I've turned into the quiet girl

I've always been a talkative person. I like to have conversations, I don't like to argue. I'm the kind of person that can have a nice chat with almost anyone. Heck, I was voted "Most Outgoing" by my peers in high school.

But here in Germany, I've turned into the quiet girl. I blame this on the fact that I am currently at the frustrating point in language learning where I can understand the gist of what people are saying, but I just can't think of a gramatically correct response quick enough. Rather than speaking incorrectly, I usually just don't speak at all. I usually just nod along, peppering in a ja genau here and there.

This frustrates me. I want people to get to know me but I don't know how to do this without talking to people. I feel like my co-workers think that I'm an anti-social mute, which, if you know me, could not be further from the truth. I also like to think that I have a pretty good sense of humor, but I have no clue how to show it to people over here. My German skills aren't strong enough to tell jokes or use sarcasm (do Germans even use sarcasm?). I feel like it's been months and no one over here really knows the real me because well, I've turned into the quiet girl.

Today is August 1st which means that I've got a mere 3 weeks left in Germany. I can't believe that 5 months is almost up! I am really REALLY bummed that my ICP year got shafted with the semester conversion, thus cutting our time abroad short.  Not only do I feel like I'm not going to have my German speaking breakthrough, but I'm also missing Oktoberfest. I mean c'mon that's just cruel.

As you can tell, I'm feeling very frustrated today. RAWR. However I'm also really excited because this weekend Michelle and I are meeting up in Copenhagen! Also, I finally bought tickets for my final travels. Shane (another ICP guy) and I are going to travel to Rome and Venice before finally heading back to the states. Prepare for the fastest 3 weeks ever! Bis später!

Prague!

Prague is the most beautiful city I have ever been to.  I have a feeling I’m going to start almost all of my blog posts that way; ______ is the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to.  But seriously, Prague’s got it goin’ on.  Majestic old buildings, diverse architecture, pretty parks, a rockin’ river and of course a ballin’ castle.

After drooling over Prague photos on various Pinterest boards, and hearing tall tales of an out of control pub crawl, I knew that I HAD to visit this city.  Let me tell you, it’s a good thing that I really wanted to go there because getting there was a real pain in the ass.  I’m terrible at planning trips, so naturally it wasn’t until maybe 5 days in advance that I was 100% set on going.  Since I was so late in deciding, all the plane tickets were WAY too expensive, and since a 10 hour train/bus combo was also too pricey I had to get creative.

Luckily I had another long weekend and Ian as my companion for this adventure.  My trip began on May 16^th; a Wednesday evening after work.  I found myself a Mitfahrgelegenheit from Wuppertal to Munich.  This one was not as enjoyable as my first due to the massive amounts of holiday weekend traffic.  Probably took me upwards of 9 hours to finally get to Ian’s place Freising where I promptly fell asleep.  The two of us woke up relatively early on Thursday and started our voyage to Prague.  Rather than taking an expensive high-speed train Ian and I opted for a more scenic and  inexpensive option.  We used Deutschebahn’s Bayern-Bohemia group ticket which allows groups of up to 5 people to travel on regional trains throughout Bayern and part of the Czech Republic for 28 euro.  After 3 transfers that ticket took us as far as Plzen (the home of Pilsner beer!) and from there we needed a 5 euro ticket to Prague.  Travel costs were not so expensive, but in total our travel time was a little over 6 hours.  The way to Prague was very scenic and absolutely beautiful.  It was a little unnerving when we crossed the border though because not nearly as many people know English in the Czech Republic as they do in Germany.  We also had to exchange currency since the Czech Republic isn’t fully on the euro yet.  We found a sketchy currency exchange in Plzen and got ourselves some Czech Krowns.

Plzen Hbf. So beautiful.

Sketchy currency exchange

Once we got to Prague we found yet another obstacle.  Ian had booked us a hotel via Kayak.com, but when we actually got to the place they said there was no reservation for us!  It is a good thing that the walk through the city was so beautiful otherwise we would have been in a terrible mood.  After some frustration, the receptionist found us a place to stay at another hotel within their company, but it was ALL the way across town and we had to pay up for it.  Plus they only had a room for Thursday night, and we still didn’t know where we were going to stay on Friday night. Since the walk would have taken over an hour, we used our trusty map and hopped on a tram (without paying :/) and finally found “Hotel Red Lion”. With a name like that I think it was destiny.  The hotel was awesome but obviously more expensive than what we planned for.

Super swanky

 That night we really needed to unwind so went to the infamous Prague Pub Crawl http://www.pubcrawl.cz/prague-pub-crawl.  This pub crawl is legit. A total MUST if you ever go to Prague.  For 20 euros you get 1 hour of unlimited drinks at the “Prague Pub Crawl Bar” (yes, they have their own bar to start off the night!), entrance and a shot at 4 other bars, AND a t-shirt!  I won’t go into much detail, mostly because I don’t remember that much… but I will proudly say that I took a shot of Absinthe and that Döners might be the best drunk food ever.

Prague at night!

Pub crawlin'

 Friday morning we woke up and checked out of our hotel after a delicious complementary breakfast.  The receptionist at the Red Lion was super nice and found us a place to stay around the corner from where we were!  The only downside was that it was even more expensive than Hotel Red Lion.  We really broke the bank on lodging, but the places we stayed were SUPER nice.  At 11:00 we got to Old Town Square where we met up with a free city walking tour http://www.discover-prague.com/.  I highly recommend free walking tours!  The tour guides make money from tips and they are young, hip, and very knowledgeable.  Our guy was hilarious.

Beautiful.

Stunning.

Hilarious.

