München

It's about time I started backtracking because I've really done a lot since coming here. On the Second of October the whole AIFS group had an outing to Munich. We took the train there, which was about a 2 hour ride. Had a small walking tour of the center of the city. And then we were left to our own devices.

On the right is the glockenspiel. We weren't lucky enough to see it in action, but our tour guide told us the story of what goes on. The top tier depicts a wedding scene, while the bottom is a battle between Bavarian and Anglo-Saxon knights.

We next wandered into the Englischer Garten, which is huge. I think we were told it's larger than Central Park in New York City. This was the first time I noticed that it's actually becoming fall here! But it made everything so much prettier. We stopped for refreshments at one of the many beer gardens within the park called Chinesischer Turm. Which is the lovely tower in the picture on the right. Since Oktoberfest was still going on I think everything was a little more over the top and crowded than it may be normally.

After that we headed over towards the Olympic stadium and I was surprised to find the BMW museum located right outside of the subway stop. Didn't get to spend much time there but they had the neatest blobs that moved around completely independent of each other. They also had scrolling messages on them, in German and English.

The Olympic stadium was kinda lackluster since we couldn't find a way to see more than what was left over of the swimming building. But it was still neat to be near it.

Some of the highlights of the day included getting to "ride" an expensive BMW motorcycle, a beautiful old Merry-Go-Round, and Call-A-Bikes.

For all Munich pictures head to Facebook or this link:
http://on.fb.me/ced12q

Highlight of the Day: Rooftops

As it turns more and more towards fall and winter I get more thankful for every warm sunny day that we get here. Today I enjoyed they day by spending sometime on our beautiful rooftop terrace doing my homework.

And not only is the terrace great, but the view out over the city is so beautiful.

Hope your day's as pretty as mine.

Highlight of the Day

Today we used our free day off to take a trip to the Hellbrunn Palace. Now, I'll tell all about it at a later date. But, the Highlight of the week was by far this:

Looks like a wooden unicorn. Funny little secret just discovered. That horn, is a REAL NARWHAL HORN!
Now for those of you who aren't familiar with narwhals here are a few handy reminders. Real and fake. 

 

 http://bit.ly/cLS8MR

I'll put up more about our adventure later. Until then enjoy these underwater unicorns.



Budapest is the Best

For my first weekend trip (and the first out of the program excluding Oktoberfest) me and 6 other girls got together and traveled to Budapest, Hungary.

We took a train, which was about a five or six hour ride. It was awesome, mostly because it was my first experience with European trains. We went on the OBB, which is Austria's train system, for the trip there. It was nice and clean and not too full, thankfully. Though it did arrive 10 mins late, and through the travel and after a 20 min "breakdown" we arrived just over an hour late in Budapest.

Since we pulled in so late (10pm) we just dealt with heading to and checking in at the hostel, showers, and sleep.
This was my delicious meal that I got made to order on the train ride. So delicious!
On or first full day in Budapest we grabbed a breakfast of pastries at a bakery nearby. We tried to go to the Synagogue, but it was the Sabbath, so only Hungarians were let in.

We then opted for a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour which we used for the entire day. It was great because it ran us by and let of get off at all the main tourist things to see in the city. With our ticket we also got an hour long boat tour on the Danube which we did at the end of the day.

Fisherman's Bastian was build in 1901 and was named because that part of the city was historically defended by the fisherman's guild. It was my favorite piece of architecture that we saw in Budapest.

 On our second day in the city we went to the great Synagogue, which happened to be just a few blocks from our hostel. It was beautiful. Some neat features were that inside there were a few details that usually only show up in Christian churches, like the cupola above the bema. And there was a pulpit on either side of the main floor area. These were added because of one of the local sects of Jews which only developed in the Hungary area were trying to slightly assimilate with the Catholics.

 Another feature was the number of holocaust memorials in the synagogue. The "garden" was filled with mass graves of the dead from the ghetto who were storied there until Budapest was liberated and then were buried there. All the headstones around the mass graves mark those that are buried there, and later those locals that were known to have died during the Holocaust. For the 20th anniversary of the liberation of the ghetto they planted the trees and ivy over the graves.

