[Disclaimer- this post was written while I was still in Europe, and there it sat, sitting in my draft box, until now. What can I say...life got in the way! But here it is, freshly edited but nearly unchanged with the exception of an added bit at the very end. I hope you enjoy!]
Hey everyone! My, oh my…I don't even want to think about how long it's been since my last post. I'm happy to say, though, that I've been away for good reason- I've been busy having the time of my life! I now have several weeks to catch up on in terms of posts, but luckily this one will be relatively simple and (hopefully) fun! It'll mostly serve as a photodump/summary of the awesome things I got to do and see during my last week in Germany.
Of course, no post of mine would be complete without some amount of moaning, so at the end I'll talk about the utter nonsense that I went through trying to get an international phone. Hopefully those of you who are planning to do some traveling in the future can learn from my mind-numbingly frustrating experience- I'll provide you with the perfect example of what not to do.
Local Royalty and Weird Sex Paintings
One of the places I got to see while in Germany was the castle of Princess Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, locally known as Newcastle. It was really cool to learn about how influential Wilhelmine was in the history and development of the lovely city- she's essentially responsible for turning it into the fascinating and interesting place it is today! You go, Glen Coco! Aside from that, it was great to be able to just walk around and absorb the lovely architecture and grounds with my good friend Andrew. I love walking through old places and getting to imagine what they must have been like in the past.
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| Newcastle in Bayreuth |
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| A close-up of the fountain in front |
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| The grounds |
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| A pond in the gardens As beautiful as the castle was, the decor was a bit…shall I say…saucy. For example, there were a plethora of what I can only describe as renaissance-era S&M paintings. Andrew and I weren't quite sure how to react to these, but we had a blast trying to caption them! |
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| Adventurous lover or overgrown man child? |
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| We've all gone through that Emo phase |
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| #casualbeastiality / #mancrushmonday ? |
All in all, visiting Bayreuth Newcastle was a very interesting experience. There truly is something for everybody (and I mean everybody).
Oktoberfest: Dirndl Struggles and Drinking like a Manly Man
One of my absolute favorite experiences of my entire trip thus far was going to Oktoberfest in Munich. Attending this world-renowned sh*t show is on the bucket list of millions of people around the globe, but to be honest, it was never really something I cared about doing. That being said, I obviously jumped on the opportunity to go when it presented itself- who would say no to that?
Of course, being a spirited individual, I wanted to go all-out in terms of clothing. I will take literally any excuse to dress up, so I was super excited to wear one of the beautiful traditional German dresses (called dirndls). Now, good quality dirndls are a bit pricy to say the least, but luckily, Pia found one in her house that fit me! Well…kind of…I'm a bit more, shall we say, voluptuous in the chesticle region than than the original wearer, and it took at least two people to zip the top up (cue awkward turtle hands)! Poor Andrew…the morning of, he had to help stuff me like a sausage into a casing not once, but twice, because the first time ended up disastrous as soon as I tried to breathe. My fellow big chested ladies will feel my pain!
The struggle was so worth it though…I looked pretty freakin' cute, if I may say so myself!
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| Andrew and I with an Oktoberfest Horse |
The whole day was quite a spectacle. From the towering statues around the event to the roller coasters to the food, music, and of course the beers, the whole experience was larger than life. My favorite place to go at home is the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, and Oktoberfest was like the Boardwalk on serious steroids. The spirit environment is intoxicating in the best way possible! Perhaps the colossal steins of beer contributed to that sensation a bit as well...I swear Oktoberfest beer is stronger than any other beer ever. The Queen of the Lightweights (as I'm called by those nearest and dearest to me) had two steins, and I swear by the time I finished I could see sounds. It was an absolute blast!
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| Just look at this monstrosity |
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| Mani with the photobomb! |
I will never forget how much fun I had at Oktoberfest. For those of you who want to go, definitely find a way to get there at some point, and for those of you who don't…you're wrong. I cannot wait to go back!!
Nature! Yay!
The day before I left, my friend Dorothee took me to see the Franconian Swiss, which is one of the most beautiful natural landscapes in Germany. I love hiking and being in nature, and the weather was absolutely brilliant, so I was overjoyed to explore the picturesque scenery. We got to see caves, rivers, castles, churches, and of course lots and lots of greenery!
We worked up quite an appetite walking around all day, so we went to eat at a traditional German restaurant. I got spetzle, which is now one of my new favorite foods.
I also got to try something called frozen hot chocolate, which is essentially a hot chocolate float. Yes, it's exactly as good as it sounds!
