Talking to management on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, they informed me that although we weren’t anticipating a lot of kids on Friday, that they stilled needed me to come into work just in case, and promised that I would be the first to go home if the opportunity presented itself. So with that, Friday morning rolled around and I was NOT happy about having to go in. Sydney had the opportunity to take the day off due to her mom flying into Germany, so not only did she get to spend the day however she’d like, I didn’t get to have my partner in crime with me at work. LAME!
I arrived at the CDC to find an EMPTY parking lot. Walking into the building, one of my managers looked at me and simply said, “Oh, Ali. I forgot we asked you to come in. We are way overstaffed now!” I reminded them that I was guaranteed to be the first one to leave if that was the case, and “as they were figuring it out,” they asked me to go into our Strong Beginnings room to help cut out some reindeer for a window decoration.
An hour and nine reindeer, a sled, and a Santa later, I went back up to the front desk to figure out if I was in fact going home. To my surprise, management told me that they had already sent home half a dozen people, and they needed me to stay to cover some lunches in the afternoon. You can imagine my thoughts after they told me this.
Literally not doing a single thing but walking around to see which kids were actually there, I ended up going to the break room at about eleven thirty while they found me a “home” (classroom) to go in to. FINALLY at around one, one of my managers came into the break room and told me I could leave.
So, to sum it up, for the five hours I was there, I cut reindeer.
Getting back to my apartment, I took the extra few hours to try and be productive. This meant starting to pack up a few things, pack for the weekend, and most importantly, take a nap.
At around 5.15, Randy came to pick myself, Juliet and Michelle up to take us to the train station. I was heading toward Munich, my other roommates toward Copenhagen, Denmark.
The train ride went pretty quickly to Nuremberg, which is where I split off from the other two. Jumping onto my next train, I spent the next hour blasting Christmas music, trying not to focus on my disdain for trains.
Arriving into Munich, I met up with Sydney and her mom, Rose. We made a quick walk to the hotel they were staying at: The Marriot. You can imagine my sheer joy walking in to something other than a hostel. A hotel room has never looked so glorious.
Quickly changing my clothes, Sydney, Rose and I all jumped into a taxi and headed to this little jazz bar called Mister B’s. Walking into the bar, you could tell that we were completely out of place; everyone in the bar was definitely regulars and was gawking at the three Americans coming in. We ended up finding some seats, and as the place was tiny and packed, we were thankful to have found them. To our delight, we happened to come on a night that there was a live band, so after ordering a drink, we got to sit back, relax and listen to this jazz band play. The band consisted of a lady singer, a younger looking guitar player, and an older man that played the saxophone. The combination of the three playing together was so fun to watch, and all the songs they played were in English, which made it even better! We ended up staying there for a few hours, and after watching three sets from the band, we decided to head back to the hotel to get some (much needed) sleep!
Waking up around 10:00 Saturday morning, we slowly got ready for the day. Once we had all showered, gotten dressed and put on a little makeup, we headed out into Munich. Making our way into the heart of the city, we ended up finding the Munich Residence, but were unable to tour it because the prices were a little steep. From there, we went to the Metropolitan Church of Our Lady. The cathedral was HUGE and it was absolutely beautiful. The ceilings were ridiculously high and the stained glass windows were everywhere! The three of us spent a little while just walking around admiring the building and details it contained. Walking out of the cathedral, we stumbled upon the Munich Christmas market. And for the record, I LOVE Christmas markets! The market itself was positioned along one of the busy streets in the middle of the city. All along the streets, on both sides, there were vendors and their booths, each hoping that people will stop to look at their goods. Some of the booths were selling traditional German items, lots of booths were selling food and drinks, and hundreds of booths were selling homemade creations. It was SO much fun just to walk around and look at what each booth had to offer- everything different from one another, but still so special. Syd, Rose and I spent quite a bit of time walking through the streets of the market, and eventually made our way over to Tollwood. Tollwood is situated on the ground that Oktoberfest is held, so you can imagine how big it was! It reminded me exactly of the Saturday Market in Portland! Everything was very hippy, artsy and fun! It was similar to the normal Christmas markets, but this one sold items such as: graffiti paintings, wooden creatures, fun jewelry, and a HUGE assortment of other things. I absolutely loved it. After walking through Tollwood for a couple hours, we ended up catching the metro back to the hotel. While Rose was researching things on her computer, Sydney and I crawled into our bed and started watching TV. Unfortunately, everything but CNN was in German, so we settled for the German version of “America’s Got Talent.” Although we had no idea what they were saying, we were able to watch some of the talents and even added in our own commentary for what we thought the judges were saying.
Sydney’s alarm ended up going off at 5:30 Sunday morning, which was a horrible way to start off the day. We jumped out of bed, got dressed, and made our way back to the Hofbahnhof (train station). Taking the train two hours to Fussen, we arrived shortly after 9:00. Catching a bus, we headed toward the Neuschwanstein Castle- the castle that Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle was inspired by. We ended up touring the actual castle, and unfortunately, because everything is original, we were not allowed to take pictures. The inside of the castle was gorgeous! Everything was designed to showcase King Ludwig II’s favorites: the color blue, swans, and a particular musician. After only spending 172 days in the castle itself, the King was accused of being mentally unstable and later found dead in a lake (murder? suicide? Nobody knows!). Because of this, the majority of the castle was left unfinished, as it still is today. We were only able to view the Hall of the Singers, the Throne Hall, Drawing Room, Study Room, Dining Room, Bedroom, and some of the servant quarters. The tour itself only lasted about forty minutes, but it was definitely worth it! Leaving Neuschwanstein, we headed back down the hill and sat next to the Alpsee for a little while. The lake was beautiful- it looked like something out of a picture! We left the lake and although we wanted to tour the Hohenschwangau castle, (the home of King Ludwig II’s parents), we were all starving! We ended up finding this small little German restaurant and it’s safe to say that I ate my weight’s worth in pizza. We decided from there that we would go ahead and head back to the train station so we could catch the early train back. Waving goodbye to the castles and the town itself, we jumped back on the train and started our journey back to Graf.
Overall, I had an amazing weekend! Sydney and her mom were so generous in inviting me to join them on their trip and I could not have been in better company! I’ll definitely have to send them a thank you note when I get home. :)
