Funny Farm

The rest of the week will be pretty low key until we leave for the funny farm Thursday! Yes, an actual funny farm located in Interlaken, Switzerland (not that Liz and I aren't a regular funny farm). Planning on rafting & bonfires. Check it out...

http://www.funny-farm.ch/

Off to watch the soccer games tonight. These German/Austrians love their soccer. I'm definitely buying a jersey that says "Deutscheland," since it is one of our favorite words. haha. Also, in dedication to my gran-gran, Liz and I call any creeps we meet "Vandersloot," since she was key on us not meeting any strange guys...we say it every 10 minutes.

Innsbruck!

Liz and I took the Eurail from Munich to Innsbruck with only a few minor melt downs. I basically knew nothing about the Eurail because I kept telling Liz it was only a train for Americans (like they love us enough to actually give us our own train) and I thought you couldn't buy the passes in Europe, which you can. So once we figured out we had to get them stamped, I went first so Liz could stay with the luggage. I literally got it stamped in two seconds. When she went back to stamp hers this lady kept telling her to switch lines, putting her in the wrong place, etc. and we were almost late for our train. The Eurail isn't bad itself though. We were in a tiny compartment with five other people, all speaking German. I just tried to sleep most of the way, but if my stepmom had not given me motion sickness patches, I made not have made it traveling. There is one girl in our program who was sick the whole way to Austria and finally decided she couldn't take it and is flying home tom. Eek. We also have some friends that are taking a 20 hour trip this weekend to run with the bulls, but that is WAY too far for us on that tiny train compartment.

When we arrived in Innsbruck, Dexter and Brandon, two guys in our program, must have heard us speaking English and asked us if we were in the Innsbruck program. So relieved to have met them because they led the way, arranged cabs, and got us to the hotel in timely fashion. We could have done it on our own, but it was nice not having to at that point. Our room is pretty sweet. It's bigger than we thought. We have all the necessities and the shower actually stays on without having to push a button over and over, like we had to in the hostel (also minus our "hostile" roommates). We got to the hotel just in time for the walking tour with one of the professors. He took us all over town; showed us the school, places to eat, where the ski jump was for the Olympics, etc. and then it ended in a cool beer garden. Liz and I are still feeling hesitant about Austrian food, so she ordered crepes and I ordered a baked potato with spinach and cheese. Most of the kids here are from St. Mary's, but there are also some people from Texas Tech. We were semi-worried that we may not like the people in our program since we've been told that before about other study-abroad programs, but so far, we really do.

From dinner, about 10 of us went to a placed called "TT" which is like a bunch of bars set up outside. A reggae band was playing and there was a man-made beach. We stayed there most of the night and then made the walk home. On the way home, we heard music coming from somewhere, so we decided to check it out. There were a bunch of random tables set up outside and people hanging out, so we hopped the fence to join. We ended up kind of sketched out that there was a DJ spinning in a church and no one really in there, so then we went to McDonalds. European McDonalds is excellent-they have waffle fries! They also give you larger drinks than most places around here, which doesn't sound like a big deal but when you stop getting ice in your drinks and a water costs as much as a beer, you start to appreciate the small things. We decided that if we were in government here, one of the first things we would enact would be free refills for American Tourists. We spend ALL of our time being thirsty.

Today was our first day of classes, but we start around 9:00 and end at like 1:00, so it isn't too bad. All of the readings are more like college than law school though. Tonight we went to a cocktail party in a castle. Probably some of the best food we've had on the whole trip. There was a piano player, drinks, and a museum. Innsbruck is a blast.

Such a German Saturday...

Germany is all that we hoped it would be thus far. After we checked into our hostel, we took a four hour nap (because Liz and I both require a nap of that length almost every day in general). Then we told ourselves we'd go out for dinner and a few drinks and be home to sleep so we could get on European time. However, it turned into a party that lasted till 6 am. We just never felt tired since we were on US time and there is so much to do and see here and it seems like Germans never sleep.

We ate dinner at a little Italian place called Il Castagno. Although we are in Germany, we love pizza, so it just seemed right. The food was excellent, the beer was excellent and the waiter spoke English, so it worked out well. After that, we just picked a way to walk and ended up in the center of town (well what we think is the center of town, we really aren't even sure). We now have lots of friends in Germany, but ironically none of them are Germans. To the contrary, it seems like Germans kind of hate us. But they may really like us when they aren't telling us they don't want to dance anymore when they find out we are American or yelling obscenities on the street at us. It's also cool that most people think we are German until we start to speak; guessing it is the blonde hair. We had one group of guys ask us where the hot spots were and then realized we were just as clueless as they were. The waitresses also give us the menus in German until they too realize we are American (then they roll their eyes).

Our first hot spot was the Hofbrauhaus am Platzl, which is the most famous beer garden in the world. You would think that since it is the MOST famous beer garden that everyone in Germany would know where it is, yea.. you would think. We asked at least 3 different people who sent us in all sorts of directions. Then one girl asked to look at our map because she was lost as well and then gave us advice on how to get there, so we didn't take it...but she was right. We eventually made it and it was well worth the walk all over Munich. We met two guys that were in the army and traveling around Europe that described it as being back in Hitler's Third Reich. There was a German marching band playing, patrons dressed in authentic German garb and lots of clinking of the beer mugs going on. Liz and I have decided to be Bavarian bar maids for halloween. We even looked into buying a costume, but they cost 100 Euros. We also decided that if being lawyers failed, we would be pretzel girls because the costumes are cool and you can eat pretzels all day. The restaurants all serve pretzels in place of bread and I really like that.

