Nick's Visit

So yea I went to Salzburg, see last blog. I think I just chilled between that. Went to this thing called Uni-Fest which was a great time. It was a massive club on an island in Munich, to which the students of the Munich Universities were invited, which comes to like 100,000 people. I have no idea how many people were actually there, but it was a ton. Definitely a night to remember.

Nick Gilbert came to visit me from May 20-27 (I think?) It was his first time in Europe, so that was exciting. The 20th was a Wednesday. That night we had to go to a JYM event that some JYMers had organized. Basically, since our program is through Wayne State University in Detroit, they thought it would be a good idea to get some Detroit artists (no one famous) to come to Munich and do stuff. The general consensus among JYMers is that this was not a good idea, and was a general waste of time. I personally don't care for artists or Detroit, but there was free beer, so we will call it a wash.

Thursday night we had to go to another one of these events, which included alright music and terrible poetry readings. For me the highlight was when one of the poets said "I'm gonna read a couple of poems, and then if the crowd wants I'll read 'We want our city back' after that" Two people out of the crowd of 50 went "Whoop" and she said "Ok, I will, by popular demand"

Since when is 2 people by popular demand? Imagine all the things that would go wrong with in the world if 2 people always meant "popular demand."

So I don't care for artists or Detroit, and this event didn't feature free beer, so we will not call that one a wash.

Sorry Nick.

If I remember correctly Nick and I went to the aircraft museum here in Munich Thursday during the day. It was't interesting. They didn't have any particularly fascinating/abnormal aircraft.

Friday was a good day. We went to Stuttgart, which you may remember from earlier blogs is the home of Porsche and Mercedes. Nick wanted to see them, and I have no problem with going back there because it was really cool and who hates looking at nice cars?

Me with the Porsche 918 Spyder. Fastest production car around the Nürburgring

License plate of the 918. Stuttgart, Nürburgring, 918

Written on the back of the 918. 6:57 lap time

Nick outside Mercedes

Inside Mercedes

This could have been useful in Maine this winter I hear

Nick with the 300 sl

Nick with the 918

Saturday we took a trip out to Obersalzburg and Berchtesgaden, Germany. If you are enthusiast (I hate that word) of World War II, then you will probably recognize these names as the old stomping grounds of Nazi big wigs. It is tucked away in the Alps, about 5 minutes from Austria and features some breathtaking views (so I hear). I wouldn't know because when we were there it was snowing and cloudy, on the 23 of May. Good times.

So we went out there to visit Hitler's Eagle's Nest, which a 50th birthday present to Hitler and features a gold elevator through the center of the mountain to arrive into the house.

Entry to the elevator tunnel

Built 1938

Tunnel with the elevator

The door to the elevator. No photos were allowed inside but it was all gold 

We couldn't get a tour of the house because we arrived too late, so we did not get to see much, with exception of a few rooms, one of which is now a restaurant, which we ate at. There is also some history about the building and the area.

The restaurant

Fireplace in the restaurant

Eaglesnest. 1834 Meters

A picture of the eagles nest. You can see how cloudy it was, so we didn't get the famous views the area is famous for, which was unfortunate. I plan to go back.

Nearby is a center that talks all about Obersalzburg and the Eagles Nest. A lot of top Nazis had houses here, including Hermann Göring. If you have seen Band of Brothers, you probably remember Winters seizing the house and letting Nixon go raid the wine cellar. Although the weather was bad, it was still really cool to be able to see. There is a huge underground bunker network underneath this center, which connects a bunch of the Nazi buildings and some of the houses. It was really cool to see and be able to walk through.

Bunker

Bunker

I don't know if this is original or not

Bunker

Bunker

Machine gun holes guarding a staircase

The receiving end of the machine guns

On Sunday we took a trip to Dachau and took a look there. Afterwards we went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. 

Monday we went to the Olympic Stadium, BMW World, and BMW Museum. Those are always cool to see. For dinner we went to Hofbrähaus and went back to Hard Rock for their delicious brownie sundae for dessert. 

Tuesday we got a plant tour of BMW, which was wicked cool. It lasted 2 hours and you walk through the factory and get to see them put together the car. Everything from metal stamping to interior installation, paint, and engine installation. It was really cool and an amazing operation. The robots they have in there are incredible. It was so cool to see. We went to Hard Rock for dinner because that place is amazing and if you say otherwise you're just a liar.

Wednesday he had to hop back on the plane. It was a really good time and it is always nice to see people from back home.

