There's a lot of German here... are you ready for that?

Leaving England was hard, but with the adventure of a lifetime before us and an entire semester of classes and classmates to meet, we pressed onward excited to meet Germany and its inhabitants. With two weeks of travel behind us, we felt almost like experts, except nothing was in English (first shock), the transportation was confusing (perhaps just the lack of English, second shock), who were all these people in leather shorts and why don't they speak English?? (Third shock). 

As we tried to cope with these shocks and many stops while being tired, we ended at the world-famous Munich Hofbräuhaus and had an amazing lunch of pig-knuckle. The restaurant atmosphere was complete with men in their lederhosen and women in their dirndls enjoying the live band with their beer steins in hand (and yes, they really are as big as you’ve always thought they were. Maybe bigger). At the restaurant, we made the mistake of sitting at a “regular’s” booth, which was quite rude of us. However, the regular whose table we happened to overtake was quite accommodating and helpful, even helping us properly cut our meat!  

First we thought this mus be the Hofbräuhaus then we realized it wasn't. ; )

Before we entered the Hofbräuhaus we met the first of many "living statues"

Everyone was so tired, even us despite the fact that we had been in the European time zone for two weeks (getting up at three doesn't help), that most of this day was a complete blur. Besides the tiredness factor, we weren’t trained for taking notes at every stop yet, so we have almost no idea what we saw that day, other than what we took photos of. Sorry "Coach."  : (

In the train station we were reminded to be as American as possible and drink Coca-Cola.  

After wandering around a bit more we headed to the train which would take us to our new home for the next three months, Regensburg.  It was a little strange walking up the bus station and knowing we would be seeing this place many many times over the next few months. We got a crash course in German of all the places we should know.  Did we remember them?  Not at all.  Admittedly, all the German words sounded the same to begin with. We got to the youth hostel that were our college barracks for the semester.  It was actually lovely.  Although a bit chilling to find out it was used during World War II as Hitler’s training building for his Nazi soldiers.  We were instructed in how the hostel worked; bedding, keys, washing machines, and dining hall.  After eating dinner we crashed.  

Sights of our new home city!

Our point of reference in the city: Dome St. Peter.  

Home.

Kelley invited us to attend a Catholic mass service at the local cathedral (the Dome St. Peter) which she would translate for us after. It was quite an experience, not being able to understand what was being said, trying to follow the rituals of the service when we didn't know what they were, and trying to stay awake from being tired from the previous day.  Of course we had it easy over the people who had just completed a transcontinental flight the day before. But we were a bit tired nonetheless :)

After the service, Kelley walked us around town for the “unofficial” town tour- mainly pointing out all the popular hangouts and coffee shops where previous Ambex groups liked to spend time. We headed back to the hostel for lunch then headed out to the town fair. Apparently they had a “thing” for America:

The Wild West Shooting gallery

The creepy guy...

Hollywood!  The pinnacle of American society.   ; )

The icing on the cake of the day, however, was a soccer game we were invited to watch by one of the hostel staff who was in the game. Ebo had no idea what entertainment the game provided us that afternoon! We found it quite hysterical that every injury, slight or otherwise, was accompanied by far more emotion and flailing than is ever seen in a sports game at home! This made it extremely obvious how much “sucking it up” is endorsed and encouraged on home turf. Whether or not it’s better to let the emotion out, it offered quite a few laughs for we Americans who were not expecting such displays!   

On Monday we started our Germany Geography and Culture class with our fearless leader "Coach."  In this class we learned about many cultural things that would better prepare us for the semester on German turf.  We learned everything from the geography of the land (mountain ranges, rivers, autobahns, states and major cities) to political parties (The Pirate Party? Really?) to gardening and everyday life events.  We finished up the day by taking a tour of the city learning about the history of the Roman Bridge which still stands today, the Dome St. Peter, and many other sites.  The best part was Coach treating us all to our first European gelatos :) A couple of days later, we went on another city tour that took us from the mini castle across the river, to the Thurn and Taxis Palace and a few other awesome sites along the way.

This is the oldest structure in Regensburg. 

The Roman Bridge

Oskar Schindler lived here for sometime.  

The next day we were planning to go on another historical tour, but it was raining.  So instead a group of the Ambexers (I, Jeanette was part of this group, Chelsea was not) decided to go bridge jumping.  We are still sure to this day that Kelley told us that we could go bridge jumping on one of the bridges over the Regen river.  Of course she claimed that the “you guys” she referred to meant the rest of the general population, not the “you guys” she was talking to right that moment. So being the adventurous group that we were, we took her up on that offer.  We did check to see that the river was deep enough.  I'm not sure why we did it when it was nearly raining, but whatever, it was so fun!  

