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!

Spring Has Come to the City, Beer Fests and Dirndl Season (Again!), and Vacation Plans

It’s been over a week since I last posted to this blog. My apologies – I haven’t been very inspired by my life to blog about it. That sounds much worse than reality, trust me. Life in Munich is wonderful, as always, I just haven’t been doing a lot of ‘blog worthy’ things. There has been a lot of weekend partying but who wants to hear about that? My friends and I realize that we have less than three months together and we’re making the most of it – judgments be damned! We do, however, have a moral conscience and we recognize the moments that our behavior gets out of hand. We make mistakes – we try not to make them again and sometimes we fail. But, ah, c’est la vie! As happy as I am to be here and enjoy these final weeks in Munich, I am looking forward to being home and taking a serious detox from my crazy party life. It’ll be nice to slow down and grow up a little bit. Until then, I fully intend to be young and carry on living my wonderful life.

The best thing going on in Munich right now – SPRING! It’s official – winter is OVER. We’ve had sunny, blue skies all week and temperatures have hit mid to high 50’s. The trees are sprouting green buds and the birds keep singing at all hours of the day and night. The beer gardens are back to their triumphant state – tables spread out and beer drinkers enjoying the sunshine and good company. My girl friends and I spent almost the entire afternoon last Sunday at the English Gardens, basking in the deliciously warm sunshine. It was a beautiful, beautiful day!

There is a beer festival going on in Munich yet and although we have yet to enjoy it – we still brought out the dirndl’s this past weekend to celebrate. We always have fun in our dirndl’s, especially when no one else is wearing them and we get all of the attention. We walked around Munich forever trying to find a  location for the starkbierfest but we failed. So we ended up at one of our favorite hostel bars where craziness ensued and Fio, Brenna, and I had one of the best nights in Munich thus far. We’re still talking about it – almost a week later. Fio’s 16-year-old cousin was in town for the weekend, too, visiting from Ireland and that girl definitely got a good taste of our crazy life. She was absolutely wonderful – we all loved her and hope to see her again before we all leave.

Anything can happen when you wear your dirndl!

At the moment, I’ve got my window wide open – clean clothes drying all over my room, and a blessedly beautiful day ahead of me. I’m babysitting the girls tonight – again. I’ve been doing this a lot lately. My host mom is on a bunch of museum committees and there are a bunch of museum openings lately so I’ve worked three to four nights out of seven for the last two weeks. It’s been okay though – I don’t have much money because of my trip to Cologne – and the nights that I did have off, I made the most of them. The week ahead should be good. We’re actually attending Starkbierfest this weekend (I don’t think I’ll like the beer much, honestly) and next week I have less babysitting responsibilities.

And hopefully I can start planning a trip to Italy over Easter vacation. I mean, I’ve made the plans – I just have to finalize them. I’m hoping for Cinque Terra and Venice but we’ll see! It depends on how much money I have and can manage to save. Ideally I’d love to fly to Pisa, take a train to Cinque Terra, hike one of the trails, get back to the train station, take a train to Venice, spend a weekend in Venice with the girls, and then get back to Munich. We’ll see!

Until I figure all of that – I’m going to continue enjoying spring in Munich! I love it!

I always stick my tongue out when I’m trying to concentrate.

Happy spring!

Nine Months Gone By (I Could Have Cooked a Baby By Now!), My Impending Adulthood, and All the Things and People That Make My Life

I can’t believe that it’s already the 1st of March, that’s it already spring. Where the hell has this year gone? I started this blog almost a year ago. It’s been almost nine months since I started this adventure in Munich. Time goes by so fast. This time last year I was working diligently on my graduation capstone and was taking care of Baby D five days a week. It feels so far away. So much has happened since then and my life has changed in every way possible. I have been so blessed to have this experience and I wish that there were more than just three months left to enjoy it. Unfortunately, that is all that I have left – 110 days, just a little over three months. There is still so much that I can do in that time – I’m going to be traveling this spring (budget-willing!), visiting Barcelona, Spain and, hopefully Verona and Venice, Italy. I’m going to Cologne on the 11th of this month. And in May, I’m going to Berlin to visit friends who live there. There’s another beer festival coming up in March – the Starkbierfest – which means that the dirndl is coming out again and my girlfriends and I can feel like real Bavarians. I’ve fallen short on my Munich bucket list but I’ll pick up on it again – I have a lot of stuff to catch up on that I haven’t even posted yet. Bear with me. I’ll get through it eventually.