Salzburg

So as you probably have noticed, I once again have gone a couple months without writing one of these. It is sort if crazy that I am abroad so long that multiple times I can go a couple months without writing anything and still have time left. Since today is June 24 and I head back to America July 23, I now officially have less than a month left in my trip.

So what have I been doing this semester and why have I disappeared? I would like to say that I have been swamped with homework and assignments to make it look like I have been productive with my life, but this is JYM, so that is simply not the case (not until as of late of course).

No. My life has been filled with strenuous days in the English Garden, laying on the Eisbach (part of the Isar River), getting tan, eating food, drinking beer, and playing games. Rough life. This is why you come to Bavaria, because the summers here are amazing and extremely relaxing.

Soooo where to begin? First I should also say that I got this scholarship from the government and part of it was that I got paired with this classroom in North Carolina and had to write 20 blogs (2 a week) for the students to read and discuss, and then Skype with the students at least 3 times. So I wrote the blogs, which the topics were given to me and were generally really boring, like recycling, food, and transportation. But you gotta do what you gotta do. I also lucked out and I am pretty sure the class never read my blogs because the teacher never responded to my emails about setting up a Skype meeting, but I still got the credit for the scholarship, so chalk that one up as a win. So basically the time I used to normally write on this blog was consumed by writing for this blog that was really boring and no one actually read, so yea, good stuff.

So I went to Salzburg in Austria, It was pretty unexpected. I woke up that morning at 8, received an invitation to Salzburg, and was on a train at 9:55. Gotta love Europe.

New characters are now being introduced into this story line, so fasten your seat-belts. I fair amount of people joined our program for the second semester. Since we have been here longer than them, we are known as Old-JYMers and they are known as New-JYMers. Pretty complex, I know. So me and Cam hopped on this train with New-JYMers (Libby, Blake, Evah, Julia, Julissa, Allister) to Salzburg for the day. You can get there with the Bayern Ticket (5 people all day unlimited for 39 euros) so it is really cheap and only takes a couple hours.

Salzburg is of course famous among Americans as the place where sound of Music was filmed. We didn't see any of the places where it was filmed, but that is fine without because that is the one movie is the world I harness genuine hatred for.

However, Salzburg is beautiful. There is a river, of course, and a giant fortress on top of a hill dominating the landscape. It was wicked hot when we were there, so we walked around a little bit, found a cafe, chilled, went into the fortress, ate some ice cream, and then got back on the train. It was a good time.

Here are some photos.

Ham and cheese sandwich with ice cream coffee. It was so hot and this really hit the spot.

The fortress

Inside the fortress

Hey that guy is ruining the view

That's better

Salzburg from the fortress

Horses

A church

Inside the church

What a fun little day trip. The new JYMers are cool and Salzburg was beautiful.

Onwards I go

The Time Has Come

Tomorrow class starts back up in honor of the beginning of second semester. It is pretty much a straight shot of 3 months 10 days of school until my flight back to America. We have a few days here and there, but it is pretty much straight through to the end of school. In my mind this is a big moment. The whole trip I have been thinking to myself "once second semester starts, it will all  be over before I know it, and then I'll be headed back home." We are now at that time. On Thursday I will have been here for 7 months. It's weird how so much time is given to first semester and not as much to second. Got here September 16, had 3 weeks of orientation, class started, had 3 weeks for Christmas break, and ended First semester in February. Then 2.5 months and then second semester of 3 months. So relatively speaking, I am 2/3 of the way done my time here in Germany. So what have I been doing and what is on tap?

On Thursday we went hiking at this place called Bodenschneid. Terrible idea. There were still multiple feet of snow and we kept falling through and there was often water underneath the snow waiting to soak our boots and feet when we did. We also had to hike several times rights through the middle of a ski area, which is probably good evidence that it is not yet hiking season. On top of this, the weather was actually really nice, about 65, and not a cloud in the sky, so as we were hiking up the snow and ice, which is extremely tiring, we were sweating bullets and getting sun-burnt. It was generally miserable. There were 2 take aways however. The first was that since it was so clear and there was still snow, it looked really beautiful. Also, going downhill in the snow is actually a lot easier than on the normal ground because you can just throw your weight down the mountain without really controlling it because the snow slows you down and reduces the impact on your knees, so that was nice. But again, generally miserable. We didn't get to the top because someone in our group had to be back to Munich for 6 and we were not going fast enough. It was weird. The sign just kept saying 2 hours to the top. It simply would not change which was really weird, because the time displayed on the signs pointing back to where we came kept going up, and we were definitely moving at a fast pace. We knew we had about 3 hours going down the back side of the mountain, so we had to call it quits somewhere along the face of the mountain and turn back around so the kid could get back in time.