To end the week we had a fun filled weekend.  Friday we donned our water wear for a canoe trip down a beautiful river in the German countryside after climbing around a beautiful fortress. After an awesome sack lunch at the fortress, we had our first taste of the beautiful German countryside as we walked to the canoe rental shop. It was like walking through Middle Earth from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  Our canoe rental was a quick and easy process- get a life jacket (hopefully one that fit ;)), get a boat, get an oar, get instructions on when to get out of the boat for waterfalls (sorta), take the boat to the river, get your picture taken and take off!  For about the first hour or so, it was a battle against the river (or the edges of the river more like) trying not to crash. We had a lovely time zig-zagging along. It would have been way too easy and fast to have just gone straight, so we took the more scenic route :) Or so we claim now.  Once we figured out our different strengths and the rhythm we needed, we did manage to straighten out for the most part and go a lot faster.  We stopped for a small break from canoeing, in which David, Earl (two classmates), and I (Jeanette) used a rope swing to take a fun jump or two into the river.  Back on the river cruise, Ken and Stephen, our two boat-mates, began to quote Monte Python which continued the wonderfully mirthful time of boating.  Especially when another boat, presumably one in our group was up ahead, and the quotations grew louder and louder by the moment ending in, "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!!"  Until we discovered the very confused German faces looking back at us.... and realized they definitely were not part of our group. Whoops. Then we somehow started rowing a whole lot faster. Until we realized... that was the end of our ride... right in front of them.  Even though it was kind of awkward, it was also one of the more hilarious parts of this weekend.  After about three hours of rowing down a beautiful river we had to load back onto the bus which would take us back to our home. It was an absolutely amazing, beautiful, fun, peaceful, and invigorating couple of hours! After which we were quite sore... but it was well worth it :)

The ruins of the fortress

Our first German castle was quite a treat, mostly because Walt Disney made it famous awhile before we were all born. He decided to have Sleeping Beauty live in this particular castle :) Ok, not this exact one, but one a lot like it just a bit more Disney-fied. Welcome to Neuschwanstein Castle in the Bavarian Alps! We learned about the history of Crazy King Ludwig and his "unfinished" castle.  Ludwig loved Wagner, the famous German opera composer,  and his operas and many of the rooms were dedicated to the stories of the operas.  The “mysterious” circumstances of his death were enough to arouse the interest of any mystery-lover, the castle itself was unique with its amazingly colorful interior and fanciful rooms (including a man-made completely indoor cave with five secret doors) and its geographical surroundings were enough to drop any one’s jaw. Complete with viewing bridge which was packed with hundreds of people causing it to move as everyone walked on it (which made Chelsea wish the bottom was made of glass and just made Jeanette nervous).  Of course Chelsea drew the line when Ken started talking about bridge jumping.

A scale model of the castle.

The crowded bridge- for this view  ¯

Our next group-wide field trip started with a beautiful ride up the Danube river heading toward the German hall of fame, Wahalla. Unfortunately, Jeanette missed out on this trip as she was sick from an evil döner.  But she wasn’t the only one :( Anna (a classmate) smashed her foot into one of the steps and cut it open, bleeding like a martyr. Unfortunately she couldn’t go up any more steps and had to head down to the boat. The rest of us climbed all the way up and thoroughly enjoyed the view from the top. Modeled after the Greek Parthenon, it was built by King Ludwig (Crazy King Ludwig’s predecessor) as a morale-booster for the entire country. Germans have struggled for centuries with their country’s image and purpose as simply a scattered group of small states and used simply as a battle ground for the larger, more powerful surrounding countries. Wahalla was meant to bring them together under a common pride for influential Germans of their time. When we went, it was under construction and full of scaffolding, but the building itself was stunning with a simply amazing view of the countryside and river directly in front and beneath the many steps leading up to the building.  

Til next time, 

-Chelsea and Jeanette

England was great! Will Germany be better?

On our way down to the next stop (Billericay), we had a few hours to spend in Edinburgh and decided to spend it climbing Arthur’s Seat- one of the beautiful hills in town that was also used as a filming location for The Chariots of Fire :) We had read somewhere that it would take a couple of hours to climb, but then heard somewhere else that it would take less than an hour. We decided to bank on the latter estimate and headed out to find the base of the mountain. Trekking around town with our backpacks on felt like Cardiff all over again- but we pressed on. After a few wrong turns (how hard can it be to find the bottom of a mountain? You’d be surprised), we came upon the trail and decided with the limited time and the apparent intensity of the hike that the first time estimate was probably more correct. It was disappointing, but the hill is now on our “To go back to” list!

Our next stop was Billericay, home to another family friend of Chelsea's and wonderful host! She welcomed us with open arms and wonderful food, which we enjoyed thoroughly. Our first tea time with her included an amazing dessert she referred to as Millionaire’s Tart.

The rest of our time with her that afternoon and the following day consisted mainly of homework and more wonderful food. Fish and Chips for dinner the following night made our trip to England complete in the food department :) She gave us a short tour of the city center (aka downtown), whose most important landmark is the building in which the original Mayflower pilgrims gathered before departing the country.

The next day was our last day in London and we enjoyed it by hitting one of the sites we didn’t get to on our first round through the city: the Sherlock Holmes museum!

It was really cool but also slightly confusing to be in such a realistic environment creating all surrounding completely fictitious characters! We saw his pipes, his fiddle, a bust of the man himself and his and Watson's rooms.

Following the museum, we tried to find the Churchill's Cabinet War and after getting the typical vague English directions from a few people, we finally found it. But alas, it was to no avail because we only had 45 minutes before our goal time to leave and the museum was more than we wanted to pay. I (Chelsea) was pretty disappointed, because I remembered going there with my parents on one of our previous two trips to London and loving it! But, yet another thing for our list to come back to. At this point, we headed back to our friend's flat that we had stayed with before our Scotland excursion. She was kind enough to keep our luggage while we were up there so we didn't have to lug it around with us. And she was letting us stay with her one more night before we headed out to meet our AMBEX group in Munich! We got the key to her flat from the neighbor and went in to start packing up the UK in our suitcases :)