Melanie, living la bonne vie en France!: Mon voyage en Allemagne!

Well, I’ll start out this entry with the sad news of the week: England beat France in rugby. I sort of knew that they had a fluke win against the All Blacks, but it was still disappointing. Tant pis, I’ll just have to find another ridiculous French pastime to get obsessed with.

In happier news, I went to Munich last weekend! Three of my good friends from school, Mary, Dakota, and Alice, are all studying German there for the entire year. So when I got restless a few weeks ago, it seemed only natural that I’d visit them and I’m so happy I did! I woke up at 5:45 am on Friday morning and barely caught my 6:54 train. Several hours later, I arrived in Munich! After a giddy reunion, we dropped off my stuff at Mary’s room, and went downtown where we ate some amazing tomato soup and caught up. After lunch, Mary and Dakota gave me a tour of Munich. It’s a gorgeous city. It’s amazing how (relatively) close Strasbourg and Munich are and how different the architecture is. Strasbourg has one huge Cathedral, but Munich has several smaller, phenomenal churches downtown. That night I met several of the other students studying with them and we went to two bars, one near the student city and one in downtown Munich.

Saturday morning, Mary and I slept in a bit. Around lunchtime, we met up with Dakota and the three of us went to the English Gardens, one of the largest public parks in Europe. It had a very different feeling than the carefully trimmed Orangerie of Strasbourg that I’m used to, but still very nice. We had some coffee at one of the many Beer Gardens within the park. I was sort of amazed to see so many locals with steins of beer at 1 pm, but I suppose that’s just a part of German culture. On the way back, we bought some bread and cheese and had a picnic in Studentenstadt, the area that all the students live in. After a somewhat lazy afternoon, we went to a local restaurant/bar and I had my first maß (big stein of beer). I must say, I’m a big fan of German food and beer, though I don’t know how anyone manages to stay skinny there. A few hours later, we took the subway downtown and met up with Hayden, one of Mary’s friends and two of his friends. We went to Skyline, a rather posh bar/dance club. It was pretty slow at first, but ended up being really fun. I’m always a fan of dancing. I ended up dancing with a Swiss guy named Marco, who went away when I told him I was from the US. Next time I’ll say I’m Canadian.

Yesterday, we lazed around in the morning and went downtown for pizza. We went back, sat around for a while, and then it was time to go to the train station. I arrived in Strasbourg last night around 9 pm and it was really refreshing to be surrounded with a language that I (kind of) know. Then I ran into Sarah and Mike on the tram on their way back from Baden-Baden, which was a fun surprise. All in all, I’m really happy that my first adventure outside of France went so well. I hadn’t even realized how much I’d missed Mary, Dakota and Alice until I saw them and felt very at home in the middle of a foreign country. I hadn’t actually seen Mary for more than a few hours since December, so it was phenomenal just to catch up and see the city I’d heard so much about (she went there for two years of high school). It was a very good trip.

Now I’m back in Strasbourg, chez moi, and just trying to make it through the week. With any luck, I’ll be going to Paris this weekend to see my parents and Amelia, though the transportation workers are holding a strike this Thursday. I really hope it doesn’t carry over into Friday, but there’s always a possibility. The French people really love their strikes… a month ago that would have really bothered me, but now I just sort of find it amusing. Maybe that means I’m finally adjusting? That’s probably a good sign.

So here are some random pictures from Munich. I don't know the names of a lot of the buildings, as most of them were in complicated German. They're pretty, though.