Whew! This past week/weekend has seriously flown by! Classes have been going very well at the Chateau, and my professors are all extremely interesting. More than once, my professors have stopped the class to discuss Luxembourg culture or answer a question about European customs. I must admit that I find those times a little more interesting than learning about pronouns in my French class, though the lessons I have learned in French have come in handy more than once here. While at a supermarket the other day, I actually used a new French phrase to explain that I speak Spanish! My classmates and I have noticed that one of the biggest differences between Americans and Europeans is the degree of modesty with languages. For instance, my host mom says that she only speaks a little English while she is largely fluent and has been learning it since primary school! I have learned that I should say “Je parle un peu espanol” as I really only speak a little Spanish compared to most people here.
Anyways, I traveled to Munich and Salzburg, Austria this weekend and it truly was an adventure! A friend of mine, Ben, my boyfriend Dan and I took an overnight train to Munich from Luxembourg in which I slept in my first couchette, or sleeper car. Though those things might look super glamorous in the movies (I kept imagining that scene from White Christmas), they are cramped and slightly awkward as you’re basically sharing a closet with 5 strangers. Despite that, it was still one of the coolest parts of the trip! We got to Munich around 7 and headed straight to Oktoberfest after meeting up with some other Miami kids.
Oktoberfest was an extremely cool but almost surreal experience. The festival reminded me a bit of a Cedar Point-type place except with much more Bavarian food and, obviously, lots more beer. Since we got there on opening day, the festivities were quite intense. Here’s an Oktoberfest fun fact: no one is allowed to drink until the mayor ceremoniously opens the keg at noon, certainly a cultural difference from the States! Although, the thought of Mr. Finkbeiner doing that does bring a smile to my face. All of the beer halls were described to me as tents but they certainly didn’t look like tents! The halls are huge and look like any other building, except with a ton of traditional Bavarian decoration. One of the ones that we explored was the Spaten tent and it had an entire ox roasting on a stick. Needless to say, I did not partake. I am, however, proud to say that I had my first Bavarian pretzel which was about twice the size of the biggest ones in the States! There were some chocolate covered ones too, but I resisted those! We left the festivities around 3 as many in our group wanted to see the rest of Munich. We explored the huge city, going into various churches and exploring some really cool shops. After our Bavarian cuisine for lunch, we decided on a very non-traditional restaurant for dinner: McDonalds! It was there I discovered that European McDonalds has something that American McDonalds do not, and that is SOUR CREAM! I have searched every grocery store in Luxembourg for sour cream and have not found any but McDonalds has it! That was quite a high point for me.
After a little more exploring, Dan, Ben and I traveled to Salzburg around 9 that night. We got into our hostel, the Yoho International Youth Hostel, and fell right asleep. We woke up around 7 and spent the morning exploring the city. Most of our time was spent in the old part of the city, where most the churches and beautiful buildings are. I found the cathedral to be absolutely breathtaking, with one of the most beautiful domes I’ve ever seen. My favorite part, however, was the garden. It was just so well maintained with so many different flowers and statues, I didn’t want to leave! Sadly, however, we had a 9 hour train to catch and left the city around 1.
No comments:
Post a Comment