Abroad in Munich: 2012

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Fireworks

I spent my last evening in Munich with Oscar, Matt, Clement, and (tall) Christina at a concert at Olympiazentrum. I grabbed an applesauce, cinnamon, and sugar crepe for dinner, and then we went to the lake to listen to the band. It took us awhile to find Christina, but we were dancing and having fun the whole time. When the band was finished, we stayed for the fireworks. It was a very memorable night.

This summer was truly amazing and unforgettable. I'm so glad that I got to meet and spend time with everyone who was a part of the Finding Nano program. I feel so lucky knowing that now I have friends in countries all over the world who know me and care about me and who I might get to see again someday. I miss you all already. Munich is a beautiful city and I hope I get to go back one day. Overall, the places we visited were very memorable, but it's the little things I will remember most:

Hearing "Wo kann ich tanzen?" every night for the first week - How I never got tired of hearing U6 Richtung Garching-Forschungszentrum - The answer to every question: Das ist Gomez! - "You can't get stolen in Munich." - Ich bin heiß. Bist du heiß? - The greatest pick up line: Du hast schöne hande. - late night singalongs -
(Don't worry, I have my own syringe.) - The competition for Alpha male - Playing Circle of Death until
we ran out of things to say - People spilling wine on people - Watching soccer games in Biergartens -
Olga and the unnamed new soccer ball - Playing frisbee at every opportunity - Trying to celebrate the
4th of July in Germany - We're 4 minutes early? Monopoly deal! - Salsa dancing - Sprinting out of
Intercultural training - Late night hangouts with Claire <3 - Saving enough stickers to buy the pot that
we barely used - ...and I don't wanna miss Yuting.

Besitos!

Partnachklamm

Our last excursion was to Partnachklamm - an area with caves about an hour and a half from Munich. The trip turned out to be ok. First, we took an hour and a half train ride from Hauptbahnhof. On the train, we wrote goodbye messages to each other. We each had a piece of paper with our name on it, and we passed it around for everyone to sign (Thanks Hilson for the idea). Once we got off the train, we walked for maybe 45 minutes to reach the entrance to Partnachklamm. The caves weren't as exciting as I was expecting. It was along a river, and we just walked on a narrow pathway through a few caves in the side of the cliff. Walking to the end of the caves took a very short amount of time. Here is a little of what it looked like. In the top picture, you can see the pathway and caves on the left.

Once we walked through the caves, we had about an hour to walk around wherever we wanted and eat lunch. Unfortunately, it started raining pretty hard. We have a nice picture of four of us sitting on a (Mexican) plastic bag under our umbrellas to eat lunch.

Oscar, Me, Claire, and Clement eating lunch at Partnachklamm

Then we went back to meet the group to walk back, and we got a picture of all of us wearing our hoods.

We had to jog a little to catch the train, but we made it right on time. I enjoyed a nice nap on the way back. Once we got off the train, I gave my goodbye hugs to almost everyone - I still was going to see some people at a concert that night.

Farewell Day: German Class and Dinner

The last day of German class was for presentations and celebrating. We started by each reading the article we wrote in the class newspaper. Then the advanced German class had a few presentations prepared for us. First, they made a video to remember our trip. It was really good (besides the minor spelling error in Marienplatz). Next, we played jeopardy. There were a few questions that Claire and I quite enjoyed, such as "Wer ist das?" (Das ist Gomez!) and "What is Jess and Claire's favorite sport?" We were a little confused at the favorite sport question, both thinking it was soccer, but then we realized it was frisbee. Jeopardy was really fun, especially since the teachers and program directors got really into it. After the break, we played a few quality games led by our German class, including hangman, charades, and karaoke. Hangman was really funny since Dionysios used German words for myopia, racial discrimination, and fungal disease. Karaoke was also memorable singing 99 Luftballons, Europameister, and the Oktoberfest song and dance. It was a great way to end German class.

During the afternoon, Claire and I finished watching Twilight. Then a few of us tried to tour the 6 breweries of Munich. We only made it to two, and it was cold and rainy. Luckily Clement's cheesy pick up lines worked so well that I was able to share his umbrella :).

Finally, we had a farewell dinner at Paulaner, another brewery. All of the students, tutors, teachers, and program directors were there. The food was very good. Before the food got there, however, there were a few speeches. Corina started her speech with, "All good things come to an end." Then she gave us our transcripts - and we all passed! Professor Grayson also had a very memorable speech. At one point, he got very serious and said, "...Throughout this trip, I've learned that no matter where we're going, where we are in town, which visit we're headed to, the way to find where you're going is always to follow the bouncing Mexican." Everyone was laughing pretty hard after that.

