Meine Praktikum hat Macht!

This week has been entirely interesting...and a humbling experience.  

Wednesday, I was strolling to the train stop and when I had just about arrived on the platform, the intercom went off.  A girl came walking off saying the train conductors were on strike.  In my head I was thinking, what am I going to do?  I have no car or bike… and if I had a bike it would take an hour or two.  I also couldn’t remember if I had my boss’s work number.  How was I going to let them know I wasn’t going to make it?  I guess I could go back and see if any of my roommates are left and have any ideas.  Getting back to real time, the girl starts talking on the phone and once she got off, she asked me where I was going.  I informed her of themain  train station.  She asked if I wanted a ride to the next town over, where the trains would be working.  (Her mom was going to pick her up)  I of course said yes, she seemed nice and I had no other way to get to work.  So we talked a little bit waiting on the ride and it was really nice!  Her name is Hannah and works at a Kindergarten.  In September, she will be ready to study at the university.  She lives in a neighboring town to mine, so when I see her at the train stop again, I will be sure to ask her if she would like to hang out.  I have a friend!  :D

So I made it to work and only 30 minutes later than I wanted, so I would say that’s a success!  Thank you Hannah!

Oh and did I forget to tell you that I have a 4 day weekend this week?  Good Friday and East Monday are the reasons why!!!  Did I mention, I love Germany? 

Thursday, I gathered my backpack with my weekend necessities for my trip to Munich starting right after work!  Oh and working for Deutsche Bahn has some MAJOR perks… as in they give their employees so many free rides on their trains!!!!  This means, that I received a free ticket to and from Munich.  AWESOME.  And I rode first class.  Love My Job.  

So I arrived in Munich and meet up with Claire and Justin to hike to Micah's apartment.  That night we decided to visit the Hofbräuhaus since all we had been to is the replica in Newport Kentucky.  It was expensive, but good to go.  We didn’t do too much else that night, just walked around a bit and called it a day.

Found this in the main train station at Munich.  They are just so clever!

Cincy is in the top right as a Sister City to Munich!

My goulash at Hofbräuhaus.  It was okay enough to satisfy my hunger.

Claire is quite thirty!

Durst ist schlimmer als Heimweh... true at times, ask Claire.

Friday, we went to the BMW free museum.  There were sweet looking motorcycles that people could sit upon for fun.  It just made me want one… but my Mom won’t let me!

Oh Mom, can I have one?  Pretty please?  I will be careful, I promise.

This is the FREE BMW museum.  Look at this awesome architecture.  I would say I want to design this one day, but then again, I would like my sanity as well.

Here is the BMW museum that costs money.  Cool building!

 

Then we ventured to Olympia Park, where the1972 Summer Olympics took place.  This place is about too good to be true.  It's gorgeous and spacious.  The vendors are expensive, so we brought our own lunch, but we forgot to bring napkins.  We all fixed our lunches before hand and each of us had a piece of fruit.  The unlucky ones... had oranges.  So we peeled these oranges with our nails, naturally and I didn't do the best job, so the juice ran all over my hands.  In the states, I would simply go to the local drinking fountain and wash them off, but in Germany there are no such things.  They believe you should pay for EVERYTHING.  So I just went the rest of the time with sticky hands.  Glorious.

We climbed up this little hill to get a better view.

Look at this!

Simply.

Beautiful!

Even in Germany, you can find a Martin Luther King Street.

Then we headed to the Schlosspark Nymphenburg.  Also lovely.  Have I said that we did a lot of walking?  Because we did!

Map of the Park

Such a good looking group!

If you look really close at the gold lantern looking think, I am to the right.

Looking from the palace.

Vice versa.

Then we travelled to a nearby… not really, but we walked it anyways… Biergarten.  Here I bought some sort of pasta and apfelschorle.  This drink is so good.  All you have to do is mix apple juice and carbonated water.  Very delicious.  Oh and it is extremely hard to order regular from the tap water.  Beware if you come over, you may just have to drink beer or pop because I have tried to like the “Mineralwasser”, but it’s a feat I cannot conquer.

It was huge!

There are so many mugs, they use trucks to haul them!

Oh I got this pretzel all by myself.  Looks like my hope of not gaining weight is slipping.

Moving to Saturday, we visited the Deutsches Museum.  Now, I'm not a lover of museums, but I'm beginning to like them more and more.  At this museum, you can find anything about science, math and technology.  It was so neat, probably because much of it was interactive.  Afterwards we walked around and enjoyed the sites and then found a place to eat.  I forgot to mention by this time, I was feeling sharp pains in my left foot.  It was near the outside of my heel.  I was freaking wearing boots and had no other pairs with me.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?  I will tell you.  I didn’t think the group would be walking nearly as much and I was dumb enough to believe I could handle it with my boots.  Lesson Learned.

I am so glad I drive in the states!  No telling how many wrecks I would get into if this were back home.

One cool Bridge.  Can't help but marvel.

Deutsches Museum

I think this is to ward off people sliding down the banisters....

Rescue Pants for people left on a boat near the shore during a Storm.  Quite humorous.

This guys generated over 1000Watts, enough to boil water.

This is one of the sundials I ran across.  It reads 14:15, but they forgot about Daylight Savings Time.

Seriously... get a backyard for all your Gnomes.  This is ridiculous!

 

Sunday, Claire and I went to a German church for Easter.  It was mostly in German, but some songs were in English.  It’s always a shock to me when things are in English over here.  Oh well, I appreciated it nonetheless.  Afterwards, the boys and us went to another beer garden/park where we had crepes and pretzels.  It was a pretty chill day, but due to my muscle strain in my foot, it was hard to get around.  I knew I should have packed another pair of shoes… or at least have worn my more comfortable shoes rather than my boots.  My feet and Germany are not seeing eye to eye.  Hopefully my brain will help the relationship and think next time I pack.  The relationship has to get better from here on out!

The church was in a movie theater.  Pretty neat.

Well, this is the end of the road and past my bed time.  Enjoy and I will keep you in touch.