Abenteuers

Adventures

Who ever knew life could be so eventful? *Warning: long post ahead.

Thursday, May 3rd:
Went to Ingolstadt with two other girls, and did some shopping. I ended up buying a very cute summer dress. It's light green and white striped with a halter top. I almost didn't get it, because I was still in my “save as much money as possible phase” but it's really cute, and it fit really well, so I took the plunge and bought it. And now I plan to wear it the day I come back home. =)

Friday, May 4th:
This was the day that I had to travel to Munich by myself and pick up my mom from the airport. Of course, I had to get through my Friday class first. I think that I had everything packed that I could before I went down to the university to check my email, and check the weather, since it was supposed to be rainy the entire time my mom was to be here. I did that, even got to talk to Kyle for a bit, which was nice, and then headed off to my hour and a half class. It was extremely hard to sit through that class, knowing my mom was coming, and everything that I had to do in order to go pick her up. But I survived. After class, I practically ran back up the mountain to my apartment, grabbed a bite to eat, threw the rest of my stuff together, and headed back down the mountain to start my adventure. I've traveled on the trains enough to be comfortable with them, but I'd never traveled alone before. I made the 1:44 train out of Eichstätt. By 3:30-ish, I had made it into the Munich main train station. First leg of the trip down. From the train station, I had to switch to Munich's S-Bahn system, which is probably a lot like the light rail system. From the train station in Munich, to the airport, it is about a 45 minute ride. It was my first time using the S-Bahn system, and found that it was pretty darn easy. Once to the airport, I got to wait around for my mom's plane to land. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make it to the airport in time to meet her, but by the time I got to the airport, and the place I had to meet her, her plane was on time, and beginning to descend. Not a problem. Waited for what felt like forever before she finally came out. We hugged, I cried, she laughed at me and asked if I needed a moment. From there we headed to buy her a ticket so she could ride the S-Bahn back to our hotel, and left the airport. We weren't really quite sure where our hotel was, just that it was near the main train station in Munich, and the street address. So after the 45 minute ride back to the train station, we ventured out into Munich. And, while we were on the right street, we were headed the wrong direction. It didn't take us long to figure this out, however, and we found our way to the hotel, no problem. Turns out it was pretty easy to find. Get all checked in, get up to our room (German elevators are small), decide to hit the Hofbräuhaus for supper. With our handy dandy Munich map in hand, we set off. Turns out, the easiest way to the Hofbräuhaus (which is a must for all American tourists) was through the main shopping street. I know that I spent an easy 70 Euro that night on gifts, BUT the good news about that was I finished some of the most of the important gift shopping that I needed to do while in Germany. So we wandered our way through the stores (there are tons of stores in Munich) and towards our destination. Managed to wander too far in the wrong direction, but we got to where we wanted to go. The Hofbräuhaus was insanely busy when we got there, and we had to wander out into the biergarten before we found ourselves a cute little spot to sit. Ordered ourselves a bottle of wine, and food. I don't even remember what we got. I think I probably had Wiener Schnitzel, and my mom had some kind of sausage sampler plate. It was a good time: ate all of my dinner, plus some of my mom's, we shared an Apple strudel, and together we finished off the entire bottle of wine. Needless to say, I was feeling quite happy on our way back to the hotel. If I recall correctly, most of the stores were closed by the time we wandered back through the Marienplatz, and the Karlsplatz on the way back to our hotel, which was probably a good thing, because we probably would have spent more of our money. After we made it back to our hotel, we just hung out and then went to bed – it had been a long day.