Me in a cool part of this river

So peaceful

A couple times we had to walk across the ski trail

A nice view

I made this hole. My entire leg disappeared and was greeted by this lovely freezing mountain water underneath. This happened a couple times. Needless to say, I was happy to get home and take off my boots

The next day, Friday, a big group of us went up to Kloster Andechs. We had done this earlier in the year, but I am not sure if  I blogged about it. I was really excited because the weather was slated for 70, it is an easy walk up to Andechs, and there are multiple beer gardens up top, and Andechs has their own brewery. So we walked on up and got some food. I got my favorite food here in Germany, which consists of a liter of helles bier, a giant Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle), potato salad, and a pretzel. The whole thing ran me $28 euros I think. But hey sometimes you got to feed the soul. It was all delicious. P.S... more sunburn. Days and meals like this one are what I am probably going to miss the most about Germany.

My favorite meal

A better shot of the Haxe

I am now so close to being home that I have to start doing things to prepare for my time there, for example, that dreaded thing called thesis. By the end of April, I need to have my 2-3 page thesis proposal to my advisor, which needs to include and annotated bibliography. This isn't really too much fun. It makes me really bummed out to think about, so I have been doing very little work on it and have made no real progress. Great start right? Professor Decker emailed me asking me if I want to do a thesis or take a test to fulfill my final German requirement when I get back. I have yet to answer. I don't know what I want to do. Probably leaning towards the test. Go away Bates, I'm trying to relax in Germany.

I am also so close to being home now that people are always talking to me about the things we will do when I get home and stuff like that, which is absolutely killer. I am having a great time here, but when they do that it makes me realize how much I miss the people back home, so now they are actually starting to make me anxious to go home, which I guess isn't the worst thing. I have to go home eventually so this way beats just going home and being bored. But again, just trying to enjoy my final times here!

As for whats to come for me here in Germany, I will start with my schedule. I wanted to try out some history courses at the actual LMU, but was unable to do that because there were none that would have been easy enough for me to take. There was one English one that I could have taken, but that's not really what I am here to do, and I am not pressed to have credits transfer, so I opted for all JYM courses again. I got bumped up from the 1st (worst) speaking group to the 3rd group out of a total of 5. Last semester there were only 4, but since we have 30+ new students here for the second semester, we now have 5 groups. Although I hear one of the professors got really sick and we might only have 4 again, so we will see what happens. My speaking class is my first class of the day, and they moved it from 11:30 to 10:30 am. Not cool JYM... not cool. I am also taking intercultural communication, which includes a lecture at LMU and a review part at JYM to make sure you understood what happened. Also taking Modern Munich Literature, German Drama and Theater, which does not consist of actually acting, and a class called Vienna and Prague. We get to go to Vienna and Prague for this class and word on the street is that JYM will be picking up some, if not all of the bill. I am fortunate enough this semester to have no class on Wednesdays or Fridays, which should leave plenty of time for the beer gardens ( and doing research for stupid thesis)

When I get back to Bates all I need to do in order to graduate is write 2 thesis, or 1 and take the German test, take 1 lab course, 1 GEC course, and 1 short term course. Easy enough. For the fall semester I am registered for History thesis, Vikings (which is my GEC course), Plate Tectonics (my lab course), and French (which is recommended for grad school in History.) So going back to Bates I am basically done, especially so after fall semester, after which I will only have German thesis or test and short term in order to graduate, so I am happy with how I have set myself up.  

There was the housing lottery not too long ago and I am living in a 4 person suite in the village on Russel St with Chris, Jo, and Mike which is what we wanted, so that will be a lot of fun next year. 

Also coming up here in Germany is this great party called Fruehlingsfest. It's 3 weeks I think and is basically a mini Octoberfest. It starts this coming weekend. One day all of JYM is going as part of a special Bavarian-American friendship celebration. We get our own tent and only have to pay for food and beer. Should be a lot of fun. Oliver Stone is currently in Munich filming his coming movie about Edward Snowden, starring Joseph Gorden-Levitt. They have both said they will be in our tent, so that should be cool. Lindo Jo Rizzo will be singing for us in the tent. Will be an exciting event.

That is basically all I think. Will provide more updates on all this madness later

London

The last stop in my grand tour was London. I was really excited to be able to go here, and wasn't sure if I would be able to since the train ticket I bought could not take me there, meaning I would most likely fly, which can be expensive. So i was not sure if I would be able to go, even though I really wanted to.