Visiting the Franconian Swiss with my friends was the best way I could have possibly spent my last day in Germany…it was peaceful, quiet, and relaxing, with views that could calm the most tumultuous of souls.
Reminiscing on the Little Things
It's been a few weeks now since I've left Germany, and while I do wish I could go back and re-live my crazy fun experiences there, what I miss most about it are the things that I think I often taken for granted at home. I miss sitting around the table in the evenings with Dorothee and her family playing (or in my case, losing) Phase 10. I miss laughing with my friends every time something got lost in translation, or every time one of us completely butchered a word in the other's language. I miss waking up to newfound familiar faces and spending the days with friends who fell into my lap as though Fate herself had placed them there. And I miss the way the sun would set in Mistelbach, lighting the sky on fire in a way I've never seen before.
My International Phone Fiasco
When I left for Europe, my initial plan was to subscribe to an international phone service based in France that would connect me back home throughout the duration of my stay. I began my quest to find such a service basically as soon as I stepped foot off of the plane, and it didn't take me very long to find what I was looking for. My host father, however, was not on board with the idea at all. I'm not quite sure why, seeing as I was going to be paying for it myself, but nothing he did made much sense...I took his resistance to me being able to contact home as one of many red flags (consult previous posts for a recap of my hellish time in France).
After talking to my mom about this nonsense, we decided it would be best for me to purchase a SIM card from AT&T and have her ship it over to me. AT&T has a HUGE European presence, and they offered a phone plan for $50 that allowed unlimited texting and X amount of minutes from anywhere. The phone would simply connect to whatever local service was fastest wherever I happened to be. I could just slip the SIM card in my iPhone (which I brought with me), and my over controlling host father wouldn't be any the wiser! It was perfect! I bought my SIM card without much trouble, but of course, the hell had only just begun for me.
When France ended up falling through, it became even more imperative for me to have some method of communication, as I was to be traveling in the great unknown completely alone. Once I had made it to Germany in one piece, my mom and I determined that the best thing to do would be to express the SIM card to me at Pia's house. Simple enough, right?
Wrong.
First of all, three-day express shipping a tiny little SIM card cost my mom about $80. No, you're not hallucinating. 80. Eighty freaking dollars. We chalked it up as a necessary expense for my safety and her sanity. All would be well when the package was delivered to Pia's house!
But it never came.
Three days passed. Then four. Then five. Nothing. We were able to track it as far as New York, but after that, the paper trail went dark. We made calls to all of the local post offices, but to no avail. Eventually, we got word from one post office that they had received the package at first, but that they sent it to another post office because they couldn't read Pia's address. The good news- we located my SIM card! The bad news- it was over an hour away, and we found out at 3pm. On Saturday.
But, as usual, Andrew&Co. came to the rescue, and we flew to the post office as fast as the Autobahn would allow. FINALLY! I HAD MY SIM CARD! All of the hassle was over! Or so I thought.
Foolish.
At first, the card worked great! I was able to text and call and all was right with the world. However, after about five minutes, the service completely stopped. You can imagine the string of expletives that spouted from my mouth at this point. Between my mom and my investigative work over the next several hours, we were able to figure out that AT&T had halted service to the card because of "suspected fraud." The only way to clear it up was, of course, for the account holder (me) to call AT&T and resolve the issue. The obvious issue here, aside from the time difference, was that I didn't have a blasted phone to call from!
Over the next several days, not without a huge amount of frustration and tears, my mom and I worked our hardest to get service back to me. The company wouldn't talk to her because she wasn't the account holder, despite the fact that we had BOTH explained the situation (her via the phone, me via the internet). I was starting to seriously think that the situation was hopeless. But then I had a Jimmy Neutron-style brain blast! I remembered that Skype could be used to make phone calls! Of course it didn't work the first time, and I had to try several times before the connection was steady, but eventually, finally, it WORKED! I got my cell service back, and this time, after all the trouble, I finally got my happy ever after.
Now, I don't want you to walk away from this post scorning AT&T. Everyone I talked to was incredibly kind and seemed to genuinely have concern for my situation (I guess my mom had a less than pleasant experience, but I digress...). And, once I got the phone to work, it worked AMAZINGLY for the entirety of my time in Europe! It would literally connect to any network at any given time, giving me the fastest connection that was locally available, where ever locally happened to be at the time!
The moral of this story is simple. Plan ahead. The next time I go to Europe, I'll definitely be bringing an AT&T SIM, but I'll be purchasing it BEFORE my flight leaves, so it's ready to go upon my arrival. It's that simple! I hope that this story will stay poignant in your memory the next time you need to travel internationally. If only I had known!
Thank you as always for reading.
Hugs!
Hayley