Saturday, May 5th:
Started off the morning with a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. I ate way too much, but it was all really good. Decided that our plan for the day was to meander our way over to the Englisher Garten. Again, we started off through the main shopping street, so we spent a lot of time going in and out of all the stores. On our way to the Englisher Garten, we stopped at the Hofgarten, which is near the Residenz. Spent some time there, saw a man playing cello in what I think could be the Diana-tempel. It rained a bit on us at this point in time, but that was, and would become, pretty standard for the weather while my mom was visiting. From there, we finally made it to the Englisher Garten. Began to wander through there, in order to make it to the Chinese Turm (tower), since we planned on eating there. On our way, we passed some surfers surfing, which I took pictures of, but otherwise my mom and I just talked and enjoyed being in the gardens. Which is more like a park than garden. Made it to the Chinese Turm, had some food to eat. Saw very cute horse drawn carriages. And lots of dogs that I wanted to pet. But most dogs are very well behaved, and ignore all strangers. And I believe that it would be considered rude to ask to pet someone's dog. It's a German thing. Anyway, after eating (and drinking a bit) we decided that we would head back to the hotel, and then figure out some place to eat. We also knew that we would have to find ourselves another place to stay, because we wanted to stay in Munich until Monday, and so we would need a room for Sunday night, since we only had one for Friday and Saturday nights. Oh, and somewhere along the way to our hotel, I managed to buy myself a new billfold. It kept getting easier and easier to spend my money. After making it back to the hotel, and dropping off our stuff, we headed back out to find someplace to eat. There was this one place that I had been suggested to me (because the beer was good), so we set off to find that. Unfortunately the directions we had weren't very good, and after walking all over Munich earlier in the day, we walked around even more. Pretty sure my feet hurt. Anyway, we finally found this little Italian restaurant. My mom had her first beer in Germany (which turned out to be her favorite), and we relaxed after a long day of being on our feet. I think this was about the point I gave up on drinking beer. I just don't like it. After eating, we headed over to a gas station, where we picked up some snacks, and a little something to drink. Wandered our way back to the hotel, with the intention of stopping at the main train station to check the train schedules out to Neuschwanstein, since we wanted to see the castle. We didn't find any useful information (which was quite disappointing), but we did manage to be stopped by a young man, about my age with a cigarette in one hand, and a beer in the other. He was not quite drunk, but close enough. He asked me, in German, something about a train, but I wasn't able to understand him, so I told him that. He switched to English after that, realizing that we weren't German, and proceeded to attempt to invite himself up to our hotel room. We declined. And then walked quickly away holding in our laughter. Back in our hotel room, we enjoyed the drink we had purchased, and basically rested up, since it had been a long day.

Sunday, May 6th:
Breakfast again was very good. Managed not to eat as much as the day before. While discussing our plans for the day, it was decided not to go to Neuschwanstein castle. I think we were both a little too tired out from the day before. So we decided to buy ourselves a partner day pass on Munich's city public transportation system, and hit what we could. Directly after breakfast, we headed across the street to a Pension, where I managed to put my German to use, and secure us a room for the night. We went back to the hotel, put our things together, check out, dropped our stuff off at the Pension, then struck out for the day. We decided to go to the Olympia Park first, since it was more obvious how to get there on the public transportation system than the Nymphenburg castle was. With our city map in hand again (which also has the public transportation system map), we acquainted ourselves with Munich's subway system (U-Bahn). It was quite an adventure. And it makes me wish that the US had a better public transportation system. We made it to the Olympia Park, no problem. Wandered over to the Olympia Turm (tower). Decided to eat at the revolving restaurant at the top of the tower. But because we weren't quite hungry yet, we wandered a bit around the park. The weather was overcast and gray, so it wasn't very conducive to much picture taking, but we managed. Then we went up into the tower. It reminded me a lot of going up in to the top of the Space Needle in Seattle when I was there last summer. There was even the same kind of weather both times. My mom and I wandered around up top for a while, taking in the Munich skyline, which was much cooler than our cameras could capture. But it was pretty cold up there, so we made our way down to the revolving restaurant. Which we were, perhaps, a bit under dressed for, but it was a lot of fun anyway. We shared a meal, and took in more of the Munich skyline while planning our plan of attack for the second part of the day. My mom wanted to check out a youth hostel for my brother that happened to be sort of on the way to Nymphenburg caslte. So we jumped back on the U-Bahn, and made our way to the youth hostel. We managed to get lost trying to find it, and I was getting cranky, because my feet hurt from all the walking we had been doing, so we had just about given up, and were on our way back to the U-Bahn when we found the street the youth hostel was on, so we walked all the way down there to ask for information. After that, though, I was pretty much done for the day, so we made our way back to the Pension to rest up before finding some place to eat for supper. We decided on the Augustine Keller, which was, again, on the main shopping street, but luckily it was Sunday, and in Germany, everything is pretty much closed on Sundays, so no shopping could be done. At the restaurant, I took a German menu, and my mom took an English menu, but we still ended up ordering the same thing. Meat rolls stuff with feta cheese. It was really good! Though, I can't say that I've found any food over here that hasn't been good. Afterward we went back to the train station, to check the schedule for trains running out to Eichstätt, and then back to the Pension for the night.