This is where Bates came in. They offer up to $500 grants for students abroad who are looking to "enrich" their experience. I applied for one and got one for the full $500. Yay! So London here I come. Picked up an EasyJet flight for $100 round trip Munich to London, and a hotel in West London for $200 for 4 nights, including breakfast. On the flight I could not help but laugh because the two people next to me were talking about how much money their flight cost. The dude next to me spent $175 and the girl next to him $250. I was sitting there thinking "Wow, you guys are suckers"

But anyways, I manged to get to London with 200 bucks from Bates to towards the trip, which I soon learned is not nearly enough for 4 days in London. At the end of it all I spent $750, including flight and hotel, so very thankful for Bates for the $500, and knocking the price down to $250. Great deal!

I landed, took the train into the center, arrived at my hotel, and immediately went in search of fish and chips, which wasn't too hard because right around the corner from my hotel is this place called Mickey's Fish n Chips, with a sign that said "As seen on (some dude's show)'s Search for Perfection." Sounds good to me. So I tried it out and it was quite good.

Also, I must mention at this point how amazing it felt to be able to speak English everywhere I went and not have to feel apologetic for it. This certainly contributed to my love of London. It was just so relieving.

Hit the hay and got ready for tomorrow.

The next morning breakfast was served to me in my room at precisely 8:30 am, as it would be for the remainder of my stay. I thought this was kind of cool. Breakfast was simple with fruits and cereal bars, breads, jams, stuff like that. But they gave you multiple of each thing so it was sufficiently filling.

First thing I did was went on over to Westminster Palace, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. I didn't go into the Abbey because it cost 20 pounds, which is $30, which I thought was a huge rip off. London is amazingly expensive.

Big Ben

Big Ben at night

West Minster Abbey

I then went over to the main event: the Imperial War Museums, which actually consists of 5 different museums. The first stop for me was the Churchill War Rooms. This is a large underground complex in the heart of London, beneath 10 Downing St and other major government buildings. The Churchill War rooms is where Churchill  and his War Cabinet essentially ran WWII, making major decisions about what to do. It is set up  like it was during the war, which is cool. It also has a large museum attached to it which is completely dedicated to Winston Churchill. Here are some photos of the War Rooms.

The main room where the meetings would happen.The wooden chair in the middle is where Churchill would sit

This is a room where Churchill had a direct telephone line to the White House

This is a gas mask designed so that the switchboard operator could still do their job under attack

This is a chart recording the number of V-1s and V-2s launched on London

A board essentially keeping score of the air battle during the Battle of Britain

One of Churchill Cigars

There were a lot of other cool things, like maps recording ships and the front lines and things like that.

After this I went on down to another part of the Imperial War Museums: The HMS Belfast. The Belfast was a Royal Navy light cruiser which saw action during WWII and Korea. You walk through the ship and learn about everyday life, the weapons, see the quarters, stuff like that. It is actually really cool and really well done. You always get a great view of the Tower Bridge from the stern of the ship.

Tower Bridge

When it wasn't so dark

HMS Belfast

Butcher

Making bread

Potatoes

Guys serving food

Shells

Medical Ward

Surgery, only done in emergencies of course. One time they had to do a blood transfusion aboard the ship, and the Surgeon lined every sailor up on the ship and took his blood and saved the guys life

The sailors sleep in hammocks strung from the ceiling, right above  where they eat

Translation: If this ship is hit, you will die

I then walked over to the Tower of London, which was a defense built by William the Conqueror, but it was closed by the time I got there, so I walked over to a pub called the Mayflower pub, which is wicked old, and situated right on the mooring where the Mayflower was once anchored. Pretty cool.

Tower of London

The next day I went to the main museum, dedicated to Britain's wars throughout time.  The natural highlights for me were the WWI, WWII, and Holocaust sections, as well as this section which I thought was particularly cool, dedicated to MI5 and MI6 and special operations throughout time. They even had equipment used by the SAS during the Iranian embassy hostage situation in London. Thought that was pretty cool.

Here are just a few photos from the exhibits at the museums. I think there were 5 or 6 floors there, so it was pretty big.

Naval guns outside the museum

These shells are as tall as me

Signs with bullet holes from WW1

A Harrier

A boat used during the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk

The tail of a German fighter, with the number of aircraft its downed and the dates

A close up of the tally

A Japanese Zero fighter

After the Imperial War Museum, I went over to Hard Rock for dinner. This is actually the first Hard Rock Cafe in the world, so I was anxious to go and try it out. Across from the Cafe is a park, which has a memorial to the RAF, which was cool.

