Deutschland, the Motherland (or at least one of mine) was the destination of my first European travel adventure. I spent my three days there with my friend Liesel, a fellow German and member of my Page Class, who was finishing up 11 days backpacking through Germany and the Czech Republic. I expected that I would love Germany, but I didn't expect that I would love Germany. As Liesel and I wandered through the streets of Munich on Thursday we both agreed that if we learned one thing from the trip, it was that we both wanted to see more of the country.
The trip also gave me a chance to try out my, very limited, German language skills. I took 4 years of the language from 7th-10th grades, and had a very love-hate relationship with it - always depending on my teacher. I decided to give it another shot in college, and took Elementary Germany I last fall and was stunned that it turned out to be my favorite class of college so far. Unfortunately I could only fit one semester in, but continue to have the urge to learn more when I get the chance. While my vocabulary is quite dismal I managed to order food (and beer), buy tickets, hail a cab, and ask for directions all in German. Although I didn't always understand the answers, and had to ask for an English answer by explaining (in German) that my German was very bad, it felt good to at least try out speaking it to native speakers, other than my professors, for the the first. With that, here is a run-down of the trip:
Wednesday: I left a cold
and rainy Edinburgh to catch my flight to Munich and was surprised how easily all of my traveling went - until I got into Munich. I had trouble finding (what I thought was) my hostel, but I asked an elderly German man where the street was and he answered me in German - and I understood! To make a long story short, in the rush to make plans with Liesel I had written down the wrong hostel, but a couple of hours (and a trip to the Deutsches Museum) later, we finally found one another. Liesel had met Shawn and Bri, both from the States and studying in Copenhagen for the year, and we spent that evening and 
half of our next day with them. We got dinner and a beer at a student brewery in the city. For those that don't know, I've been following a relatively-vegetarian diet while I am at school. I still eat fish and seafood, and will eat meet if it inconveniences for me not to, but I try and avoid meat as much as possible, especially red meat and pork products, but in Germany I embraced Bavarian food and ate a total of 5 different wursts in 3 days - and I must say, they were delicious! I don't plan on going back to eating meat, but I was very glad I ate wursts while was in Germany. After dinner, we met up with Zach, who Shawn and Bri were staying with, and he spent the rest of the night showing us around the city.Thursday: Liesel and I woke up early to get a start on our tourist-day.
We started out with a pretzel (for me) and a wurst sandwich (for Liesel) from a platz vendor. We wandered around Marienplatz, ducking into some cathedrals. We caught the Glockenspiel play and were excited that there was a group of children who were set up to sing after the Glockenspiel - but were very disappointed when they turned out to be American children singing in English. We weren't the only disappointed ones, the man standing next to me turned to his wife and sarcastically said (in German) - "They are singing in English? Super!" and the couple turned and left. From there Liesel and I just wandered most of the rest of the afternoon, through the platzs and some parks. I can't really name everything we saw, but everything was absolutely beautiful and so historic.After all of our wandering, we met up with Bri and Shawn for an early dinner at the Haufbrauhaus. We all ordered the HB beer and very german meals - for me, more wurst; for Liesel and Shawn schnitzel, and for Bri (who
wasn't quite hungry enough for a full dinner) apple strudel. We enjoyed the om-pa band and people watching before Liesel and I had to leave to catch our train to Frankfurt. On the train, we ended sitting up by an extremely intoxicated 17 year old that didn't speak any English and who either didn't mind, or was too drunk to tell, how broken and poor my German was, so I tried to talk to him for awhile. He was apparently on a gap year and was enjoying Munich and all of its beer; he also thought it was, for some reason, hilarious that Liesel and I were from the states. When we finally ran out of things to talk about, and when he, in all of his drunkenness and in being seventeen, began to just get annoying we moved into the dining car and napped for most of the rest of the long train ride. We met up with a friend of Liesel's at our layover in Mannhiem and then continued onto Frankfurt where we went almost straight to bed upon our arrival.
Friday: Liesel had an early morning flight to catch, so I slept in a bit and then spent my morning/afternoon wondering around Frankfurt. I didn't love Frankfurt nearly as much as I loved Munich, but there was the perfect amount of things to see for the small amount of time I had to see there. I wondered through the platzes getting a rindwurst and a nutella crepe from street vendors. I went into a few cathedrals and walked across the river.
Then comes the tricky, not fun part. I had asked one of the hostel workers how to get to the Hahn airport and he gave me directions and showed me the map and everything. But when I went to the information desk at the airport and asked where the ryanair check-in was, the man just shook his head and explained that ryanair flew out of the other airport - which was an hour and a half away and which the bus only ran to every hour - the hostel worker had sent me to the wrong place and I didn't have enough time to make my flight! After a momentary freak out I checked ryanair's website and found that I couldn't get anything with them until Monday, so I gritted my teeth and handed over a nearly week's worth of my summer wages from my checking account for the next flight to Edinburgh. Then things got more complicated. My flight to Amsterdam was delayed more than an hour and a half - and I missed my connection to Edinburgh. After dealing with about half a dozen KLM service reps I finally had a hotel room, paid for by KLM, for the night and a seat on the first flight to Edinburgh in the morning. I ate a late dinner in the hotel, also paid for by KLM, and watched a bit of The Parent Trap (in Dutch) on TV before falling asleep. Finally this morning I caught my 9:30 flight to Edinburgh and made it back to my flat!
Although I wish I had had more time in Germany, it also felt wonderful to be back in Edinburgh - I really love this city. Today I also made travel plans for 2 of the next three weekends. Next Friday morning - Saturday evening I'll be in Aberdeen, finding my roots and doing some research on my ancestors. Then the first weekend in February I'll be going to Venice for Carnival with my flat mates!
Guten Abend!
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