Monday, May 7th:
After eating breakfast, we set off in search of finding a scarf for me. Scarfs are extremely popular here, and after my mom had gotten one (and I had used it), I decided that I wanted one too. So we went to do some more shopping. There weren't many stores open, and the one store we wanted to buy a scarf wasn't open until ten, so we continued on in search of a scarf. We happened upon a C & A, which is probably like the equivalent of an upscale Target store. I bought some more stuff there. Including a scarf. This killed quite a bit of time, and my mom had promised to buy me a scarf, so on our way back to check out of the Pension, we stopped at the same store my mom had bought her scarf, and she bought me another one. But scarfs are pretty neat, and I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up with more scarfs by the time I come home. After that, we checked out, and made our way to the train station, so we could catch our train to Eichstätt. The train ride was nice and relaxing. We put our feet up and just enjoyed the ride. Once in Eichstätt, we walked through the town to the hotel that I had thought my mom would like to stay. While we were passing through the Domplatz, we found that there was some kind of festival going on, and there were many little booths set up, where people were selling stuff. Very cute stuff. But we got my mom to the hotel, and again putting my German to use, I secured my mom a four nights stay in Hotel Fuchs. After dropping her stuff off at the hotel, I took my mom up the mountain to show her my apartment, and then do some grocery shopping. After I had food again, we went back down to the university, where I showed her around a bit, and then went to check my email. After I did my internet thing, and she did a little exploring, we decided to find someplace to eat. We wandered around again, trying to find something, only to end up almost where we had started our restaurant search. My mom tried the Wiener Schnitzel with Gorgonzola sauce and potato wedges, and I had pasta with Gorgonzola sauce. Both were really good. I am definitely going back there again. After eating, we decided to see if any place was open that we could find post cards, but in Eichstätt, most places close early, so we ended up just wandering back, and calling it a night.

Tuesday, May 8th:
Since I had class on Tuesday, we stuck around Eichstätt for the day. We ended up wandering through the festival, and there I bought two necklaces for myself. Since I seem to be lacking in the necklace department. One of the necklaces is to go with the dress I had bought, and I'm really excited about that. After that, we just walked around Eichstätt, did some shopping, and I tried not to spend more money. Then I had class, and my mom just did some more exploring on her own. We met up later, after my class, for a Döner, because you can't go to Germany, and not have a Döner. So we walked to the place I always get my Döners (if I eat 12, then I get one free!) and had the Döner experience. Afterward, we made the hike up to my apartment, where we enjoyed the bottle of wine we had bought the day before. Tuesdays are American TV show night, so I brought my mom to that. But it was a little boring, and it was getting dark, so we decided to leave. I walked my mom back down the mountain, and just after we said good-bye, it started raining. I tried walking fast up the mountain, but after a few minutes, I realized that it wasn't going to matter whether I went fast or slow, I was still going to get soaked, so I slowed down, cranked my music and enjoyed the moment.

Wednesday, May 9th:
My normal Wednesday classes had been canceled this week, so my mom and I, along with one of my friends headed off to Nuremberg for the day. The sky was overcast, and it was pretty clear that it was going to rain, but we risked it. And I'm certainly glad we did. Because Nuremberg turned out to be one of my favorite cities here. I'm not sure I can explain the reason why I like it, I just know that Nuremberg was the first city that I was really charmed by here. So we wandered through the city, saw a cool church, whose name I forget, saw their city market, which is about a hundred times better than the one in Eichstätt (which we had walked through very quickly earlier that morning), and then decided to stop somewhere for lunch, since it was raining. We found this little Italian place. Had an extremely good hot chocolate with hazelnut syrup in it, and then split another Wiener Schnitzel with my mom. And yes. We ate a lot of Wiener Schnitzel. From there, we walked up to Kaiserburg, the castle in Nuremberg. Took some pictures of the Nuremberg skyline, which would have been a lot neater, if the weather hadn't been so icky. But I definitely am going back there whenever I get the chance. Decided not to go into the castle, and just wander back to the train station, which was on the other side of the city. On the way back, I bought myself a beer stein. I hadn't originally planned on getting a beer stein while I was here, but after seeing this one, I had to get it. My mom also bought some Nuremberger Lebkuchen. Can you say: more good food? Once we made it back to the train station, we had some time to kill, so we got a few snacks from the bakery for the road. Yup, more delicious food there too. Then got on the train back to Eichstätt. Nuremberg is about a two hour train ride away from Eichstätt, but the ride back went surprisingly fast. Once back in town, we did some internet time, and reserved hotel rooms for the weekend. One room for Friday night in Salzburg, and one room in Munich near the airport for Saturday night. After that, we called it an early night. I think my mom and I were both pretty stressed out, and I know that by this time, I was definitely feeling the stress of having to translate, and coordinating the train schedules. Went back to my room, drank a couple glasses of rum and fruit juice, cried a bit and felt better. Got ready for the next day.