The world's first Hard Rock Cafe

The RAF memorial

After Hard Rock I walked down the street to Buckingham Palace and down the Mall and throughout London

Buckingham Palace

The guards at the palace. Unfortunately I did not get to see the changing of the guards. I actually thought these guys were pretty funny, because you are so far away from them that they look tiny with giant hats and giant shoes, and the way they walk makes them look like they are waddling, and then they always stomp their feet, so it kind of makes them look like kids. I do not mean to disrespect them, of course, but that is just my thoughts on it 

The next day I took a sort of unexpected trip. It was to the Warner Brothers Studio outside of London where they filmed all of the Harry Potter movies. I say unexpected because it wasn't on my radar before I got to London, and also I have only seen a couple of the movies and a couple of the books, since I do not really care for Harry Potter. But this place was actually really cool and the highlight of the trip for me. They told you a lot about how they filmed the movies and where they got the props and stuff like that. For example, the curtains of the beds in the Gryffindor dorms were bought on a whim by a producer at a a flea market.

Everything there is original. You get to see the original costumes, sets, props, stuff like that. It was actually really really cool, and you also learned a lot about movie magic, which I like.

So you take a bus from London out to the studio. Its about an hour drive from London to the studio, and the tour is 3 hours. The bus company was actually really evil to us, because we were all standing there in from of this awesome double decker bus that is decked out in Harry Potter stuff. It was really cool. We are all about to get on it and the guy says no that's not your bus, its this single decker one painted to look like Stonehenge. You should have seen the heartbreak on these massive Harry Potter fans' faces when they told us we weren't taking the Harry Potter Bus. There was unrest in the ranks. But, we got to take the cool, Harry Potter bus on the way back, so that works

The bus. Of course I sat on the second deck

This tour was sort of ironic for me. First of all, the tour and bus ride cost 63 pounds, which is over $90, which I thought was a little steep for someone who doesn't even like Harry Potter, but I thought it would be cool, and I was right, so whatever. But as I was walking through the sets of the movie and looking at the props, I barely recognized anything. For example I walked down Diagon Alley and was thinking "What the heck they don't even have the wand shop?" About 5 seconds later I heard someone gasp at the sight of the wand shop, which I had walked by because I had no idea what it looked like Whoops.

So here are some photos  I took, especially for you Harry Potter fans. Enjoy!

The entrance

The highlight of the tour for me was this Butter Beer. Tasted so good. Like liquid caramel or something

The actual room under the stairs

The great hall or grand hall or whatever. Note the lack of ceiling. They built a tiny ceiling and used CGI to make it be there in the movie

The entry to the hall

Some of Harry's clothes

Dumbledore and Snape and that Lady

This cool ice thing from that ball when that Russian looking dude shows up and like Hermione 

Gryffindor's bedroom. They had the actors carve into the wood and stuff like that, as you would at a normal school

Gryffindor's common room

This was cool. It's called forced perspective. Basically this chair looks like it is 50 feet away, but it is really on 10, and they used a narrowing hallway and tiny chair to make it look 50 feet away

Dumbledore's office

The main staircase

The original brooms

The original wands. If I remember right, Voldemort's is 9 o clock  and Harry's is 3 o clock

The triple decker knight bus. The back says all stops except underwater or something funny like that

Explaining the bus

A famous bridge, from... something...

Harry's first house

Another house. No idea whose it is or what it's doing here

The chess pieces

Diagon Alley 

The wand shop which eluded me 

I'm glad we make this clear

I was really hoping this ice cream was real

Then came a really cool part of the tour. They made a real 1:24 scale model of Hogwarts to help with the filming. It was incredible

Explaining the model

The model

The model

The model

The last thing you see is this room full of wand boxes, each with the name of someone who helped make the film

Like this

Of course the main characters have theirs

Then it was time to hit the store. I cannot tell you what I bought, because some people I bought stuff for may be reading this, but needless to say it included some of the famous candy, excluding those god awful jelly beans of course. Overall I think I spent like $200 at Harry Potter, which I have barely seen or read. Interesting. But totally worth it. I think that when I get back to the States I will read the books and watch the movies. They all seemed pretty cool.

But that is all for my grand tour. 13 cities total, including Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, the D-Day Beaches, Vienna, Berlin, and London in a total of 34 days. Not too bad! Back in Munich now until school starts April 13.

And again thank you to Bates for the $500!