Friday evening we checked out the Prague castle, which was conveniently, RIGHT next to our hotel.   The place is a massive complex comprised of diverse and beautiful buildings.  Also, the climb up to the castle had a breathtaking view of the city.  Friday night we tried to find this fabled international beer fest, but we got hopelessly lost.  It was really a bummer, but we definitely did enough partying the night before so it wasn’t a complete tragedy.  We spent the evening enjoying each other’s company and strolling through the streets of Prague.  Every building in Prague is so old, beautiful, and well preserved.  Truly remarkable. 

Ballin' palace.

BEAUTIFUL city! And me!

 Saturday we got up, ate another delicious breakfast at our hotel, checked out, and headed back to Munich.  Our reason for leaving was two fold; we didn’t want to go broke paying for another night in a swanky hotel and we wanted to be in Munich to see Bayern München play Chelsea FC for the Champions League final.  Although Prague is a seriously cool place, I actually felt really relieved to cross back over the German border into a country where I can speak the language.  Being in the Czech Republic made me realize how much German I actually know!  Our trip back to Munich took about 7 hours and we met up with Ian’s co-op bros at an American sports bar (lolz) about 10 minutes into the first half.  For those of you that know the outcome of the game, you know that Ian and I probably should have sucked it up and stayed another night in Prague.  Sadly, Bayern lost in the last goal of a shoot-out.  I’d never seen so many grown men cry.  The city was absolutely dead after the game everywhere except for in the train stations.  All the trains were absolutely PACKED.  I’ve never felt more like a sardine in my life.  After a hot, sweaty, crowded, and somber ride home Ian and I got back to Freising at about 2am.

Sardines on the train in Munich!

 Sunday, we headed back into Munich and lounged around in the Englischer Gartens all day.  This park is huge.  It’s one of the world’s largest urban public parks.  It’s bigger than Central Park.  And it has beautiful landscaping, a man-made surfing zone, and creepy nudists.  It’s a seriously wild place.  Sunday night I caught another Mitfahr back to Wuppertal with guess who? Lorenz! The same guy as my first Mitfahr!  I spent Sunday evening cruising in style back to Wuppertal, thinking about all the awesome things I had done that weekend, and feeling very satisfied.

Loungin'.

München & Freising

This past weekend I took my second trip to southern Germany and visited my dear Ian.  This trip was my first trip to Bayern, the most stereotypically German state in Deutschland.  Typically when people think of Germany, they think of beer halls, lederhosen, castles, and mountains, and all of these things can be found in Bavaria.  I got to Munich by way of Mitfahrgelegenheit (see Greenservations 4 for more about that experience). 

I arrived to Munich rather late on  the night of Friday May 4th, and then took a short train ride to Freising where Ian lives.  Friday night we went to the Hofbrauhaus Freising which has been around since 1160, no big deal.  We spilt a smorgasbord of Deutsch delicacies and drank some tasty Weißbier.  We spent the evening catching up on each others lives and feasting away.

Nomz.

Deeelicious!

München Fruühlingsfest!

Saturday we took the train into Munich and spent the day wandering around the beautiful and lively city.  We saw awesome  live street music and even stumbled across an “Irish-Bayerish Festival” where we saw some sweet dancing and drank some Guinness.  Saturday night I donned my Dirndl and Ian put on his Lederhosen and we headed to the München Frühlingsfest.  It was an awesome time!  Very similar to the Stuttgart Frühlingsfest, except this time our seats were very close to the back.  We met up with some of Ian’s other co-op friends from Texas Instruments.  They’re a cool international mix of people from places like Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and Italy.  I’m pretty jealous of my friends co-oping at big companies that have dozens of other interns.  I think Wupperverband has maybe four or five other interns, but I have yet to meet them. 

Wandering around Munich

Sunday we got a bit of a late start, but we still wanted to try and go to the Dachau memorial of the first concentration camp.  We ended up being too late to see the memorial since it was a Sunday, so we just hung around Munich again.  Ian and I decided to see ‘The Avengers’, so we found a movie theater that plays movies in their original language.  We tried to do a ‘self check-out’ to buy our tickets and ended up accidentally buying tickets to a German version.  We didn’t realize it until we walked into the theater and saw Samuel L. Jackson talking with a dubbed German voice.  Luckily we were able to exchange our tickets and see a later show in English!

I didn’t leave Munich on Sunday because coincidentally there was a huge, international water and environmental services conference there!  The timing of my trip worked out perfectly because Inka had two extra tickets to the conference for Monday and Tuesday.  I was able to stay with Ian for two more nights and attend the HUGEST international conference I have ever been to.  The conference is called the IFAT Entsorga (http://www.ifat.de/en) and was hosted at the Munich international conference center or ‘Messa’.  The Messa used to be the Munich airport, so the thing is HUGE.  I’ve been to international conferences before, but nothing like this.  Every single exhibitor had an extremely lavish display with delicious snackies and BEER.  I mean, I know we were in Bavaria, but I couldn’t believe that nearly every exhibitor had delicious beer on tap starting around 11.  I was able to try Weißwurst, a Bavarian specialty, and more Weißbier at no cost to me!  

Me at the conference, at a mini Biergarten

After the conference, I headed back to Freising and Ian took me to dinner at the Weihenstephan, the oldest brewery in the world (http://www.weihenstephaner.de/index2.html?lang=eng).  It’s been continuously functioning since 1040.  TEN-FORTY.  It’s almost a millennium old.  Unbelievable, and of course the food and beer were deeelicious. 

Tuesday I spent the day at the conference and listened to some speakers about waste water treatment technologies.  Then I spent the afternoon wandering around throughout the vendors, scoopin’ up freebies and checking out the outlandish displays.  Then I had to head to the Munich Hbf to catch my train back to Wuppertal.  This weekend was fun and relaxing.  I had an awesome time in Munich and Freising checking out the Bavarian scene and enjoying the company of an amazing person.