The evening continued with lots of picture taking, dessert ordering, and drinking with program advisors and professors. We even got Professor Grayson to do the Nanokitty dance! It was a really great last dinner with everyone, and it was sad to say goodbye. Luckily, there was still one more day to see almost everyone.

Most of the group and tutors at Paulaner for the Farewell dinner

4/5 of the Kieferngarten Gang

Fountain in Munich (thanks Christina for the rain jacket!)

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Barbecue at the River Isar

Thursday after the test, we had a barbecue at the River Isar. We started with a trip to the grocery store to buy as much meat as we wanted (which makes a German style barbecue). As we were leaving, someone made a comment that we bought a regular lighter instead of a grill lighter. Jona, one of the tutors, replied to that with, "Here in Germany we are different from the rest. We burn our hands so that we know we are alive."

Once we got to the river, we had a long evening of eating meat, playing frisbee by the river, nanokitty dancing, playing the "pass the napkin" game, listening to tutors play the guitar, and hanging out with good friends. At one point, I went to a cafe to go to the bathroom, and I was able to have a whole conversation with the cashier in German!

After the barbecue, Claire and I had a girls night and watched....Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Good bonding time. :)

STUDY Abroad

The last week in Munich was a reminder that we were actually there for classes and not just to explore Germany. We had a few cover letters to write to companies that we visited. We had a presentation to prepare for nano class, an article to write for our German newspaper, and finals to study for in our German and Nano classes. It didn't help that everyone was exhausted from being so busy, and we were all sick. Anyway, we didn't get to go out for a few nights.

The German test on Wednesday was very easy. That left the rest of the day to study for Nano on Thursday. A few of us actually tried to go to the library, but it was so crowded that there were no seats. It was a late night, and Claire and I had a study party with pasta, croutons, and lots of coke. Half of the test was pretty fair, and half was really hard. Afterward, we were all excited because we had nothing left to do except enjoy our last few days in Germany.

Fun in Week 5

Week 5 was full of excursions. On Monday, we visited a Beer Garden in the Englischer Garten with a Chinese Tower. We met some students from a similar program at LMU and had a nice picnic.

On Tuesday, after an afternoon visit to GE, we had an excursion called, "Munich by Night." We went to the Tollwood Festival at Olympiazentrum and basically had access to free food all evening.

View from the top of the hill at Olympia. Tollwood Festival with Munich in the background

Olympiazentrum from the top of the hill

Waffle with chocolate and whipped cream. Yum.

I ate this yummy waffle, a strawberry smoothie, a chicken burrito, a German sweet bread pastry, and probably more. A few of us also walked around to lots of different shops. Then we all sat around and told jokes, and everyone loved my famous jokes :). It was a nice night.

Wednesday night was Yuting's Singaporean dinner. Yuting and Clement prepared a Singaporean dinner for everyone on the program, the tutors, and the teachers. Everything was so good! (Thanks again, Yuting and Clement!) A few of the dishes I remember were chicken rice, dumplings, and chicken skewers. Here is a picture of most of the group:

On Thursday afternoon, we went to the Oktoberfest Museum. It was pretty interesting learning about the history of beer. The building we were in was very old (from the 1400s?) and the doorways were really small. After the tour, we had a tasting of pretzels and beer.

That evening, we went to the Opera! We were seeing La Cenerentola (Cinderella). Unfortunately, our seats were awful. We had standing room at the very top balcony, and I could not see the stage at all from where I was standing. The singing was in Italian, and the subtitles were in German, so I really had no idea what was going on. We all left at intermission. We still took a fancy picture together though.

Finding Nano at the Opera

Opera house in Munich

On Saturday, we went boating down the River Isar. It was cold and rainy, and I had a sore throat. The river was nice though. It was about a 5 hour trip, with a break for lunch. Our boat was singing all the way down the river. At one point, we went right underneath a very low tree, and we all had to duck down into the boat.

Sunday morning, we visited the Pinakothek der Moderne, a modern art museum near the TUM campus. After that, we stopped for refreshments at a secret cafe on top of one of the campus buildings. We got to see a very nice view of Munich. The city is very flat since buildings are not allowed to be taller than the towers of the Frauenkirche. I ordered a white hot chocolate, and it was really cool because they give you a cup of white chocolate chips that you get to add in yourself. haha.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

More Barcelona

Day 3

On Saturday we got a much earlier start than on Friday. Our first stop was to walk to La Sagrada Familia, a very famous church that was also designed by Gaudí.