So then we went in sat in the actual beer garden where we met a group of guys having a bachelor party (the second one going on that night that wanted us to join in). They, as the first one, were also from London and called it a "Stag Du"; du=party, stag=making fake horns on your head with your hands. So the more we hung out with them, their named turned into the "staggy dudes." There were about 8 of them, one being an actor that was in The Bank Job (and looked just like Bradley Cooper) and another being a lawyer and all pretty cool. We spent the whole night comparing Americans to Europeans and finding random clubs and bars to go to. We established that the letter "u" was not to be put in words like colour and favourite. And also that the word "Fabric" was not to be spelled "Fabrik." Liz told them that they all had pretty nice teeth to be from London and one guy, sadly, explained how he had wanted braces but it was just too expensive there. So then Liz told them if she hadn't had her ears pinned back and braces, she wouldn't be as cute as she is today...I don't know if he was consoled or not? One guy also told us a story about how when he was in the US he saw a real, live cowboy who got on the bus and the bus driver told him that he was not allowed to drink on the bus (he was carrying a cup). The cowboy then replied that it was his "dip" cup (and the staggy dude said this with a snarl and pretended he was wearing a cowboy hat) and then the bus driver said "oh ok, well in that case" and let him have it. Staggy dude was flabbergasted by this and wanted to know what dip was and how you did it. Liz and I tried to explain and then he exclaimed "LIZ! Do you dip!?" He was horrified by the idea of Liz dipping, so we tried to explain further it was more of a man thing. We pointed out that Europeans must have not heard that cigs give you cancer either because it seems like everyone we see is smoking here. Someone should work on their cancer budget.

After the HB Haus, we took cabs to some local nightclub hot spots. It was more like a fair though. All of the bars looked like they were constructed overnight in tents and there were random carnival games in between. We went to Bar Americano and some other funky place. They were both slam packed with people on top of the bars and stages. We ended up pretty sweaty and gross. Germans love American music, but all of the songs are from like 3 years ago. There is some German anthem that came on in both bars that everyone chanted and got really excited about, but I don't know what it is. Overall, Germans are like the happiest people on this planet.

Today, we slept in our hostel till about 5 PM. I know, I know.. who comes to Europe to sleep? But our time is so off and we are pretty sure our current roommates hate us. We also really love our hostel. There isn't air and it looks like Ikea furnished the place, but its pretty comfortable. We are going to look for the same quality in all of Europe. After we woke up and made it out of the hostel, we went to Marienplatz, a square in the center of Munich that has the best restaurants (and where HB is located). We ate at Ayinger and finally tried some traditional Bavarian food. I had chicken and summer salad and it was excellent. We aren't thrilled that we have to pay for water and it seems like we've become the thirstiest people in Germany all of a sudden. We do like Coke light though and order it any chance we get. We walked around Marienplatz and checked out the Cathedrals and clock towers. The soccer game was on today and the whole town is in uproar. They are roaming through the streets, shirtless, painted in black, red, and yellow and wreak of booze. All of the cars are honking their horns and hanging flags out of the window. I just happened to have on red shorts and a black shirt today, so I fit right in. Marienplatz was really busy and everyone was so psyched to just be hanging out there, so we have decided to nickname any good Saturday a "German Saturday." Like I said, these Germans are the happiest people on the planet. Where in America can you just run through the streets screaming "Deutsche Land" and jump into a public fountain? We are starting to get tired of random groups of guys approaching us though. One even blocked our path until we ducked and ran. These guys are not shy.

We love Germany. Off to Innsbruck tom; I'm trying to talk Liz into renting a car to take on the AutoBahn, grabbing a German CD that has that anthem on it and road-tripping to Innsbruck. Sounds dangerous.

We Made It!

So, we made it to Europe! However, not without a few bumps along the way. Starting with the fact that what I consider a "carry-on", the airport clearly does not and made me pay an extra $55 to check it. Not only did I have to pay, but he also made me do my own measurements on the bag just to prove that it was too big and I'm really not that great with math on the spot (or ever). Then, our flight was delayed by 2 hours and we missed our connecting flight. When we reached Frankfurt, we asked almost every person in the airport what we should do (including a police officer who told us he did not work for the airlines-then what good are you in an airport?!) Anyways, we got on the next flight at 10:00 AM and finally arrived at our hostel around 1:00 PM. But check-in is not till 2:00 and we haven't slept in about a day, so we are going to be worthless if we don't get some sleep. It was worth not sleeping on the plane to watch the "Last Song" and "500 Days of Summer." Liz even started dressing like Miley Cyrus with her shirt all cropped up by the time we got to Europe.

BUT I hope this doesn't sound like I'm complaining because so far, Europe is really cool.

Also, I realized what a small world it is. I ran into two people from my church back home at the airport in Frankfurt who were coming back from a vacation in Italy. I also met a German lady on the bus ride to our hostel who asked where we were from and when I told her, she said she had just returned from a trip to Pinehurst. The lesson I learned from that is not to talk to strangers because then she insisted on dragging us around the subway and had no idea where we were even supposed to be going.