The experiences keep coming! The last two adventures that I've had here have been my trip to Munich with my host family and sailing for four days on the Baltic Sea with fellow AFS exchange students. These two were both new things that I could add to my long list of experiences I've had this year. I'm about a month behind, but let's rewind to the first weekend of May that I spent in Munich.
I received a trip to Munich from my host parents for Christmas and after much deliberation, the weekend of Ascension, a time when everyone in Germany has a four-day weekend, was the weekend we planned to go. Thursday morning I piled into my host father's car with my host father of course, Philipp, and Fabian at the wheel. My host mother unfortunately couldn't go due to a few reasons. The six and a half hour car ride went pretty quickly, but that was probably because I slept most of the time...
Our first stop of our preplanned circuit was at the aviation exhibit of the "Deutsches Museum" at an old airport in the northern part of the city. This display was very similar to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, but of course this museum focused on primarily German planes, both old and new.
The next stop at Allianz Arena, the home of Bayern München, was one of the highlights of my trip. Love them or hate them, Bayern München is an unbelievably talented team that won the UEFA Champions' League last month. Being able to see the locker room, press conference area, benches on the field and everything else was very impressive.
Unfortunately the weather for the remainder of our time there did not cooperate, but we did not let that dampen our spirits. The next day we drove to the center of the city and toured the old part of the city, including Marienplatz, the English Garden, which is a huge park directly downtown, and climbing more than three-hundred small rickety stairs to the top of the St. Peter's Church. Munich was really growing on me. The food, beer, architecture, parks and traditions were fabulous to experience. Munich is officially my favorite city in Germany!
The next day we drove to the BMW Welt (World), a huge building housing both displays of BMW's latest cars, but also a museum of the company's history in our Peugeot, which didn't feel quite right. As the elevator doors opened dozens of BMW's in every imaginable model caught my eye. We worked our way through the cars, guessing the prices as we went along, coming upon everything from a simple three series to a Rolls-Royce. Yes, I know Rolls Royce isn't a BMW...Then we went to the museum in a separate building. In this museum one could learn so much about BMW and I took my time to read everything. A combination of cars, lights, modern design and other interesting artifacts made this visit very worthwhile for me.
Later that night I met a future classmate of mine for a night of fun. Believe it or not, little old Middlebury College in little old Vermont attracts students from literally all over the world including Anselm, whom I got to know from Middlebury College's Class of 2017 Facebook page. Anselm, who's half German and half American has lived in Munich his entire life and showed me some of the places where tourists don't go. After a bit of chit-chatting and a Radler, we went back to Marienplatz where we had met to attend Bayern München's open-air celebration of their Bundesliga Championship with thousands of other passionate fans dressed in red. THAT WAS QUITE AN EXPERIENCE. Anselm and I have been keeping contact and look forward to seeing each other on campus this coming September.
On the last half day we still needed to check out Munich's Olympic Park, home of the 1972 Olympic Park. I was struck by the good condition of the facilities, the fact that everything is still being used 41 years later and by the extremely cool mesh/spider web architecture that is found all over this park surrounded by rolling green hills. We went into the main stadium and got a great view as well as a lot of exercise chasing each other up and down the stairs that lead up, down, and around the bowl-shaped stadium.
The time had finally come to pack ourselves into the car and drive back. It hailed, it rained and we sat through 18km. of traffic, but I wasn't really concerned about that, rather on the wonderful city I had just visited. Munich, I'll be back.
A couple weeks later I took a train to another new destination, however this time I was headed north, not south. I would be spending four days on a traditional three-mast sailing ship on the Baltic Sea around the Wismar area. As I arrived I was struck by how big this ship was. I'm not going to try to estimate its length, but it fit around 40 people on board and could've accommodated twice as many. I was introduced to the 30 or so other exchange students on the ship, including people from China, Indonesia, Venezuela, Norway and many others.
Then, a few hours afterwards, we were sailing. We got a crash course on how the sails work including being taught the new German vocabulary, but it was not too difficult because we had chaperones who always knew what they were doing. Over the course of the four days I was on the ship the time spent on deck helping raise the sails, unpacking the sails way up high, or simply socializing with people from interesting foreign cultures was very enjoying, however that was only a small part. Life on a ship, I learned, is tough work.
The sleeping conditions are cramped, the sleep one is able to get is always to short, especially when one has "Nachtwache" (nightwatch) for two hours during the middle of the night, the cleaning of every corner of the ship every single day is unnecessary and time-consuming and finally the entire day (6:45am-10:30pm) one has to spend is the kitchen with at most an hour break all day is beyond grueling. These are all things that I would expect if I was a worker on this ship, but I was paying a good amount of money to be on this ship!
Overall, being on the ship was a good experience, even if it wasn't the most relaxing or comfortable thing I've ever done. I learned a lot, met quite a few great people and being on the water really had a peaceful effect on me. My host parents and Philipp picked me up from the docked ship on the last day and from there we proceeded to tour Wismar and the beautiful nearby city of Schwerin the next day.
I have experienced so much during my time here in Germany, but unfortunately it's coming slowly to an end. I only have 37 more days until I fly back to the USA. That will be quite a bittersweet moment. All good things must come to an end and I do miss my family, however Germany has been so good to me. Until next time!
