Munich, Germany

I got to go to Oktoberfest!!!!

We arrived in Munich on Friday afternoon and went straight to the Hofbrauhaus. I had the best meal to date since arriving in Europe. Spoiler alert: the French aren’t very good with food except for bread, milk products and pastries. I had pork with potatoes au gratin and steamed vegetables… yum! Oh, and a liter of beer… One of my friends ordered “original” beers for our table. I was quite surprised when the waiter came to the table caring liter steins of beer. It was delicious beer though!

My meal at the Hofbrauhaus

Later that night, we went to the fairgrounds in Theresienwiese lawn. I was awestruck. What they call “tents” are really like huge buildings that just happen to have a canvas room. Each tent seats thousands and thousands of people. Many of them also have more than one level. There are also tons of roller coaster rides, carnival games and even a huge ferris wheel! Needless to say, I was very excited to come back in the morning and spend the whole day there.

The next morning we woke up at like 6:00 am to get to Oktoberfest at around 7:30 am. People start to line up to get into tents even earlier than that. Basically, you wait in line to get into the tent that you want. Then the tents doors open at 9:00 am where people flood in and start drinking beer! Unfortunately, we were running kind of late so we didn’t get a table on the ground floor, but we got one on the balcony and eventually made our way down. The way that you’re supposed to do Oktoberfest is by staying in your tent all day drinking beer and ordering the food that they have there. For some reason, my friends and I decided to leave the tent to explore the fairgrounds again. This was a terrible idea seeing as though we couldn’t get back into any tents after that. Instead, we walked around, got food from the food trucks and took in the sites. Later that night, we were able to sneak back into a different tent with some Germans that we met. The Germans are awesome and they all speak English! Plus, everyone looks better in dirndl and lederhosen 😉 Oktoberfest was a great time and I definitely hope to be back at some point in my life.

Bright and early!

The view from our table

Finally on the ground floor with my friend, Renata!

On Sunday, we did some sightseeing of Munich. We went to the BMW museum and saw the Olympic stadium. Unfortunately, we had to leave pretty early in the afternoon because it was a long 6 hour train ride back to Metz.

Olympic stadium with the BMW headquarters in the background

PARIS, FRANCE

Paris, Je t’aime.

My first glimpse of Le Tour Eiffel!

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend the weekend in Paris with my grandparents!! Before I ever made the decision to study abroad, they happened to have reserved a cruise through France that ended in Paris. Being only a little over an hour outside of Paris, it was so easy to go and see them. Plus, who wouldn’t want to go to Paris?

Being a typical tourist with Le Louvre 🙂

I spent Saturday afternoon exploring Paris on my own, checking out the Le Tour Eiffel and Le Louvre. My grandparents already had a tour of Versailles scheduled. However, I got to meet up with them that evening. It was just my birthday, so they came bearing gifts of wine from the Burgundy region of France (Shh.. don’t tell my parents 😉 and chocolate. We had a lovely dinner where I got to try escargot for the first time! Unfortunately, my phone had died and I forgot my camera, so I don’t have any pictures to show for it. After dinner, we walked back to their hotel past the Seine river and saw the Eiffel Tower light up at night… so sparkly!

Sparklyyy

On Sunday, we went to Le Louvre. That place is huge!! I think there are over 100 rooms on each floor and 5 floors in total. I heard some statistic that it would take you days to see everything in the entire museum. Of course, we saw the Mona Lisa, but only after pushing our way through lots and lots of tourists. I took a picture of the tourists for fun. Afterwards, we went to go see La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (The Notre Dame Cathedral): very big and very old! Finally, we went on a riverboat tour of La Seine. We got very luck that it didn’t rain while we were on the boat. It had been on-and-off raining all day. It was nice to sit down and see all of the sites.

My grandparents and me in front of Le Louvre

La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

I had a wonderful weekend in Paris and was so lucky to have been able to spend it with my grandparents. I had no idea that they had never been to France or Paris before that trip. I felt so honored to be able to join them for that! I will be back to Paris soon.

Interlaken, Switzerland

Lake Lodge Hostel!

