Germany had scored because the cheers of thousands of screaming fans erupted from within the trees, because at least three nearby biergartens had public viewing and everyone went crazy! Right when we got to the biergarten, Germany had scored again and the crowds were going crazy. It was incredible to see such dedication and enthusiasm for a sport. I’ve never seen it at that caliber before, not even for the Superbowl.

This video was put up on YouTube, and although I did not film it, it captures the celebrations perfectly. I was able to experience all of this, from the craziness inside the UBahn trains down to the PACKED streets at Leopoldstrasse. Even though I was exhausted and didn’t party it up, it was still really cool to experience and I’m glad that I was in Munich to experience it! I can only imagine how Germany will celebrate if they actually win the World Cup. That will be a crazy day…

And now begins another week for me here in Munich. I’ m down to 30 Euros but I get paid on Wednesday so I’m going to take it easy for a few days – ride my bike into the Englischer Gartens, read my book, listen to my iPod, enjoy the sunshine. And when I get paid again I’ll buy another UBahn pass and some more credits for my phone and figure out how to pay for my bills that are back in America which are due soon. Sigh. What I wouldn’t give for a rich benefactor to pay all my bills for me. It’s really stressing me out!

I’ve been checking out prices for traveling – I really want to get out of Munich eventually and see other parts of Europe. It’s so cheap to fly around here. I found a plane fare from Munich to London for 57 Euros for Christmas vacation. That’s amazing. And a train ride to Garmisch (where I can’t wait to visit) is only 18 Euros. Hopefully I’ll get to do that later in the summer or early fall but especially in the winter so I can see the Alps covered in snow. Eventually I’d love to get out and go to Amsterdam and Italy – Milan, Venice, Rome. And then to Spain to see Jackie and to see Barcelona. I want to go to Dublin, Ireland and venture out to Scotland to see my homeland. I’m so anxious to see it all, yet fearful that I won’t be able to afford any of it! Sucks that my money problems have followed me here, doesn’t it? Ah, oh well! I won’t do any shopping and if you want me to send you souvenirs, send me some money for package and post! :)

Now I’m off to enjoy the beautiful day. Hope all is well!