(Not So) New German Girl: Nine Months Down, Three to Go

March 20th marked the nine month “anniversary” of my arrival to Munich. And on this date, last year, March 28, 2010 I started this blog – Diary of An American Au Pair slash New German Girl. It’s been one year since that first post and nine months since I first arrived and guess what? I’m not so new anymore!

How can I explain to you just how much my life has changed over the last nine months? You’ve been reading this blog (I hope) so you have an idea of how far I’ve come and the things that I’ve seen but how could I really explain it to you in words? I’m not even so sure that I can do that for myself. What I do know, is that the girl that I was when I left California is not the same girl that will return in June. I have changed, my life has changed, and my eyes are wide open. I may not have seen very much of the world but what I have here – I absolutely love and to be quite honest, I wouldn’t ask for a do-over even if you paid me.

The months leading up to my German adventure were busy, busy, busy. Of course I had Germany on my mind but I was so preoccupied. I was trying to finish my Capstone and was looking forward to my college graduation. I was organizing all of my material possessions, moving out of my apartment, walking away from my numerous jobs and co-workers, saying good bye to friends and loved ones, and preparing myself for the unknown. When I first arrived, after nearly 13 hours of travel with swollen feet and a weary smile, it didn’t feel that different. I couldn’t understand how to get through the airport, not because of the language – everything was written in both English and Deutsch – but because Franz Joseph Strauss airport is a ridiculous mess of signs and signals and moving sidewalks. Eventually, I found a taxi in some shady back corner and I gave my address to the driver and although he barely understood me – I was hopeless back then – he managed to finally understand and we were driving away. My adventure was right in front of me. It was about to begin.

Mary Poppins and Mahltauschen, “SLOSH” Nymphenburg, Buses That Go Nowhere, A 3 EUR Maß, and the Deutsches Museum

For the relaxing weekend that I had, it was actually pretty busy. Nothing, however, can beat the shenanigans of the Neuschwanstein Misadventures. In an attempt to slow down from all of the excessive bier drinking and overspending that I’ve been doing lately, I decided to take it easy this weekend and tried to plan for a day/weekend trip to Garmisch to visit a family friend and relax with a friend in the mountains. I spent the week trying to organize the trip but it fell through due to lack of interest from friends and due to money troubles. So what else is new? Fortunately, I full intend to go visit and soon, even if I go alone. I’m looking forward to breathing in the mountain air and visiting with a beloved friend.

Instead of Garmisch, Jessica and I spent the weekend in Munich, taking in the sights and putting good use to our tourist books. On Friday night we stayed in and made dinner – Mahltauschen with grilled onions, shallots, and Schmand - and listened to Angus & Julia Stone, my new favorite band. And then Zainab came over and passed out on the couch while Jess and I watched Mary Poppins. Zainab tried to explain to us how representative the movie is of her hometown, London, but we just thought it was incredibly weird. Sorry, Z. Haha. I’ve seen it before but I never realized how trippy that movie is.

  

Saturday morning, instead of getting up early to catch a train to Garmisch, Jessica and I took our time and decided to go to Theresienwiese to see the progress for Oktoberfest. They’re already putting up the beer tents! Eric met up with us at Bavaria which is this incredibly cool bronze monument that looks over the Oktoberfest grounds.

We wandered around the Ruhmeshalle (hall of fame) and then eventually tried to bust in on the “biergarten” that was set up on the edge of the construction sites. It was a bust. But we did end up finding the weirdest ‘vending’ machine in the world. Let’s just say that if I need to find out if I have colon cancer or if I should ever need some odor spray, I know where I get some.

 

We wandered around the streets of Munich trying to find somewhere to eat lunch, only to end up in Marienplatz at Mr. Hot Dog. We met up with Harry after that and the four of us journeyed through Kaufingerstrasse to get to Karlzplatz where we could take a tram to Schloss Nymphenburg. Jessica got told off on the tram for taking pictures of someone’s baby and a giant green stink bug (or so we think) successfully molested all of us and then proceeded to flop around on it’s back the floor of the tram until Harry was able to get it outside. It was a lustig journey, to say the least.

 

As beautiful as it is, Schloss Nymphenburg is pretty boring. Haha. It’s a gorgeous palace and the gardens are beautiful but we found that it wasn’t very exciting. Nothing like Neuschwanstein. Haha. We wandered around the palace grounds taking pictures and making fun of the strange Greek statues and marveling at the duck families and enormous swans.