Welcome to the city of outdoor adventure! I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful and fun place to spend my 20th birthday. We finally arrived in Interlaken at around noon on Friday after getting on our first train at 6:30 am in Metz. It took us 5 1/2 hours and 2 different train transfers in both Strasbourg, France and Basel, Switzerland. Thankfully, I have mastered the art of sleeping on trains, so I felt pretty rested upon arriving into Interlaken. On the train we got our first views of how absolutely stunning Switzerland and specifically, Interlaken are. I knew that it would be beautiful from pictures that I had seen online, but I still wasn’t prepared for how truly spectacular it is. I have never seen water this turquoise before in my life.

Our own private balcony!

The hostel that we were staying at, called “Lake Lodge” was located 20 minutes outside of Interlaken in the town of Iseltwald on Lake Brienz. This was my favorite hostel so far. It was an adorable Swiss Chalet. My girl friends and I were super lucky because we chose to stay in a 4 bed private room. This room had a balcony with an amazing view of the lake. The other boys weren’t as lucky. They chose to stay in a dorm and the only thing separating the mattresses were 3×5 pieces of wood.

Iseltwald, Switzerland

We spent the beginning part of the afternoon exploring our tiny little town of Iseltwald. We were all pretty awestruck by Switzerland and wanted to take all of it in. I wouldn’t even really consider Isetlwald as a city. It’s more of a small town outside of Interlaken. There are a couple hotels and a a handful of houses, but there isn’t even a full grocery store here. Nonetheless, it was still fun to walk around. There is a play structure in the middle of this town with all sorts of fun things that we dont really have in America. As college student, we probably had more fun that we should have at the play structure, but I don’t think any of us were complaining.

Jungfrau Marathon

After hanging out in Iseltwald, we decided to take the bus back into Interlaken and explore that area. We were very surprised to see almost all of the city shut down. We didn’t realize, but one of the most famous marathons, the Jungfrau Marathon was taking place in Interlaken that weekend. The marathon was on Saturday, but on Friday there were lots of children fun runs and shorter races going on. It was very fun to be in that environment. There were tents and kiosks set up everywhere selling food and beer. I had my first Bratwurst from one of those tents for only 6 CHF!!! So cheap for Switzerland where everything is unbelievably expensive. We did more window shopping and obviously ate some Swiss chocolate. On one of the stores, it said “A dark chocolate a day keeps the doctor away.” I loved that!! We headed back early to Iseltwald on the bus because all of us had long days planned on Saturday.

Brienzer Rothorn Hiking Group

All of us split up on Saturday to do different activities in and around Interlaken. One group decided to stay in Iseltwald and rent kayaks from our hostel to paddle around Lake Brienz. Another group decided to take a train away from the two lakes in Interlaken to a town called Grindelwald and do some hiking in that area. I decided to go with a group on the Brienzer Rothorn hike. This hike started out of the town of Brienz which is on the opposite side of Lake Brienz from Iseltwald. We took the bus into Interlaken and then the train from Interlaken to Brienz. This took us about 40 minutes or so total, so not too bad. The hike that we decided on follows the same path as the Brienzer Rothorn Bahn railroad that takes people up to the top of one of the mountains surrounding Interlaken. Of course, we decided to save money and get (LOTS) of exercise by doing the hike instead.

We started way down there in Brienz!!

This was the most grueling hike that I have every been on. I would say that I do have experience with hiking. I grew up in California with parents who love camping so much that we own a camper trailer. This hike was unlike any other I have ever done before. I am used to climbing up a mountain with switchbacks and at least some up and down sections even if it is mainly uphill. I am not kidding when I say that this hike was just straight up the mountain. What’s even more surprising was that this trail was on a road that cars use for a lot of the time. I don’t understand how cars are able to go up and down this road. I’m not sure how often they actually do. There was lots of either horse or cow or donkey poop on the road, so it looked like maybe driving wasn’t the main form of transportation. It took us around 3 hours to get to the top of the mountain and we only got half of the way that the railroad would take us.

