Week 6: Oktoberfest und Bayern!

So far it has been a little over 2 weeks since my last post, which makes it a total of 6 weeks since I have been in Germany. I can’tbelieve that I have already been here for over a month now and winter is rapidly approaching . Time goes by so fast when you’re having fun!! Right now the temperature in Freiburg has dropped heavily and it really feels like winter. It’s gotten so cold now that I’ve had to wear my winter coat all week long.

Well a lot has happened since my last post. During the first week of October a few friends and I decided to do a little road trip to Bavaria, which I had never visited before. We decided to rent a car because the trains in Germany are ridiculously expensive. We were so glad that we chose to rent a car because we saved so much money and had an awesome time driving on the Autobahn and just being able to pick up and go whenever we wanted. The first day of our we trip we went to Munich, which was about a 4 hour drive from Freiburg. When we got to Munich we first checked into our hotel and then went straight to Oktoberfest. We were very lucky the day that we went because we were able to get into 4 different tents within 3 hours. The atmosphere in the tents was just amazing and the food and beer were incredible. My favorite beer ended up being Spaten, which I honestly had never heard of before. I ended up have 3 Mass of Beer in less than 3 hours which wasn’t very much compared to how much my buddies drank. They ended up drinking 5-6 Mass within 3 hours and you could see how things didn’t go too well for my friends after that. I ended up having to carry one of my friends back to the hotel, which was an experience I will not forget. The next day the thought of drinking Beer didn’t sound so great to my friends, so we decided to just tour around Munich and see the sights. Munich is an amazing city and Iespecially enjoyed the several large parks that we walked through.

The next day of our trip we left in the evening  to go to the small city of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which is only about 1.5 hours from Munich and surrounded by mountains. We first went to our youth hostel to check in and discovered that we were nearly the only customers in the entire YHA. So it was really  nice and enjoyable to have nearly the whole place to ourselves. The next day we walked around Garmisch and then went to the Erbsee which is right below the Zugspitze, which is Germany’s tallest mountain. The Erbsee was bright green and you could see beautiful mountains in the foreground. After our walk around the Erbsee we took the cable car all the way to the top of the Zugspitze. It was an absolutely incredible view from the top and we were even able to take another cable car down to parts of a glacier. The Zugspitze in my opinion was the highlight of the trip and the view was one that I will never forgot. On the last day of our trip we decided to drive to Füssen which is the home of the famous Neuschwanstein castle. I’ve always wanted to see the castle so I was really excited to get the chance. But unfortunately Neuschwanstein was being renovated at the time so the awesome pictures I was expecting to take weren’t near as nice with white constriction tarps all along side the castle. But it was still an incredible view of the castle nestled in between the mountains and it was great to actually be able to go inside the castle ans see the different rooms and floors. After our tour of the castle we headed back on our 5 hour journey to Freiburg. I was really excited to get back to my new home and just relax in my room.

Tomorrow I will be traveling to Dortmund to visit a friend of mine and then I’ll be coming back on Sunday before my classes begin on Monday. I signed up this week for 3 German literature courses and then 3 German language courses. So I’m a little excited and also nervous to see how my classes are going to be and how much work is going to be involved. I was really bummed to find out that the DAAD Undergrad Seminar in Bonn is on the same day as of one of my classes in which I have to take a placement test. So I won’t be able to attend the seminar. I really wish it wasn’t during school, but I guess there’s not much I can do about it. Well that’s about all I have to update you on and the next update you will see from me will be in my second week of classes. Bis dann!!

-Jansen-