  

Harry left us after 4 and so Eric and Jessica and I decided that it would be more fun to go to a market and get cheap beer and just wander around Munich. We decided to get on Bus 51 which was a bad idea because after about 30 or so minutes of travel, we realized that we weren’t really getting anywhere. We ended up getting off at some random UBahn stop and then ventured back to Marienplatz where we had a delicious dinner at Schneide Weiße Bräuhaus. We did end up buying beer at the local Rewe and I was the only smart one – sticking to a bier that I knew. Neither Jess nor Eric enjoyed the beers that they bought so we ended up sharing the Augustiner. Eventually we ended up at Jaeger’s Youth Hostel where we made bank on the 7-9 Happy Hour and 3 EUR Maß. By 10:30 Jessica and I were drunk and had totaled between the two of us – three Maß and one Pilsner. Eric left me half of his and I filled that with half of one of Jess’s. It was an interesting bier extravaganza, to say the least. I did find the most delicious drunk snack food though – it’s called a Maxi Box and it’s from the Turkish doner stands. French fries, doner meat, and delicious white sauce (kind of like ranch dressing) all mixed together to delicious amazingness. At the end of the night, Jess and I got separated and I ended up at Giselastrase with Clare, Chris, and Jennie. Eventually Jess got a hold of me and I met her at my UBahn stop. We made it home and passed out in my bed. A Saturday night success.

Jessica and Eric at dinner

On Sunday morning I made pancakes from scratch and Jessica made scrambled eggs with cheese and garlic salt. Complete with maple syrup, peanut butter, and cold orange juice. It was the breakfast of champions. After breakfast we got ready to embrace the day and journey to the UBahn. Jess went home to explore Olympia park and I ventured into the heart of the city to meet Catherine for a trip to the Deutches Museum with Harry. It was a beautiful day – it’s a shame we spent it inside of the museum but we did manage to find the roof top viewing area just before it closed. Made from incredible photo opportunities of the city. And thank God Harry was there to explain half of the stuff inside there. Science and technology, however interesting and useful it may be, is so over my head. I was incredibly grateful to have him there to explain stuff like wind currents on airplane wings and math algorithms. After the museum, Harry disappeared to the gym and Catherine and I went to Munchner Freiheit to meet Clare for dinner. We went to Bento Box which was absolutely delicious. We talked girly things – boys and gossip, mostly, but trips to England and plans for Oktoberfest, and laughed at the restaurant’s heinous music selection - “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” sung by Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck - and ultimately enjoyed each other’s company as the ominous gray clouds began to unleash the rain that had been threatening to fall all afternoon.

View from the roof of the museum

   There’s always a silver lining, isn’t there?

I ventured home in the rain listening to my country music playlists – I miss country music – and came home to a dark and empty house. The family is gone to Austria until tomorrow evening. Originally it was supposed to be until next Saturday afternoon but somehow, she shaved off about 5 days and they’ll be back sooner than I want them to. I was looking forward to a quiet house and some really lazy days but I guess I will actually have to be an au pair now. The girls are finished with kinderhaus and are on summer vacation until Septmber 14th so I’m going to have to do real au pair duties – like trips to the playground, day trips to the zoo, and full on entertainment of the girls for hours and hours at a time. It’s nothing I haven’t done before just something I’m not used to doing here.

The rest of the week is uncharted. I know that I have to babysit on Saturday night but everything else is up in the air. Shamrocks with the girls on Tuesday night and maybe Olympia Sommerfest on Wednesday. Toy Town on Thursday. Before I know it August will be over and we’ll be well into September. It’s hard to believe that Oktoberfest starts NEXT MONTH. I’m so excited. I can’t wait to go. I really need to get a dirndl. My friend Alison is coming via England to Munich for the weekend of the 24th-27th to celebrate with me so I’m really excited to have here with me, meeting my friends and getting ridiculously drunk off of German bier. Time is going by so fast here! I hope that it slows down this fall and into winter. I don’t want to feel like my time here in Munich is disappearing. I can’t imagine leaving at this point – I really don’t want to!

Shout Out to the City, Epic Misadventures, and Kindergarten Van Gogh’s

It’s been exactly two months since I arrived in Munich. It’s gone by so fast and I’m afraid that time isn’t about to slow down either. Maybe in winter when the weather is cold and depressing and nothing exciting is happening, I’ll have a chance to catch my breath. For now, life in Munich is fast and crazy but so incredible. I love this city so much. I honestly don’t know how many times I can say that. Everyone keeps telling me that I won’t want to leave. I’m afraid they might be right. I’m feeling like I could become a permanent fixture around here – not this house, per se, but in the city. I couldn’t be an au pair forever but maybe an English teacher or work in a kindergarten or something.  I’m seriously considering it.

