Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Und Jetz, Auf Deutsch!

Maybe not exactly in German...but partially about Germany...how's that?

I rolled off the plane last week from beautiful Deutschland after being gone for twelve days with a friend of mine and I think I have more wanderlust now than I did before I left. Not the same restless, crazy "gotta go somewhere" right now sort of wanderlust that I had as I was boarding the plane but a desire to do something bigger than just a vacation.

I did just move into a snazzy new apartment so maybe that will help. We'll see what manifests in the coming months.


The trip itself was nothing short of amazing. It did all the things it was supposed to do in so many ways. My travel buddy and I hiked into the Alps and spent a night in a hut surrounded by mountains. This being the age of technology that it is, however, we were still able to update Facebook about how primitive and rustic our lodgings were....oh the irony. We also caught some of the Bavarian futbol game via iPhone from the next table over.

We also hit up Oktoberfest in Munich. No beer was had (12 Euro for a beer????) but we rode a ton of roller coasters and generally just played at the fair. And looked at all the cute girls dressed in Dirndl and all the cute boys dressed in lederhosen. No, really. They sell all the modern versions of those old time Bavarian favorites. I have to admit, some of them are really damn cute. Silly. But cute. (The dirndl's...not the Germans wearing them neccessarily. Though some of them weren't too bad either.)

Post Oktoberfest we shuffled over to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and then on to Koln to stay with a friend. We also managed, on our way into Munich, to swing by and spend an evening with the family I lived with in Stuttgart. That was a lot of fun. We had dinner and I got to chat and catch up with them which was nice. I swear this time I'm going to be better about mailing things over to that side of the pond...I have a small pile of things for Die Kinder and their mom that I need to drop in the post.

The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there which everyone said was due to dumb luck. I tend to agree with the Irish. You bring the weather with you-if you expect it to be rainy and crappy then it will be. If you don't...well you see the logic here.

The next step: trying to figure out how to study in Germany...in German...with Germans!