Thursday, May 10th:
Started off the morning by making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for our train ride later that day to Neuburg an der Donau. Our goal was to see the castle, so my mom could accomplish one of the things she wanted to do while she was here: see a medieval castle. I had also wanted to visit Neuburg, because of the girls that I had German class with last spring semester had done an exchange program in Neuburg while in high school. It's a very quaint little town. We probably could have spent a lot more time there than we did (and spent a lot more money too), but we saw the castle, and the Altstadt, and then made our way back to Eichstätt. After all the walking we had been doing the past week, my legs and feet hurt, and were quite sore. So we headed back to Eichstätt, and ate at Trompete, a little restaurant across the street from my mom's hotel. There we ordered a pizza, where I successfully learned how to explain in German that we were going to share our meal. Hung out there for a while, and then called it a night.

Friday, May 11th:
Here, the traveling adventure starts again. First, I had my Friday afternoon class, and my mom did the last bit of exploring of Eichstätt before she left. Went up to the castle here, and checked out the garden and just walked around a bit. I sat through class and didn't concentrate on much. After class, I hiked up the mountain, grabbed my bag with everything I'd need for the weekend, and then went back down to meet my mom at the train station. Because we were traveling to Salzburg, we had quite a haul in front of us. We left on the 2:44 train out of Eichstätt, made it into Munich around 4:35 with just enough time to make it to our train to Salzburg, and then settled in for our two hour train ride from Munich to Salzburg. And even though the train was crowded for most of the way, it was definitely worth the ride. We got to see the pretty country side of Bavaria, and some of the Alps. Exactly the kind of landscape one would think of, when thinking of Bavaria. Coming into the Salzburg train station was quite awesome. High above everything in the old part of the city, you can see the castle. And it was completely charming. Getting out of the train station, though, was quite another matter. It took us a while just to figure out how to get out to the street, and then from there across town (and the river) into the Altstadt where our Gasthaus was. Luckily, Salzburg is a relatively small town (sort of like Nuremberg, in some respects) and we were easily able to walk where we needed to go. After we had crossed the bridge and made it into the Altstadt, it started raining. We didn't quite exactly know where our Gasthaus was, but we kept going in the direction we thought it was going to be, and sure enough, we turned a corner, and there it was. The Gasthaus Hinterbrühl. An adorable little building that was apparently built right into the remnants of the old city wall. Of course, once we managed to make it inside the building, we weren't sure where we had to check in, and my brain was so completely fried from trying to switch from German to English and back again that all that I could come up with for a question was “Wo?” which is the German word for “where?” Luckily, the man at the bar, who also happens to be the owner of the place, along with his wife, spoke very good English. We were basically handed a key to room number 8, and left to our own devices for finding the room. But the room was worth it, and we even had a balcony. We set our things down, and then walked back down into the bar/restaurant and ordered some food. Again, fabulous. And they had my mom's favorite kind of beer, even. So we ate our food, and then headed back up to our room, where we sat out on the balcony and did some people watching. Even though it was getting late, and the weather wasn't all the nice, people were still out and about. My mom and I even got a good laugh in, when I explained to her that what she heard wasn't rain raining, it was the water fountain... fountaining. I'm not sure it was just one of those things that you had to be there or not, but we definitely laughed quite a bit over that, and it was a much needed stress reliever. After it got to be late, and cold, we went back inside and to bed.