La Sagrada Familia. The architecture was incredibly detailed. The church is still unfinished.

I really loved the inside of the church. It was bright, beautiful, and modern. The inside was designed to be like a forest.

Some of the stained glass inside

The gospel on the doors

View of Barcelona from the top of the towers

La Sagrada Familia was very impressive. After spending a few hours at the church, it was time for lunch (more paella). Then the boys went off to the soccer stadium and a castle while Claire and I tacked the beach and shopping!

We dipped our feet in water and wrote TUM in the sand :). Then we sunbathed for about an hour. It was really hot.

After the beach, we decided to walk to La Rambla to go shopping! Unfortunately, we got lost on the way there. Fortunately, we found the Arc de Triomf! The arc was one of my favorite sights in Barcelona.

We eventually made it to La Rambla and hit up the shopping. However, even after many hours, we only bought one or two things. For dinner, we had more tapas and paella, but this time the restaurant ripped us off.

After dinner, we went to a "Magic Fountain." It was a huge fountain that was synchronized to lights and music. The area with the fountain was beautiful, and I really enjoyed the show. The show was probably my favorite thing in Barcelona.

The fountains were a nice end to a weekend in Barcelona.

Day 4

On Sunday, we woke up really early and left for the airport at 5 am. Most of us made it back on time :). As much as I enjoyed Barcelona, I missed Munich so much and was very happy to be back. When we got back to Munich, we really appreciated the cleanliness of everything, the nice trains, the responsible people, speaking German... Still, I am very glad that I was able to visit Barcelona.

¡Hola Barcelona!

Day 1

At the end of week 4, we had a three and a half day weekend to travel around Europe. I went to Barcelona, Spain, along with Claire, Jon, Matt, Andrew, Elsbeth, and Zahid. We left for the airport right after class on Thursday, and we got there so early that check-in wasn't even open yet. The only ways we entertained ourselves for a couple hours were watching Despicable Me and playing Monopoly Deal. Finally, we got on the small, cramped plane to Barcelona. I had a little trouble sleeping in the beginning, but ended up having a nice nap on the plane. We arrived in Barcelona around 20:00, then took the train to our hostel. I tried asking someone for directions in Spanish, but it turns out she was a tourist too, looking for the same hostel. The name of the hostel was Twentytu, and it was brand new and had just opened that week. It was nice and clean, but it was not in a very nice neighborhood.

Once we dropped our things off at the hostel, we went to a Tapas bar a few blocks from the hostel. We ordered lots of tapas - Pan con tomate (bread with tomato), nachos, and patatas bravas (potatoes) to name a few. The food was amazing. It was the best food I had eaten throughout the whole trip. After eating, I was very content. Then it was off to bed for a good night sleep.

Day 2

Friday was the first (and only) day I slept in for the whole trip. Claire and I moseyed out of bed around 10. The boys were not very happy with us for sleeping so late, so we sent them to the store for soap and towels. The hostel, though clean, had no soap. While they were out, Claire and I went searching for a Western Union. Finally, we set off for the city center. The first stop was lunch. This is what I ordered:

Jokes. Well, I did order these sardines, but only as part of a meal deal. My main course was vegetable paella, a famous Spanish dish of rice, vegetables, and sometimes fish or meat. The paella was so so good. Another one of the best meals I had in Europe. I also tried a lot of seafood that my friends ordered - calamari, cod, shrimp, sardines, and octopus. It actually wasn't too bad.

After lunch, we walked around Barcelona and went sightseeing. Our first main stop was St. Peter's Cathedral.

Me in front of St. Peter's Cathedral in my "Hoy es viernes" shirt :)

View of the inside of the cathedral

Then we got to walk on the roof of the church. The view of Barcelona was amazing. The city seemed huge.

More "Hoy es viernes"

There was a German flag flying in Spain :)

After coming down from the roof, we walked through a fountain/courtyard area.

We walked by more churches, and then walked down a famous shopping street, La Rambla, The street was very crowded with tourists. Then we saw several buildings designed by Gaudí. We didn't go into any of the museums, but the architecture was very cool.

Next, we took the train to Parque Güell, which was also designed by Gaudí. There were more impressive views of Barcelona and a lot of beautiful mosaics.