We arrived at the tiniest little town of Planalp at the end of our hike. I don’t understand how people survive here, especially in the winter. I don’t think that they are self-sufficient because I didn’t see any farming, but there were lots and lots of cows. I could constantly hear the sound of cow bells around me and then echoing off the mountain from other cows. I was so happy to reach the top and sit down and enjoy our lunch. We had probably the best view that I have ever seen in my entire life (well, before I went paragliding :)). Interlaken is so famous because it is quite unusual to have two lake situated so close together with a river connecting them. From way up on top of that mountain, we were able to catch a glimpse of both lakes, Lake Brienz and Lake Thun, with the city of Interlaken positioned in the middle. The views from up top of that mountain were definitely worth the exhausting hike.

Some of the cows with the beautiful view

Planalp

The Brienzer Rothorn Bahn Railroad

It has a restaurant and bar!

The view away from the lake

The view with both lakes!!

Iseltwald, where our hostel is, from our hike

Moo!

The hike took us around 5 1/2 hours total. We only covered around 6 miles in distance but 0.5 miles in elevation. Aftwerwards, we decided to reward ourselves with some gelato, of course, and a relaxing ferry ride back into Iseltwald. The views from the ferry were also unbelieable. I have just decided that Interlaken in the most beautiful place in the world and this is coming from a girl who has been to both Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe. My dad was very surprised when I said this, but I stand my ground!

Views from the Ferry!

After arriving back in Iseltwald, we hung out for a bit. My friend Anna and I were already sore from the hike that we only finished 1 hour before!! Needless to say, I was sore for a few days after that hike. It felt amazing to lie down for a little while. My friend, Olu had been tracking our hike and it said we burned over 2,000 calories!! So yeah, I was exhausted. I took the most amazing shower since being in Europe. I don’t know if it was because I was so exhausted and dirty from the hike (it rained the night before, so there was lots of mud) or if it was just because I hate my shower in Metz, but it was fantastic. I would have never expected a hostel to have such an amazing shower. While on the subject of this hostel, let me just say that this is the best hostel ever. It was the cleanest, had the best breakfast and had lots of provided activities. I was very happy with our hostel choice even though it was a little ways out of Interlaken. It proved to be no big deal because the hotel gave us free bus passes.

Swiss Cheese Fondue!

All 13 of my friends decided to go out to dinner on Saturday for my birthday. It was so nice of everybody to hang out and celebrate with me. We went to a restaurant and bar that our hostel receptionist recommended to us. It worked out perfectly and we even saw her there as we were finishing up! I just ended up having grilled chicken, but I was a little disappointed because it was so salty. However, the general consensus among most people was that the meal was too salty. We did, however, get to try Swiss Cheese Fondue!! It was very delicious. However, as a girl used to her Tex Mex Queso, it was very different. Still very good though. After our dinner, we went on a pub crawl around Interlaken. This took us to 3 different bars and 1 club. The first bar also happened to be the same place where we had dinner. Interlaken is not a very big place. It was really fun and a great way to meet other young people in Interlaken. I think the best part was the club at the end, which was in the bottom of one of the youth hostels in town. They were playing American music from 1-2 years ago, so it was fun to listen to some throwback music that we hadn’t heard in a while. We called it an earlyish night again, because we were all paragliding early in the morning!!!!

On Sunday morning (my actual birthday!!!), I went paragliding. Thank you so much to my parents for this amazing birthday present. This is by far the coolest thing that I have ever done. We drove 15-20 minutes up to the top of one of the mountains around Lake Thun. We then walked to what looked like someone’s backyard. There waiting for us were all of the parachutes lined up on the grassy hill one after another. My tandem paraglider, Anders, strapped me into my harness and said we were all ready to go. I even got to attach my digital camera into the harness so that I could use it when we were up in the air. When we were all ready to go, Anders told me to just start running down the hill. This was the only time where I started to get nervous. We ran down the hill and all of a sudden, our parachute caught wind and we were flying off the mountain. That was the most amazing experience that I have ever had. We were legitimately flying and floating through the sky. We went through clouds and right next to cliffs. It was so fun. My guide, Anders had a Go Pro camera attached to the end of a stick so he took lots of pictures and videos of us up in the air. I have included some of the pictures here and will upload the video later. When we were landing, he told me to hold the Go Pro. I was like “You really trust me not to drop this thing?”. Well, I didn’t drop it so I guess that was good. The landing was so simple! I felt silly. You literally just have your feet touch the ground and take a couple steps. Well, at least that’s what you’re supposed to do and what Anders did. I was a little more hesitant and just decided to stand there and plop my butt on the ground. Oh well.. it seemed like all of my friends were doing the same thing.