I love the history, the architecture, the people, the culture, the language, the food. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t enjoy – unless I’m feeling hormonal and moody but that’s not very often. Usually the blue skies come back and the city makes me fall in love with it all over again. There’s still so much that I have left to see, too. It can only get better and that’s what amazes me so much. Everyday I tell myself how lucky I am to be here, how smart I was to take this opportunity. I wish that I could share this experience with everyone who isn’t here but since I can’t do that, I hope this blog does suffice. I know that I spend a lot of time talking about how great it is and blah blah blah but, honestly, it’s something you really have to experience to truly understand. Like the kirches of Munich. They can’t really be explained through words or photographs. You have to stand inside them and experience their majesty first hand before you can understand just how beautiful they really are. I’m so grateful to have your attention and I hope you’ll keep reading, even if I can’t aptly describe how incredible this experience is. I will continue to try!

Theaterkirche. Just trying to illustrate my point.
It’s beautiful but you can’t really know until you’re inside.

 
Theaterkirche

The last few days have been incredibly blog worthy. I already let you in on my clumsiness and how I cut my finger – that wasn’t fun. It’s still healing, slowly but surely and I keep a close eye on my razor these days. It’s actually kind of a scary object now. I’m slightly afraid of it. I’ve been hesitant to use it which is a new feeling. It’s like the time when I had the nightmare about the large dog that had killed and was feasting on my mother’s dead body – I was afraid of dogs for about a month. Fortunately, the prospect of unshaved legs keeps my fears from overcoming hygiene and social norms. The clumsiness, I’m afraid, has not disappeared. I spent the weekend convincing new friends of my clumsiness and proving it multiple times. Falling up stairs, tripping on city sidewalks and cobble stone, running into things. Quite the graceful ballerina, this one. Aside from my problems with gravitation pull, I’ve been doing really well.

Thursday night I went out to the usual ToyTown 20-somethings meet-up. It had been decided that we’d all meet at The Cocktail House which was a great idea because that place has an incredible selection of cocktails, as it should. I spent the evening making new friends – which ToyTown is really good for – and sweating to death in the non-air conditioned bar. But I did have a Midori Sour which reminded me of Wednesday nights in California at the Mucky Duck with Lauren, Molly, and Kathryn. It was bright green and looked like something a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle would drink to power up. Cowabunga, dude! At the end of the night, Jessica and I, and new friend Harry, went to McDonald’s which seems to the be the new tradition for ending every drunken night here in Munich. I can’t tell you how many times Jess and I have gone to McD’s for french fries and veggie burgers after downing a few beers. Thursday was a success.

Harry, me, Chris, & Clare at the Cocktail House 

On Friday, Helen and I had a dinner party and invited friends over for beer, wine, and kaser spätzle. It was delicious and so much fun. Maybe too much.  We all got drunk and went to Kultfabrik which was, in my opinion, a definite fail. I’ve decided that Kultfrabrik is dirty and sleezy and I don’t prefer going there so much anymore. After spending most of the night in an overcrowded bar being groped and molested by every drunk guy within a five foot radius, I grabbed my drunk friend, Zainab, and dragged her home. I was drunk before but an hour long journey through train stations and the dark streets of Munich really sobers a girl. Gives her time to realize how ridiculous she is on multiple beers and shots of Jaegermeister. I’m not the most debonair drunk girl. I say stupid things, embarrass myself, and ultimately, screw myself over. Maybe all my past “PSAs” were not so far out of left field. Let’s just say that this week, I’m choosing to take it easy on beer for a while. Practice some self control now because Lord knows, when Oktoberfest comes around that self control will be so far out the window you won’t even be able to see it anymore. Ha.

Saturday was kind of a lazy day. I did laundry which took FOREVER. German wash and dry machines are ridiculous. I hadn’t planned to go out – I’d had a bit of a bad night on Friday and was turned off from ever drinking ever again – but Jessica and Eli convinced me to go out to a German BBQ with them. Eli’s friend Andy knew the people who were hosting it so we traveled clear to the other side of town and hung out in this adorable German apartment with about 10 or so 20-something Germans. We didn’t socialize much but they did give us free beer, which was nice.  After the BBQ, we met Helen and Zainab at Jaeger’s Youth Hostel for cheap beer. Which turned into a night of wandering around the streets of Munich with some guys from the Netherlands, looking for a club that would let us in. Eventually, a few of us just returned back to Jaeger’s. Like always. I eventually left and went home, tired of the same old scene. At 6 in the morning, Helen and friends returned and Charne, our charming South African friend, climbed into bed beside me, drindl and all. Made for an interesting morning.