This Tree of Life is a memorial to all Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust. Each of their names are engraved on a leaf. It was such a moving place. The also had memorials to those non-Jews who risked their lives to help save their Jewish neighbors, friends, or even complete strangers.

 I also dragged the whole group to this super cool "ruin" bar that was in one of the girl's guidebooks. We went on Sunday at 5pm so it was pretty empty, but that just meant it was easier to get good pictures. I really loved it, so unique. If it wasn't such a rainy day I would have sat in the outside back courtyard, but instead I wandered through the two inside levels.

 Overall the city was Amazing! I really loved it. I'm hoping that at some point in my life I'll have the opportunity to return and live there for an extended period of time.

For all of  the pictures I took while in Budapest find them on Facebook or through this link: http://bit.ly/b1OoXV

Football

I've always heard that Football(soccer for those of you who aren't hip and European :p) is much more popular in Europe compared to America.  My main experience with soccer was the few times I went to my little brother's soccer game, which was eight or ten years ago. Beyond that, even when my friends were watching the world cup this summer I don't think I saw more than 10 mins total. But when we'd been here for less than a week and Manchester City was here to play against the local Salzburg team, I decided I had to go.

Let's start with this. Manchester fans are crazy. We all piled into a bus with a ton of them as well. It took us 10 minutes or more for them just to get the bus doors closed so we could get moving. And the whole time the City fans were yelling and chanting and banging on the ceiling. Their chants ranged from just repetitions of "City, Manchester City" to really lewd ones. Possibly my favorite one they sang is below:

On away days, my girlfriend says

"Stay in bed and I'll give you head"
Sorry Love, I must refuse,

I'm off to see the Mighty Blues!

34 Years and we're still here
34 Years and we're still here
34 Years and we're still here

Lewd, right? But so funny. And so, about 10 mins(walking) from the stadium the bus broke down, I'm guessing from too many people. So we all had to walk the rest of the way, and the guys in front of us for some reason were singing Taylor Swift "Love Song" over and over again.

The actual game was pretty cool. We got student tickets and spent the first half standing at the back of all the crowds in the student section, but at half time we sneaked our way down to second row goal side. And that was amazing. Since the Salzburg team is sponsored by Red Bull we all got cardboard that was made to be folded into fans to be used as noise makers with large Red Bull Salzburg logo's on them. I didn't bring my camera but here are a few pictures others took at the game.

    

All photo's c/o Michelle M.

London Tour Part 2

Walked past the Tower of London, but again, they wanted an arm, a leg, or a head, for entry. Though, this green area around the tower used to be a moat! And on the left is Tower Bridge as we walked across it. Lower left is another view of the Thames festival from across the river.

    

    

We were dropped off for lunch at Covet Gardens(above right). It was a great array of shops, food, people and street performers. After a delicious sandwich and tomato soup we walked down to Trafalgar square.

      

There were no pictures allowed but we did also wander through the free galleries at the Tate Modern. Which were very cool, if not a little too modern for my enjoyment.

      

London Bridge opening. More street performers and a beautiful covered plaza at the Thames festival, and Millenium bridge (aka: the one in the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

And, speaking of Harry Potter, I of course had to make it down to Platform 9 3/4. Finding it was tough though. We followed the book's directions, but to start with there is no pedestrian area between platforms 9 and 10. Secondly, there is a lot of construction currently going on those platforms. So, I finally found someone to point me in the right direction, ignoring Brian & Jess telling me to give up. But, sadly, it's located off of platform 8.

    

Then there's also the super steep escalators of the tube stations. And a beautiful gate: I don't know what it is about Europe but they have unicorns everywhere.

    

So London was great! ALL of the pictures I took while there can be found on Facebook, or through this link if you don't have a facebook: http://bit.ly/daDfWh
*photo of my taken by Jess