Parachutes ready to go!

Pre takeoff selfie wih Anders

I’M FLYING

Another paraglider with a view of Lake Brienz

Interlaken form up above

Just hanging

After a long morning with paragliding, we all went and got pizza at a place nearby. All of us had an entire 12″ pizza to ourselves. It was so very delicious. Then, my two girl friends gave me macaroons on my birthday. It was so nice and I ate them all on Sunday :o. They were so good!!! We took the train back to Metz and arrived around 8 pm. I was able to talk to my family for just a tiny bit. The internet connection is terrible on my dorm and especially on Sunday when everyone is returning from trips. I had a great birthday in Interlaken, but birthdays are never quite the same away from home. My family does an awesome job with birthdays.

Me and my pizza!!

FaceTime with the Family!

Brussels, Belgium

Next stop on our weekend tour of Belgium… Brussels! From Bruges to Brussels it was a complete 180. As stated in the Brussels tour map that we had: “Brussels is ugly, but we love it!” Again, we immediately went to our hostel, which was about 10 minutes outside of the main city center by Metro.

The Art Museum Square

I decided to go to the René Magritte Art Museum with about half of our group. It was located in a square with many other museums. I had never heard of the artist before, but he has done many famous paintings including “The Treachery of Images”, “The Son of Man” and countless others. I knew about “The Treachery of Images” from a book that I read this summer where the main character was wearing a shirt that said ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ or ‘This is not a pipe’. I have never been one for many different art museums… I’m usually not artsy enough for that sort of thing haha. However, I found his artwork very interesting. Everything seemed to have some sort of hidden meaning. All of the paintings were expertly done and of such ordinary images made confusing and interesting. It really enjoyed it.

Another square with the parade in the background

Next stop… more Belgian waffles with an excellent view of a parade that was going on. Unknowingly, we decided to travel to Belgium during “Belgian Beer Weekend”. This meant that there were tons and tons of people there. It was quite overwhelming being in so many crowds. I kept clutching my purse since GTL told us that crime was on the rise in Brussels.

From here, we decided to walk into the Grand Place, or the main square in Brussels. It was so beautiful and overwhelming. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fully see the beauty of all of it. There were hundreds of tents set up in the middle for the Belgian Beer Weekend. Every tent was selling all different types of Belgian beers.

Next, we went to the Cathedral to meet up with the rest of our friends who had decided to go to the Atomium instead of the museum. This place was massive!!! It was also really cool to go inside because there was an actual service going on.

The Cathedral in Brussels

View from the inside

Finally, we went to the Manneken Pis, or Peeing Boy statue. It was much less impressive than I thought it would be. I had originally thought it was going to be some massive statue of a boy peeing. However, it turned out to be really tiny. There were so many tourists crowding around it trying to get a picture or a selfie with it. I decided to just take my picture and walk away. Like I said previously, all of the crowds were scaring me.

Manneken Pis

Dinner time!!! My friend and I ordered Moules Frites, aka Mussels in Brussels that also come with fries!!!! It was delicious but not nearly filling enough so we split that and a Croque Monsieur, aka grilled ham and cheese. We also got some Belgian Hot Chocolate for dessert. It was so yummy. I felt so European sitting outside eating my dinner. Although, I felt like a cheap American when I got charged 2,50€ for a tiny bottle of water… oh well!

Mussels in Brussels!!

Last but certainly not least, my friends and I went to Delirium Village! This place is one of the most popular bars in Europe, if not the world. They have set a world record for the largest number of beers sold: over 2,000!! I only ended up trying two of them but they were quite good. The atmosphere of the whole place is really cool. It’s situated in a dead-end ally with multiple different bars owned by Delirium on both sides of the street. There was a 3 story beer bar, a tequila bar, a vodka bar and a rum bar. It was super fun and a great atmosphere! There were so many different people there from so many different cultures.

