I'm sitting in my dorm room (because I'm finally back) eating some mini Reese's cups and figured I should update everyone on the things I've been doing! So carrying on from my previous post on Sunday I went to my first professional football (soccer) game abroad! It was definitely way crazier than the Columbus Crew games I've been to back home! The game was pretty good, 2-1 mostly but in the last five minutes Liverpool scored again beating Sunderland 3-1. Even though we lost it was still a great experience. Our tickets were even free! Before the game we got lunch and had a few beers at a local pub. Then we walked to the game, I'm not even sure how the thousands of people fit on the sidewalks to get there, but it made it easier to find our way to the stadium!
On Monday and Tuesday I went to class as usual, and Tuesday night I packed for my trip and was so excited I could barely sleep. My trip consisted of going by Megabus to London at 7 in the morning for a 7 hour bus ride, then staying at my very first hostel for two nights. That's just the beginning! For those who don't know a hostel is like a big sleepover with tons of bunk beds and people (usually around my age) that you don't know. It sounds kind of intimidating, but it wasn't so bad! The hostel was called The London Eye Hostel. Anyways once I got to London I got something to eat (really good sushi from Wasabi) and looked around the area by the station since I couldn't check in until 4. Then I took a cab to the hostel, which was near 2 miles away from Victoria Station. Note to travelers: don't take a cab; they're expensive! I spent near 11 pounds! Thats like $17 USD. Anyways, I checked in and went straight to downtown so I could experience a little bit of London before it got dark and to get some great night photos of London. I got some really awesome shots of Big Ben, which is actually just the clock and not the tower (which is now named the Queen Elizabeth Tower), and the Parliament Building. The London Eye which, when it was built in 1999, was the biggest ferris wheel in the world! (of course I rode in it as well, for the second time!) Each capsule can hold as many as 25 people, allowing the whole wheel to hold 800 people, and has heating and air conditioning. After seeing some of these things at night time, which I didn't get the chance to when I was over as a P2P ambassador I went to a pub by my hostel for dinner and headed back to get some sleep. The next day I woke up and headed back downtown, I wanted to see the changing of the guards and Buckingham Palace and see some of the parks downtown. Everything was so beautiful. I got so many pictures. Day pictures of the things I saw the previous day as well as many pictures of Buckingham Palace and the London Bridge. (London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down) Sorry for getting the song stuck in your head! After seeing everything I wanted to see downtown and having a wonderful english lunch of sausage on potatoes with gravy and some other weird BBQ like sauce I headed to the place where the Beatles shot the Abbey Road album cover and got some really fabulous pictures! When Turner photoshop's it to make it look like I am doing the same thing the Beatles did I will be sure to share it! After all of these things I got some chipotle (ahhh just like home) and headed back for the night. Although, on the way back I got confused and missed my stop and it took me 1.5 hours to get home altogether. (curse those crazy bus routes!)
The next morning I had such a crazy travel schedule! Hold on to your pants and pay attention cause this could get a little bit confusing. First at 3:30am I had to walk to the bus stop to get a bus to take me to another stop which would then take me to Victoria Train Station. From there I had to walk down to the coach station, undoubtedly getting myself lost and confused. From there I had to take a coach to London Stansted airport where my gates to Frankfurt Hahn closed at 6:40 with the flight leaving at 7:15, it took over an hour to get through security and by then it was 7! I ran through the airport and made it there by 7:10 just to find that they hadn't even started to board. (luckily) so I went to the bathroom and took the 10 layers of clothes I had on, so I would be within the weight for my carry on, off and boarded the plane. I arrived at Frankfurt Hahn by 9:35. The flight was only an hour and fifteen minutes but Germany is an hour ahead of the UK. Flying with Ryanair is certainly cheap but when they land the plane it seems as if they are crashing, luckily I always remember to pray before landing. From there I had to take a coach to Frankfurt am Main hauptbahnhof (main train station) and get on a train to Hanau where I was to meet Saskia's mom to go to her house. Luckily, with the German I know (thanks to Frau ((: ) I was able to make all of my transports ahead of time! Saskia's home is beautiful and I even had my own room with a bathroom! That night we caught up on all the things that have happened since we last saw each other. (Saskia was a foreign exchange student 2011-2012 when I was a senior) I took Saskia macaroni and cheese and strawberry poptarts from the US! The next day Saskia and I took a train from Hanau to Munich for Oktoberfest, it took five hours! On the last connecting train everyone was crazy and shoving to get in, luckily this guy that was flirting with me made sure we got in and got seats. On the way there we made a bunch of friends! Everyone was drinking on the train on the way there and the guy I mentioned before gave us some of his beer, since he had like 30! When we got to Munich Saskia's moms friend Tanja met us at a bus stop and took us back to her house, which was really nice, better than a hotel!! Accidentally our luggage stained her carpet and Saskia and I were freaking out because we didn't know how to tell her, she actually wasn't upset at all. (phew) After settling in she drove us to Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is like this big huge crazy fair (Like the canfield fair only much, much bigger) that you can drink at. Everyone there wears dirndl and lederhosen and drinks big steins full of beer. I thought that stein was a German word, however it is not. The only alcohol available at Oktoberfest is beer. Overall I was kind of disappointed with Oktoberfest, I had imagined people linking arms dancing in circles singing loudly. However, this can only be found in the tents and to get in a tent one would have to reserve it over a year in advance or be outside by 5 in the morning. Saskia