WOW! What an incredible spring
break! Not only did I have an amazing time with Bri in Spain, Sarah my best
friend from home arrived Sunday morning and spent 8 days with me! I picked her up Sunday morning and we both
started crying we were so excited! I brought her back and showed her around my
school, we ate lunch and then set out to the streets of London! We stayed close to campus because she was
exhausted but I took her down Baker Street and to Oxford Street the main
shopping street. We also got a little
bit into Soho aka China town, before heading back down Regents Street and back
to my room. Around 3:45 she fell asleep
but I woke her up fairly quickly because I knew she needed to get used to the
time. Although she wanted to kill me she
rallied for dinner, then fell back asleep around 7 until the next morning!
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B |
Monday I took her to my favorite
area meaning Big Ben of course! We also
saw the parliament, westminister abbey, Buckingham palace, and we walked along
the Thames river. We decided to have drinks
& appetizers as we waited for Lindsey & Goff to get done working at the
Parliament. When we met up with them, we
grabbed dinner at Giraffe and then they showed Sarah their apartment before we
headed back home around 930. I took her
to the student bar because we wouldn’t have time the rest of the week… and then
we showered, tried to watch the UK game but it wasn’t online, then crashed
because we had to be up at 230 the next morning!
We got up at 2am to catch the metro
bus on the street for 30 mins to a stop, to catch the hour-long easybus ride to
the airport! We got to the airport around 445 and checked in, grabbed breakfast
& boarded our flight to Munich Germany!
We arrived an hour & a half later & grabbed a taxi. Little did I know how far away the city was
because the ride was 70 euros! Absolutely ridiculous & a horrible start to
our day. We were already exhausted from
being up basically all night but we managed to stay awake until lunch at 1130
at a pizza place! The pizza had a cheesy crust that was to die for…but we had a
lot of trouble communicating with them because they were immigrants from Italy
& didn’t speak much English. So that
was interesting and we were super worried about how the rest of the week would
turn out communication wise. The day was
also very cloudy, cold & no one seemed to be too friendly. (Luckily this changed later). But after lunch we headed back to the hostel,
fell asleep on the lobby couches… yes we are bums…and then finally could get
into our room at 2 where we fell asleep for another 2 & a half hours! But…by this time we were ready to go! So we
headed out in search for dinner but couldn’t find anything other than Italian
for a while…until we came upon a greek restaurant! They had everythingggg and it looked delicious!
I got biftiki (a mix of hamburger & meatloaf basically) and then rice with
a marinara sauce on top. Sounds weird…
but it was delicious!
Afterwards we decided we should try
to stay up for a while so we sat at the bar at the hostel. The bar quickly filled up which is surprising
for a hostel. But the Bayern vs. Bavaria
futbol game was on so everyone was cheering on the game! We started talking to these guys next to us
who told us to come to their bike tour in the morning around Munich. We had already made plans to go to Dachau but
we told them we may join and continued talking to them the rest of the
night. After the game was over, they
headed to a city party because Bavaria won…but Sarah & I went to bed.
We got up the next morning but had
missed our 10 o’clock tour… so we decided to take them up on their offer and go
on their bike tour at 12:30. We quickly
rushed to get ready & tried to find them at the meeting point where he
greeted us saying “well hello Courtney & Sarah glad to see you made it”
haha so everyone stared at us and we just started laughing wondering what
everyone was thinking about us right then.
The tour was awesome though! We
biked all over Munich and ate lunch at the famous beer garden. It was a beautiful day in the high 50’s so it
was perfect! The tour ended around 4,
but the entire tour (a 5 person young family, middle-aged man, and a couple)
decided to go out for drinks because they heard we were going out with the tour
guides! So it turned into a big group outing and we even met back up with the
couple later that night for drinks at our hostel! Which is where we finished for the night
after having pizza for dinner with the guys.