I got up early to meet a group of friends at Hauptbanhof for our Neuschwanstein castle adventure. Ten of us ended up going on the trip and after a failed attempt to make the train, we hung around until we could catch the next train. Eventually, we arrived in Füssen, Germany only to be greeted by pouring rain. Which pretty much came down off and on all day. We didn’t end up touring the inside of Neuschawnstein because the tours were all booked up but we did go to Ludwig’s smaller castle, Hohenschwangau. I thought it was more impressive from the outside – it doesn’t really look all that authentic inside because of light switches and electricity and tour guides. But I enjoyed it anyway. After the castle tour, we ventured up the mountain to the big castle and toured the outside and the inner courtyard. The castle is BEAUTIFUL. It was used as the model for Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland, too. So even though it was my first castle experience, I’d seen it a hundred times before. Ha. Also, the castle is seen in the best flying car movie ever, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Eli, Harry, and I made a split decision to sneak in the back entrance and so we did a reverse tour of the castle up until the point when the tour guides started giving us dirty looks. It was cool though – seeing everything inside. After we made it back down to the ground, we trekked up the mountain a bit more to see the castle from Marienbrücke. Which is this rickety little bridge with an incredible view.

Neuschwanstein

Courtyard of Neuschwanstein

 
View of the valley from the trail to Marienbrücke

Neuschwanstein from Marienbrücke

Neuschwanstein

Me, Harry, and Eli on the Marienbrücke*

Once we made it down from the castle and were back in the village, things started to get a little chaotic. We missed the last bus simply because we didn’t know that it was the last bus and there weren’t anymore coming, despite what the time table says on the schedule at the bus station. Bavaria has this fascination with lazy Sundays, apparently. So, after waiting for over an hour for the missing bus and consequently missing the 8 o’clock train back to Munich – we ended up getting taxis back to Füssen to wait in the city to make the 10 o’clock train. After a pizza and bier dinner, we headed to the train station only to find out from a train conductor that the train would be an hour late. This is what he told us. So, we wandered back into the city to find a bar to pass the time. Nothing was open, of course, so we went back to the train station around 10:40 only to find that all of the tourists who had been there before were gone. Everyone was gone. After questioning a local taxi driver, we found out that the connecting train to Munich was going to be late. So, we were officially stranded in Füssen, the ultimate tourist trap. The taxi driver directed us toward a Füssen youth hostel. “Just follow the train tracks,” he said. Oh thanks. We almost got run over by the last incoming train. After wandering through the dark streets of Füssen, we found the hostel. And it was all booked up. So we had to beg our way into their good graces and they agreed to let us stay in their family room for 50 EUR. We each paid about 7 EUR and had a place to sleep – mattresses on the floor. A Sunday night sleep over and the promise of a 5:30 am train the following morning. After a 4:30 am wake-up, we trekked back to the train station and made the 5:10 am train (thank God we didn’t bank on the 5:30 am time!) and were back in Munich by 7:30 am. I walked in the door for work at 8:01. Nicely done.

Miss your train to Munich? No big deal! *

 
Make-shift hostel experience*

Even though it was chaotic and unorganized and ridiculously unlucky, our trip to Neuschwanstein was a success. In my opinion, anyway. I was having fun the entire time. I bonded with new and old friends and I can’t find a single thing about the day to complain about. The best part about it – I hadn’t had anything to drink. It was clean, sober fun. The best kind, apparently.

Eric, Clare, Harry, me, Tomas, Eli, and Jess.
Weary travelers. Misadventure complete.**

This weekend was, quote possibly, one of the best I’ve had so far in Germany. Minus the embarassing drunk behavior, of course. That’s pretty normal for me. Ha. Unfortunately, most of the people who went on this trip are leaving at the end of the summer because they’re on summer placements doing internships and what not so I will have to say goodbye to some really good friends. Jess is staying until December and returning in March so I’ll have to live for three months without her. Sad face. But Eric (whose blog you should definitely check out because we’re living in Munich together at the same time, woo!) will be here for the rest of the year so at least one of my fellow Füssen misadventurers will be around continuously.

Tonight (being Tuesday night) I was invited to Tomas’ leaving dinner but, unfortunately, I do not think that I will be attending. I had to babysit tonight and since Helen showed up early from wherever she was, we did a joint au pair babysitting night. Vee and Eenie had their way with us and it’s official, after their artwork, neither Helen nor I will be going out tonight.

Helen was supposed to be… something. And I was supposed to be a cat.
We’ve got some Van Gogh’s on our hands here.

 

And that’s the end of this one. Finally.

* I definitely stole these pictures from Harry’s Facebook because his Nikon is infinitely better than mine.

** I definitely stole this one from Clare. Thanks, Clare bear!