Life has been good. Things in Munich are wonderful, I have no complaints. My social life here far outweighs my au pair responsibilities. Last weekend we completely exhausted ourselves partying. One going away party after another and two 6 am returns in a row. Club nights, bars, beer, tequila. We take it all in stride and we look out for each other whenever and wherever we can. I spent all day Sunday in bed watching How I Met Your Mother. It was glorious. Then my lovely friend, Ana, fed me a delicious pasta dinner and we talked for hours about everything going on in our lives. I love weekends here – I live for them. I will miss this when I go home to live in my mom’s basement and start my grown-up life. I will miss this last chance that I’ve been given to really just be young and carefree. It doesn’t have to stop after this but it will. I’m making that choice. I’m choosing to grow up and take on a more responsible adult role. Which is fine with me. But, for now and in spite of my near and not so distant future, I choose to enjoy the time that I have left here and to just live my life as it comes.

My favorite picture of the week:

My best girlfriend, Fionnuala. I LOVE HER.

Other things I’ve done in the last week or so:

• I watched 127 Hours about the guy who cuts off his arm. Incredible.
• Called my mom, twice, over the course of five days and talked to her for over an hour both times. I miss her. A lot.

I can’t wait to hang out with my mom and Ruby Tuesday.

• Earned 80 EUR on the side. It’s a secret! :) And then spent it all. Another lesson learned. Sigh.
• Played at the spielplatz with the cutest twins in all of Munich.

Das ist alles. Danke. Tschüs!

Blessed Shout Out, More Oktoberfest Excitement, and the History and Wear of the Bavarian Dirndl

I really appreciate all of the comments that I have been getting about my blog recently. Everyone keeps telling me how well I write and how much they love reading my posts. It’s really made me feel good! I appreciate your support and interest and I hope you’ll keep reading, even when I don’t have anything that exciting to write about. I figure that as long as I’m still here in Munich, living this crazy life, I’m going to have something to say so I hope you’ll stick with me through it all! Plus, Fio’s suggested that I write for my friend Laura’s new up and coming newspaper here in Munich. That would be cool! I’ll let you know what Laura thinks once she reads this. Ha.

Coming up soon… OKTOBERFEST!!!! I have a million and a half people to meet up with who are visiting or who live here already and I’m so excited to enjoy this massive bier fest with good company. And also… in style.

I am now the proud owner of an authentic, traditional Bavarian dirndl!

  Me and some random handsome fellow in his lederhosen

Basically, I’m doing this thing now where I look up the history of all these fun things I’m taking part in so you can understand why it’s so cool. Like the dirndl. It’s a Bavarian/Austrian dress that goes side by side with the lederhosen – which is much more popular and recognizable (e.g. yodeling). (Fun fact: Lederhosen were really popular among men in Bavarian and Austria but, ironically, a Bavarian named Levi Strauss came up with this crazy denim “jeans” idea and emigrated to California during the gold rush, taking his idea with him. Thus the birth of jeans!) Dirndls were originally worn by working women in the 18th century and were called dirndlgewand (maid’s dress) but the term is now shortened to just dirndl. Eventually, it was adopted as fashionable by the rich people in Austria and Germany after a Kaiser made it cool to wear. Now, the dirndl (and the lederhosen) are worn mostly for festivals (especially Oktoberfest) and in biergartens but it’s not uncommon to see them on many different people throughout Bavaria on random, unimportant nights. A lot of waitresses at Bavarian restaurants wear them too. Dirndl’s display national pride and can be worn in all kinds of colors and fashions complete with a dress, blouse, apron, and sometimes, a petty coat underneath. They’re actually designed to flatter the female figure with a tight bodice and low-cut front and they make any woman’s boobs look amazing. Of course, dirndls have gotten shorter, sexier, and flirtier (apparently that’s a word) and that’s okay because they work.

Fio and I went out in our dirndls last Saturday night and we had the best night ever. Both of us couldn’t stop laughing all night. Everyone stares at you but you know it’s for a good reason and people were actually taking pictures of us. We felt like celebrities or something. It was awesome. Plus, we got hit on significantly more than we ever do wearing normal clothes so that was, in and of itself, awesome. Except when a table of fat, balding middle aged men from the northwestern States were hitting on us at Sausalitos and wouldn’t go away. Maybe that had something to do with Fio feeding into it because, “they own oil companies!” Ha. Eventually we just befriended guys in lederhosen and went home, feeling successful as newbie Bavarians.

This week my girlfriends and I (and Eric in his lederhosen) fully intend to break out into the city in our dirndls. Kind of like a test run for Oktoberfest. And then the madness begins this weekend. Seven million extra people in Munich? Millions of liters of bier? Insanity? I think so! Pictures will be posted.