Saturday, May 12th:
Woke up, made our way downstairs for breakfast. We tried to eat early, because we wanted to see as much as we could before we had to leave. The time we had in Salzburg just wasn't enough to really do much exploring. One of my goals was to find myself a purse, or a bag, and right next to the Gasthaus, was this shop that sold bags. I saw one that I really liked, but it was 125 Euro (though, according to my mom, it was one of those purchases that would be worth it, and I would have it forever), so before I bought it I wanted to think about if I really wanted to spend all that money, especially since it would require me to take money out of the bank. So we started off by heading towards Mozart's Wohnhaus, or the house that he lived in. Of course, we wandered down the wrong street, and ended up doing some shopping (I bought shoes to go with my dress) before finding our way. We walked through Mozart's Wohnhaus, and then started off towards the main shopping street in the Altstadt, which is also where Mozart's Geburtshaus (house he was born in) is. Did some more looking around and shopping, and wishing I could spend more money. We wound our way back to the Hinterbrühl where they were holding our stuff for us, and found out that the little shop that had the bag that I wanted was closed for the day. So apparently that purchase was not meant to be, even though I really liked it, and I really do want to buy myself a purse. Or bag. Or something while I'm here. But my mom and I decided to eat at the Hinterbrühl for lunch (it really is a great place). We shared our meal again, and then grabbed our stuff and began walking back towards the train station. On our way there, some ugly looking clouds came up, and we ended up getting stuck in rain. It also thundered a bit. Which was really cool, because it's the first thunderstorm I've experienced since I've been in Europe. And it makes me miss the thunderstorms at home, because the one there was really wimpy, and only lasted for a few minutes. Well, we made it back to the train station earlier than we had planned, so we got on the train to go back to Munich. We got all settled in on the train – there was barely any one else on the train this time – and sat back for the ride. Except the train only went to the first train station in Germany... and then back to Salzburg again. So there we were, back in Salzburg, and confused about how to get back to Munich. We finally figured out that once into Freilassing (the first train stop in Germany), we had to get off the train, and onto a bus, which took us to a different train station, and from there get on the train to Munich, because there was some repairs being made to the track. So that's what we did. Once into Munich, we had no idea where our hotel was, so we ended up riding the S-Bahn to the airport, and then calling the hotel and having them pick us up from the airport. After our lovely stay in Salzburg, I was definitely not impressed with the place we stayed in – definitely not friendly service there. But we checked out the restaurant, shared a meal, and had something to drink – something with alcohol in it. I had a seven Euro margarita, which wouldn't even really have been worth seven dollars, let alone Euro, but it still did the trick. After eating, we went back up to our room and crashed, since we had to wake up at three in order to make it to the airport.

Sunday, May 13th:
Happy Mother's Day!
We started off the morning at three. Taxi came at four to take us to the airport. Were there before they even opened to start checking people in. Then found out I wouldn't be able to get a boarding pass to see my mom off at her gate. Then there were problems with my mom's ticket, so we had to wait until five, when the help desk for the airline opened, but everything turned out ok, and we said our good-byes before my mom went through security. Then she was off on her way back home, and I was off on my way back to Eichstätt. Which I thought would be relatively easy. But no. The S-Bahn, which was supposed to go all the way to the main train station, ended up having to stop at the east train station, where we had to get off the S-Bahn and transfer to the U-Bahn in order to make it to the main train station. With the S-Bahn, I would have had plenty of time to make it to the train station, grab something with caffeine to drink, and perhaps even something to eat, but having to transfer to the U-Bahn, I lost some time, and ended up only with about ten minutes to spare. Which really didn't leave me time to grab something to drink, especially with the lines I saw. So I boarded the train, and got lucky enough to share space with a group of boys who I assume were still drunk from the night before. Eventually I pulled out my mp3 player and cranked the music to drown them out, and to help me stay awake. I was pretty darn tired. But after all that, the trip went smoothly, and I made it back to Eichstätt intact, if only a little tired, worn out, and homesick.



So that was my mom's trip to Germany. I learned a lot about traveling while she was here, like it's better to do lots of research and know what you're options are, rather than having a specific plan for what we want to do – we had so many adventures that we never would have had, if we had planned out everything that we were going to do. And yes, it was stressful to have her here, and do all the translating and train schedule coordinating, but it was good to have her here. Even though I'm totally in an English frame of mind now, not thinking in German at all, and even though it's really hard to switch back to being on my own again, and being homesick all over again. Being the one in charge this past 10 days or so has made me more comfortable with German, in that I'm not so afraid to make mistakes anymore. And even though I don't necessarily feel like I've changed much, I think that I really have. It's hard to tell now, but once I make it back home, everything will become so much easier, because I no longer have to worry about language barriers, or not knowing a word, or not understanding, or whatever. Once you realize how difficult life and communicating really can be, going back to what you're used to suddenly becomes a lot less frightening, and easily to deal with.

And now, I must get back into my German, and get ready for my 10 minute oral presentation on Friday. Yuck.

Ciao!
Amanda