and I tried, and failed, to get into the tents. All of the Oktoberfest fun goes on inside these tents. If you're not in the tents it's basically just one huge fair. Along with beer (obviously) I also had a HUGE pretzel, which is a common food in Germany. The first day we were at Oktoberfest it rained a lot, completely soaking our shoes. Afterwards Tanja picked us up and made us some nice tea at home. It was great that she made us tea because I had gotten sick and kept coughing and barely had a voice. Every time I talked to someone they would say "Bist du krank?" meaning, are you sick? The next day Tanja made us a really great breakfast with German bread (really heavy and delicious) and lots of breakfast cold cut meats. Most of them were good, but one I tried was absolutely terrible but I pretended to like it so I wouldn't offend her. We also had eggs that we ate right out of the shell after they were cooked, which was new to me. After that, Tanja gave Saskia and I a tour of Munich from her car. This was great! We saw the bridge where Hitler held his gatherings and a structure made up of all the bomb debris. Munich is a really interesting city. Then, Tanja had to go visit her mom so she said good-bye and dropped us back off at the Oktoberfest for the last few hours before we needed to head back home. The two days we spend at Oktoberfest were the last two days of the 3 week party! When we were waiting for our train we ate doener. Which was not as good as the one I had back in Frankfurt, (Himbach) where Saskia is from. Doener is a turkish meat with lettuce onion tomato and cucumber yogurt in it, they're delicious. When we were eating we we like our train is supposed to leave in 3 minutes, but there's a train where ours is supposed to be. When we got on the train and asked we found that our train was moved to two platforms down. (I tripped and scraped my leg when we got in the first train HAHA) so we had to sprint to catch our other train and once we squeezed on we had to sit in the doorway area on the floor because there was no room. Once we finally got back to Saskia's her mom had made a delicious goulash. Saskia's mom is a doctor, her name is Britta. She is married to Saskia's step dad Sasha, who has two children (I didn't meet them) Saskia also has a sister, Kristen, who is 16. The next day I went to school with Saskia. After taking four years of German in high school it was really interesting to see how their school system works! She even had english class that day. In Germany they have to take the public bus to school, half an hour! They have 20 minutes in between their classes also. In history class two boys were talking in German and I could understand them and I started laughing and they asked Saskia if I understood German and she said yes and he said "Sheisse" meaning "shit" and that he shouldn't have said it. HAHA. After school was over we had to wait in the school for 2 hours until the bus would come. After school a met a bunch of new people, including Rene who seemed really really excited to meet me. Rene is really interested in the english language. I think his english may be better than mine. He told me his favorite country in England and when he asked me mine I blurted out America. I guess there's nothing like home sweet home. (: That evening we went to Saskia's grandparents house for dinner. Saskia's grandparents write travel guides (huge ones) for a living, although now they are retired. Saskia's grandparents house is one of the most beautiful houses I've ever been in. I told Saskia I want her to take pictures of it so I can design my house just like it when I'm older. Saskia's grandmother is and extremely wonderful cook. That night she made a german dish, knowing I would be there. We had salad, home made croutons, potatoes and penne pasta with rolled meat and gravy. Rolled meat is exactly how it sounds. I think it is some type of beef rolled with another type of beef with onion and peppers and other things stuffed inside, it's really tender. For desert we had pudding shaped in the form of a fish and fresh strawberries! It was so delicious! The next day I went to some classed with Saskia, then her mom picked me up and took me to get doener and back to the house where I waited for her grandfather to take me to the train station. Once I got to the airport I had to wait an hour and a half before my flight.
After my flight landed, feeling like it was crashing, I took a two hour coach ride (because of all the stops) to London Victoria Station, where I had to go back to my hostel. This hostel was names FRESH at The White Ferry. This hostel was a bar when you walked in and the bedding was all upstairs above the bar. The outlets here were all by the floor, which was different than the first hostel because it had outlets by every bed. I think the first hostel (The London Eye Hostel) was much nicer, I liked it more, but this one wasn't so bad. I was supposed to check in by midnight but it was 12:15 when I arrived at London Victoria. When I asked a taxi driver to take me there he said he wouldn't because he had no change for my 20 so I would have to walk. It was only half a mile but I only knew his directions on how to get there. Upon confusion I asked some girl walking down the street with her guitar strapped to her back how to get there, luckily she lived right next to it so I just walked with her and it led me right there. The next day I went shopping in London before heading back on my 7 hour journey on the bus. The bus ride there wasn't bad at all, I slept nearly all the way, but the bus ride home was the absolute worst. I thought the outlets would let me charge my mobile wifi and they weren't working, there was supposed to be wifi on the bus but it wasn't working either. Once I finally got back I had called a cab on the bus to pick me up, I had to wait 15 minutes outside and it was FREEZING and really windy. When I got back to my dorm room I said hi to my flatmates and showed them my stein I brought home. After that I went straight to bed until 2pm the next day. Today is the day after and although I am still tired from my adventure I joined and worked out at the gym. Joining the gym will fill my spare time during the week since I only have classes on Monday and Tuesday and keep my from boredom.
Well that was my week, sorry it took so long to fill the details in, here are a few pictures from my adventure through this journey I call life! More can be found in my Europe 2013/2014 album on Facebook!
XOXO,
Abb (:
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