It was a perfect day and we were much happier with our location, the
weather and the city! |
| Beer Garden! |
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| Drinks with the Tour Group afterwards! |
The next day we had planned to go to the Neuschwenstein castle… but oh wait we missed our tour again! We couldn’t find the meeting spot and literally ran around the block frantically trying to find the bus for 30 minutes. I called the company at 9 and turns out the bus left at 830… we thought we were supposed to meet at 830….whoops. So we missed it and headed back to the hostel to try to figure out a plan b. Our choices consisted of taking a train ourselves and finding a bus from there…or getting with a more expensive tour that only went to the castle & no where else like our other tour. So that was kind of a bummer but we decided to go on the tour & had a good experience. The castle grounds were gorgeous and inside was really neat. My favorite room was a cave…like literally you felt like you were in a cave! It was neat… but the tour lasted 30 minutes before we had to walk back 45 mins down a steep hill to meet our tour guide. I could only take pictures of the outside so the inside is hard to describe. Ludwig the 2nd built the castle and supposedly lived in it, but our tour guide said that was false so honestly we have no idea if he did or didn’t. But, we enjoyed it and our guide literally made the tour of the grounds…just look at this outfit.
We got back to Munich around 715 and
went out to dinner at this place called Augustiner Brau and it was delicious!
Authentic German food, everyone was drinking out of kegs and having a good ole’
time. I even tried Schnitzel and Sarah
had a stew so we went out on a limb and tried new foods! We ate for about 2 hours because we also
ordered apple strudel for dessert! &
another couple sat down at our table with us (because that’s how they do it
here, everyone just kind of sits where there is room and we were at a 5 person
table for 2 people…) so we talked to them for a little while about our trip and
other parts of Germany. The woman had
been to the US on business so she told us where she had been, but the man was
going for the first time later this year!
But anyways, afterwards we went back to the hostel and drank again with
our two favorite bartenders who happened to be working that night! We also met up with one of the guys we met
the first night and hung out with him. So
we had a great last night with all of our friends!
Friday we woke up and actually made our tour for once! We went to Dachau concentration camp and although it was depressing, it was a really good experience & definitely worth going to. It was surreal how dreary the grounds were. We learned a lot though & we were glad we went.
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| Camp Grounds |
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| Undressing & Shower Room |
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| Beds |
When we got back at 3 we grabbed
calzones at a place near the hostel and then went back and sat down for a
little bit before heading back to a main square to do some tourist-y shopping!
I also went to the apple store because my imessaging hadn’t been working all
week. They couldn’t figure out what was
wrong with it so they decided to reset it.
It looked like it was going to work after that & I was so ecstatic but
when I got back to the hostel not only did it not work….everything was in German! So I couldn’t figure out what the heck it was
saying was wrong and got super frustrated.
So I just turned it off and had a quick pity party before it was time for
us to go to the airport. This time we
were smart and found we could take the train for 10 euros… so we got tickets,
boarded our plane, made it through customs, back on the easy & metro buses…and
made it home to London around 130am.
The week was so amazing this short update
doesn’t even describe it. The rest of
the weekend consisted of Saint Patricks day, borough market, westminister abbey
for church and seeing Platform 9 & ¾!
As much as I would love to tell you every detail I’m sure your tired of
reading this by now so that’s enough for now! My parents are coming tomorrow
and I am super excited! We will be
hanging out around London and then going to Whales & Cowgill Village for
the weekend. It should be a nice break
away and some much needed family time!
Only a little over a month before I’m back to the states! This semester has flown by it’s so
unreal! I’ve had an amazing time.
"You ever look a picture of yourself, and see a stranger in the background?. It makes you wonder how many strangers have pictures of you. How many moments of other peoples life have we been in. Were we a part of someone's life when their dream came true or were we there when their dream died. Did we keep trying to get in? As if we were somehow destined to be there or did the shot take us by surprise. Just think, you could be a big part of someone elses life, and not even know it. " - One Tree Hill
Y.O.L.O -- Court :)
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