Oktoberfest: Day 1=Day of hats

There are a lot of crazy hats at Oktoberfest and on the Tuesday we went, I wanted to try them all!




Daniel's hat




Jorgens hat...stole it for about 6 hours hahah






Crazy lion hat!



I even put up with some obnoxious Americans to take a picture with this hat! :D



Bruna liked hats too!





Ok technically, this isn't a hat---but its still cool!

Oktoberfesting: Day 1

Okay. Let me say to start off that any one that tells you Oktobefest is a liar. Or more likely just plain un-fun. Oktoberfest is the greatest drunken party EVER. seriously. It's great because its just a mass group of people, from everywhere in the world, that just want to get drunk and become friends. You meet a lot of random crazy people and make tons of new friends---especially if your name is bruna or melissa. hahaha.

So, the first day we went was Tuesday. Which was awesome. Its cool because it is ALOT less crowded--i.e. you can get into any tent you want with out a wait.

So on the outside it sort of looks like a county fair ground. And then you go into massive tents to drink.

The weather wasn't too great but it was still cool.


So a lot of different breweries make beer for the Oktoberfest (aka Die Wiesn to the Bavarians), so they had all these cool decorated carts with big barrels of their beer. They were pulled by giant horses, though and Bruna and I nearly got run over hahah.





The first tent we went into was the Armbrustschützenzelt. Ha ha now thats a tongue twister.


There we met up with Torbjorn (my norwegian friend I met in Oz)!!! and also his other cool norwegian friends studying in Germany.







At the next tent though we got lost from the norwegians and met some crazy steel worker german dudes.

They were hilarious because they kept sayings things like this (in a very thick german accent): Vee vaaant youuu for vonne night! and Veee are hooorny. hahahahah

On the plus side: We got free beer and i got a cool light up heart necklace from them.

On the down side: I left my phone with them after we ran off, and had to track them down at the pizza hut at the hauptbahnhof. hahahah they weren't very happy that we ditched them either :D



Luckily, in the end we did meet up again with our lovely norwegians. Of course not before, Bruna fell down a couple times and bought sausages and popcorn. hahah





but we found them at last! And partied the night away :)

Urgh

Today hit me like a ton of bricks.

Although I drank a decent amount at Oktoberfest I was sober by the end of the night and was not hung over at all yesterday. But then today I woke up and thought huh I'm really hungry and nauseous (sometimes I am when i'm really hungry in the morning)...but then all day i've felt like crap and haven't been able to keep even water down. Only now, 1030 at night, have I started to feel okay.

Bruna tried to convince me i was either hungover (only a day delay you know ha ha) or have mono (definitely NOT TRUE). But I'm just hoping its some freak one day illness (possibly food poisioning, although bruna ate the same stuff as me and wasn't sick). Definitely need to get better for Oktoberfest again tommorrow!

I'm sure i'll wake up fine...or at least i hope...

Diet Doom

So, after careful consideration of our recent weight gain, both Bruna and I have decided to diet. We are using this diet we got from her sister, which was apparently made by a nutritionist.

Not trying to do anything too drastic, my goal is to lose 4-6 kilos, making me a little lighter than my normal weight. German food is REALLY good but also kind of unhealthy and fatty since its mostly bread, meat, and chocolate.

So the whole point of the diet is that you eat small portions but you eat every 3 hours.

Yesterday I ate:

Breakfast: cornflakes and milk

Lunch: two spoons of mashed potato, 2 peices of sliced turkey breast

Snack: 2 small apples

Dinner: 2 peices of toast with two slices of turkey

oh and a cup of a coffee (think that might be breaking the diet but it was also very necessary).

I was HUNGRY. seriously. I eat ALOT normally, especially since i've been in germany (too many good options for sweets). Both Bruna and I were starving.

Today I ate:

Breakfast: Cornflakes with milk. Plain yogurt (apparently this is very very gross--so sour, so i cheated and put a bit of jam in it too)

Lunch: Turky breast on toast sandwhich

Snack: 2 spoons mashed potatos, 1 1/2 cups of apple juice, wierd healthy crackers with tiny bit of cheese

Dinner: Chicken leg, salad (no dressing of course, just some vinagrette)

Snack: one nectarine, some carrots


Don't worry guys--I'm not going into dieting too hard--it's only a 15 day diet. And I'm going to break it a lot tommorrow anyway when I go to oktoberfest--since I'm going to drink a lot of beer (not exactly diet food eh) and have one big meal of german food, just because.

Nor am I positive we will be able to last the full 15 days. I can't even imagine how hard it is to a smoking or other types of drug addictions---since all I can think about is cheesburgers and chocolate cake :)

The Confusion Stage

So now that camp is over, I have to admit I am feeling like things are a bit surreal.

Camp was definitely its own enclosed world. It felt long and short at the same time. Although we definitely got on each others nerves at times, we had some great times as well.

Now i'm on to that scary part where I need a job and other grown up people stuff like a place to live etc.

