What a heavy day.

Today Mom and Mike arrived and we hit the ground running. We picked up the rental car and got going. Thankfully, Mike got a GPS thing compatable for Germany so travelling was a piece of Apfel Strudel. But we made our way to Dachau. You hear about it. You learn about it. But it is just so intense to be there. So eerie and horribly horribly sad and unbelievable that humanity could sink so low for all of that to occur.

It was really intense.

Then we drove to Regensburg! Mom loved to see how the hops were growing in the fields besides the roads. We ate dinner at the Wurstküche and got ice cream and strolled a bit. But they were understandably exhausted and we went back to their hotel and then they drove me home. I am already enjoying some treats from home! She brought me all kinds of snacks. But I bet I will have them all eaten in a matter of two weeks or so...haha!

Anyways, even though it was a really heavy and difficult day due to the events. Still enjoyable because I learned a lot and I spent the day with family.

Tschüs!

What a great day!

Well, it has been about a week since I posted...I know I suck at this whole blog thing.

German word of the day: "schaffen"-to handle/manage as in "Ich kann das nicht schaffen!"-I can't handle/manage that. What I might have said due to the unfortunate laundry situation in my building earlier.

Anyways, last Friday I went down to München, otherwise known as Munich, to meet up with Morgan (friend from Berry) and her two friends who are studying together in Florence. It was a blast! First of all, the two girls that were with Morgan were super. Valerie and Rachel (sp?) are from Chicago and were such sweet and funny girls. They all ended coming back to stay in Regensburg with me on Friday after a full day in Marienplatz and Frühlingsfest. We met the nicest couple at Marienplatz and the girls invited them to come to the fest with us and they totally did! So cool. Something else happened that day...but its getting its own paragraph. But yeah, so, the girls and I wandered Regensburg on Saturday morning ate at the Historisches Würstküche drank Radlers and generally had a lovely time soaking in the beauty of the Donau river (Danube). We then caught the 14:45 train back to München for some more fun.

Backtrack time...

Well, when we got to Munich (on Friday) we got a little lost leaving the train station and walked the wrong direction down the street and ended up way out of the way. Thankfully, I speak a little German so I could ask how to get where we needed to be and the girl we asked said turn around go on this road and walk about 25 minutes! HA! We went so far the wrong way...but that is fine when you are in lovely European cities. Well, sorta. What the girl failed to tell us was we were walking through an interesting part of town to get there. For a while we were the only non-Turkish people in sight haha. Well I really wanted the girls to try an Augustiner bc they had been in Germany for hours and hours and hadn't had a beer yet....SO TRAGIC. So of course it was a holiday so everyone was closed. But some places were open but didn't have the right kind of beer I wanted the girls to try. SO, we see this sign that says Augustiner on it. So I go up to see what the deal is to see if we can get beers to go there or not. Well, I ask the nice Turkish man if we can get Augustiners to go or whether we had to stay and drink. And he said we could get them to go. Maybe I should mention it was a bar/lounge which was why I asked about that. Well, we walk up the stairs to find a lounge FULL of Turkish men. I am talking we were the ONLY FEMALES IN THE BUILDING. Haha. Which would have been no prob but two of the girls had to pee! So Morgan and I had to stand in this smoky (understatement) lounge full of all these turkish guys of all ages most of them old old old. And we were just like, "Ummm, we don't fit in...this is awkward". And they took FOREVER. Eventually, we had to go light a fire under them because we were tired of being gawked at. I mean everyone was perfectly nice and we were plenty safe....just so weird and awkward and I wanted out of there. haha. But a nice funny Europe memory to cherish right?

so back to Saturday...

we went to the English Garden which was so gorgeous!!! I definitely want to go back and spend more time there. But yeah we saw the Chinese Tower and all which was really nice. Then we went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner. Great fun! Two more girls from Morgan's university joined us and it was great fun listening to the oompah music from the band and watching all the old German men in their hats and lederhosen. :) Sadly, after dinner we had to head back to the train station to part ways with Morgan, Rachel, and Valerie because they had to catch that train back to good ol' Italia. BUT, I stayed a little longer and showed the other girls how to get to Frühlingsfest and rode a ride and hung out a while before taking a late train back home to Regensburg.

All in all a great time in München!

So on Monday and Tuesday I went to my Praktikum at the "Schule am Napoleanstein" for the second and third time. It was great! I actually am really enjoying my time there. And its ALL in German of course so thats always good practice. Except when sometimes Frau Elsner starts talking to me so fast and she thinks I understand, which most of the time I do, but there was a time yesterday that she talked for like 5 minutes and I got only about 40% of it....I just nodded along haha. But she is really nice to me. I am learning so much about German schools. I will make another post about that soon perhaps. I need to take pictures first!

Anyways, the Bradley family (for those of you who don't know that is where I live on the weekends during winterguard season...and it's amazing) sent me a package. And it was GREAT! Such a nice surprise!

AND TOMORROW............

Mom and Mike get here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!

I prolly won't write again till sometime next week.

~Bis dann! Tschüs!