Arrived at Munich Plane Station.....

...I mean airport! 

Since learning german i can never seem to think of the word for where planes land... i have to translate the german word “Flughafen” into “Flug” = Flight and “Hafen” = port and some how my brain assembles that into “Plane Station”... then after a few lonnnnnggg seconds tick by, my brain goes “oh OH i know this word!! Wait a minuteeeee (Minute goes by...)... “AIRPORT!!!”.

Slightly worrying if you ask me. 

So anyway... you are probably all wondering what i’m ranting on about. For those of you that don’t know (which will be the people going “huh???” right now) i’ve just moved over to germany for 11months. So i will be studying at Deggendorf Uni (http://www.fh-deggendorf.de) for my second year.

I’ve been here just over a week now and completed the first week of Orientation that the uni provides us international students with (still one more week to go before lectures start). 

So, so far so good. 

I have somewhere to live and I haven’t got lost yet (touch wood!!..... I still have plenty of time to do that)!

Orientation Week 1

I’ve had lots of forms to fill out and probably still have many more to come... I have so many important bits of paper at the moment, that i could probably glue them back together to form the tree they once were (It would then be a very important tree... please do not smoke or light birthday candles next to my important tree - thank you for your co-operation)!

But to every cloud there is a silver lining! From Week 1’s timetable you will see that nearly every evening i had some sort of event or party on, so it has, i have to say, been more of a fun week rather than just dreary form filling. 

I think i enjoyed the ‘Bavarian Evening’ the most, but i may be slightly swayed by the fact i received a massive Lebkuchen Heart for winning the Bavarian game of "Masskrugstremmen"(for those that don't know what "maßkrugstemmen" is, basically you all get given a massive german beer glass full with 1Litre of beer/water and you have to hold the glass out in front of you, with your arm completely straight. The person who holds it for the longest wins).

Apart from playing games we also ate some Bavarian specialities. I decided to go for the “Bayrischer Schweinebraten mit Biersoße, Kraut und Knödeln” which in english is basically “Roast pork in a bier gravy with Dumplings and served with cabbage”.

Let the festivities begin! (Bavarian Evening)

And then of course there was the Oktoberfest. Now i am not a great lover of beer or alcohol at that, so what were you doing at a huge beer festival you might ask? Good question!! 

So we woke up at 5.15am (yes I am crazy!) to take the train from Deggendorf to Munich at 6.41am and got in around 8.30am. We followed the swarms of people in a sleep like trance from Munich main station to Thereisenwiese (where the Oktoberfest is held) into one of the large beer tents. I literally walked in... took a photo and squeezed my way out again - no way was I paying 10 Euros for a Liter of beer I wasn’t going to drink! Ha! I even considered asking to borrow someones beer to make the photo look more authentic... but i realised no one would believe that i had drunk a liter of alcohol... so i gave up on that idea. 

The VERY quick photo in the Bier Zelt!

So instead of drinking, i amused myself for 2 hours by browsing the various stalls and soaking in the atmosphere. I blended right in with my new Dirndl... so much so that one guy just spoke full blown bavarian at me! The expression on my face at that moment would have made one hell of a photo - I literally froze until he started speaking english at me (I mean german I can cope with, but I haven’t quite got the hang of bavarian yet so please take it easy on me).

After this me and a friend decided to venture into Munich itself. 

Karlsplatz Fountain in Munich

So yeh.... either go see Munich or go see the Oktoberfest.... don’t try both at the same time!!

The town hall (Das Rathaus) in Munich

Munich was OVER FLOWING with people (i’d say even more than the Oktoberfest itself)!

But we were still able to find a cafe and have a sit down with something to eat and drink...

The relief of finding somewhere to sit finally!!

...and we explored the parts of the city we could reach (which wasn’t much.... I think another visit will be required at some point in the future).

So all in all, also a very nice day....

a very nice week....

...and more to come!!