Thankgoodness i met a nice host mom in Nurnberg (not even MY host mom actually, but she always lets people stay over so we spent a lot of weekend nights camping out there) who told me i should stay until i find a place/job which is a LIFE SAVER--since Oktoberfest has filled up all the hostels in Munich--not sure where i would go.

Currently I'm looking for a job in some sort of international/bilingual school, a job teaching english, a restaurant/bartending job, or if I really can't find anything else, an oper job.

I've had some interviews but nothing has really been that promising yet. Ideally i'd like to live in Munich, but since I'm staying 2 hours away from it, I'm having the timeing problem of needing to get a job and a place almost simultaneously. Today i'm going to Nurnberg with Bruna, they are having some fest or something, but she is also going to be my moral support while I try to apply to some bars/restaurants in Nurnberg. I'd prefer Munich because it is a more interesting city (although Nurnberg is cool too) and just because i haven't spent as much time there--its more new and exciting. But its easier in Nurnberg because i have a place to stay until i found a new place--thus alleviating the timing issue. Plus i'll have a friend to hang out with.

To be honest, at this point it would just be nice to get some source of income, since my euro savings from camp are starting to dwindle due to beer and dirndle purchases.

I'll definitely keep you all updated on my unemployment status

Lost in Translation

Living in Germany is fun, but I am definitely understanding the whole foreign-person-lost-in-a-strange-world phenomenom. My german has improved a bit, but only slightly i feel. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I have been spending the majority of my time around English speakers or pretending to not understand German around German kids (at least i could hear them speaking german tho).

I must admit I do get a bit nervous when i have to speak German to a real-life German--which of course makes my already sloppy pronunciation and giant accent even more uncomprehensible. To be fair, I don't always have problem (especially not when I've been drinking ha ha) but it is quite frustrating when it does happen.

Today when I was ordering a taxi was a classic example of this problem:

Me: Ich mochte ein Taxi vom 45 Dresdner (pronounced: DRES -like Fez with a D- DNER) Strasse zum Bahnhof (in English: I would a like a taxi from 45 Dresdner St. to the Train Station)

Taxi Phone Man: Ich hab die Strasse Name nicht verstanden (I didn't understand the street name)

Me: Dresdner Strasse

TPM: Heh?

Me: DRES-DNER STRASSE

TPM: Oh. Dresdner Strasse! (pronounced DRAY-SDENAIR)

Me Ja, Genau.

TPM: Und die Name?

Me: Melissa

TPM: Maussi?

Me: No. MEL-ISS-A.

TPM: Maussi?

Me: Ja. Gut genug. (English: yeah, good enough).

TPM: Okay es kommt gleich (okay, its coming soon).



GAH. It sucks not being understood because it makes you feel like an idiot. Everything is also much harder over the phone--sounds less clear or something. Hopefully I will be getting better soon, now that the majority of my english-speaking friends (actually friends in general :( are gone (thankfully i've still got Bruna!).

Even though this is a German-to-English problem, I have SO MUCH empathy for this guy.

An Austrian Went Yodelling...

Camp is officially over, which is sad because almost all of the cool people i met have jetted home or off onto european backpacking excursions. Also it really signals the end of summer--especially since the day after camp ended for good fall and freezing temperatures were ushered in. Thank goodness i brought a warm coat and boots, otherwise i would most certainly have frozen my California toes off by now. I definitely am missing September being the warmest month right about now.

Originally a few of us were going to go camping in the Black Forest but after finding out that not only would we only have 3 sleeping bags for 6 people but also that it would be about 6 degrees Celsius (ie. butt cold at night), we opted for an excursion in Austria.

We stayed the night in Salzburg and then got up the next morning to go to Haalstadt, a cute Austrian town on the river.

Some of us (ahem ahem Jenny and Gemma :) were still in the summer mindset and brought only flip flops along, so we made an emergency stop in a small town to buy some warm shoes.

Note the flip flops:


Also note my disbelief at how freakin' cold and rainy it is



Luckily the girls ended up finding some cheap shoes and I found some cool gloves for two euros---cool because they can transform into fingerless gloves too! And they fit my freakishly small hands---perfect!

We contemplated ear muffs but decided they weren't worth the hassle/how stupid they looked





But we did manage to make it to Haalstadt, and it was AMAZINGLY beautiful. I think the foggy/rainy weather added to its allure--very mysterious looking.









I also got really fascinated by some weird water sculptures around the river, my favorite being the dining room set just floating in the water.







We also went to this really cool cemetery there, which has this room of skulls. Apparently in the beggining they started putting peoples skulls in there and other large bones once they had been buried awhile, because they were running out of room in the cemetery. Then this guy would paint them with the name of the person and different pictures which symbolized different things like piety, courage, etc. Now you have to pay if you want to have yourself buried in the room--the last woman who did so died in 1985 and was put there in 93 or something. Not as eery as you would think---pretty cool looking actually--and the cemetery was stunning as well.











Afterwards, we went back to Salzburg and chilled at a cool beer hall.









The next day we went back to Neumarkt to chill, until all the others needed to head off. Definitely a nice way to end the summer--although i'll definitely miss everybody. But i've got job hunting and house hunting to distract me at least...