Delirium Village!

Successful first weekend trip in the books!!

Bruges, Belgium

First weekend trip using my Eurail pass!! For anyone who doesn’t know, the Eurail pass is a 3 month train pass that I have to use on 26 different countries in Europe. Essentially, I get to travel unlimited on non-reservation trains throughout Europe! These passes are so awesome because everyone at GTL travels almost every weekend to cities and countries all over Europe, especially because we have no classes on Fridays. My first stop was Belgium: land of waffles, chocolate, fries and beer. We stayed in Bruges on Friday night and then Brussels on Saturday night.

The train rides were about 4-5 hours total, so definitely not too bad. Our first stop in Bruges was the first hostel that I would ever stay at!! We had a little trouble finding it and ended up having to ask some other travelers where it was, but thankfully they spoke English. I took a couple different pictures of the place. It was really cool and had this old-time aura, like most of Bruges.

St. Christopher’s Hostel in Bruges

My friend Carolyn in our beds!

The other beds in our room, also with GTL people

Oyya Belgian Waffles!

Next, we attempted to go on a walking tour of Belgium, but were just too hungry after still not eating since 7 am when we got on the train. We ended up awkwardly ditching the walking tour for more important things… like Belgian waffles!!!! Wow. Those things are heavenly. The Belgian waffles in America just don’t even come close to comparing. We quickly realized that it was because the Belgians use magical dough with sugar chunks to cook their waffles instead of a batter like many Americans do. I really don’t think I can ever have another “Belgian waffle” in America ever again.

After the Belgian waffles, we walked around the city of Bruges for a while. It feels like a completely different decade. Everything looks very Medieval and there are horse-drawn carriages everywhere!

Main Square in Bruges

A cathedral… probably?

We decided to take a 30-minute canal tour of Bruges. Bruges used to be a port city and there are multiple canals running throughout the entire city. It was all very beautiful and we got to see many monuments. Unfortunately, we were sitting near the back of the boat right next to the motor. With both the food coma from Belgian waffles and the lulling of the motor, a bunch of us kept almost falling asleep. It didn’t help that our tour guide kept switching off between English and Dutch. It was still really cool though!

Before we started to fall asleep 🙂

Canal tour!

CHOCOLATE ❤

Then we walked around and did some shopping… obviously for chocolate. There were so many chocolatiers everywhere! We went into almost every single one one of the streets connecting the two main squares. It was great because almost every one gave us free samples. I didn’t even have to buy any chocolates to have the deliciousness that is Belgian chocolate. Of course, I obviously couldn’t resist the temptation and ended up buying some for myself. They were soooo yummy!

After dessert as our appetizers, we decided to get some real dinner of… French Fries! French Fries really shouldn’t be called French Fries because they actually originated in Belgium. There are French Fry stands everywhere, except they call them “Frites”. I had Frites and sausage for dinner. It was quite delicious!

The Belfry tower!!

Finally, we went back to our hostel (and back to Wifi ;)) after a long day of traveling and exploring! I was so exhausted that I just passed out. Unfortunately, there was a bar on the main floor of the hostel so people were super loud and noisy until the wee hours of the morning. It also didn’t help that we were on the top floor and had to leave our window open at night because it was so hot. It didn’t really bother me though because I was so tired. However, I know some of my friends had trouble sleeping because of screaming and loud music.

On Saturday morning, we got up early to hike up to the top of the Belfy clock tower! All 366 spiral staircase steps of it!!! That was definitely my workout for the day, as if walking around wasn’t enough. This tower has many different bells to regulate the lives of the people back in the day. From the top, we were able to have an amazing view of the entire city of Bruges. It was so beautiful and well worth the trek.

After that, we headed to the train station and off on our way to Brussels!! I did stop for a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. Hehe, I figured it was going to be the only Starbucks that I would see during the season.

The view from up above!

Another view!