I finished midterms last Wednesday, and thank god for that. That week I felt basically trapped inside the apartment or library studying all day because they were one after another, something I’m not crazy about doing (especially abraod). But the end of the week was awesome. This Thursday I went to Munich with my roomate, Trang. She’s definitely one of my closest friends here, and one of the few girls I”m friends with from another country. She’s originally from Vietnam but studying in Washington State at Whitman college.

Anyways, we got into Munich at around 4 or 5 in the evening. It was already dark, so there wasn’t much we could do. We walked through one of the parks in Munich and just chilled there for a  while. It might sound a little lame, but the scenery was gorgeous, there was a great view of the city at night from the top of the hill, and it was nice to just chill after traveling for 4 to 5 hours on the train. Later, we hung out at a bar in the hostel. Apparently, there wasn’t much going on that night, so we just decided to stay in and meet some people. One guy and his two brothers were just traveling around to European countries, and one of them had just graduated high school. How long were they traveling? Until their money ran out. It seemed so cool that they had decided that this is something they were going to just go and do because I don’t know if I could just go for something like that without trying to plan things out.

The next day, Trang and I got a free tour of the city. Like most of Europe, the architecture was beautiful. What was really cool was experiencing the beer culture here. Munich is known as the beer capital of the world. In Europe, you have to be either 16 or 18 (depending on the country) to drink legally, so it was really cool that I could experience that. One of the cool things they have is beergardens. In most of these places, you have long tables of about 10 to 12 people, and the tables aren’t seperated. This means you’ll end up sitting next to/talking with random people (hopefully some cool) people.

And of course, there’s Octoberfest. I’m so bummed I had to miss this, but it’s basically one of the biggest parties you can go to in Europe. For a few weeks from the middle of September to the beginning of October, Munich has a  field full of games, rides, and of course the best beer. They come in huge liters (although it’s like 10 euro for each drink), and millions of tourists and locals come from around the world to experience it. If you’re ever in Europe around this time, I would highly recommend going to it because it’s garuanteed to be a very good time :).

After seeing the tour (I won’t bore you with a lot of the historical details), a couple of traveling girls came with Trang and I for lunch. The other thing I loved about Munich is the number of international people you’ll meet here.  One girl was from the Phillipines and wrote magazine articles about international living, and another girl was from London and just traveling around  after college. This was the second or third time I had met people around my age or a little older just traveling for the heck of it, and it’s made me wonder if I would do the same after Witt. They hall all raved how awesome it was, and I can’t help but want to do it myself.

One of the last cool things worth mentioning was seeing Neuschwanstein Castle. Trang and I went with an Australian girl named Emma (who, as you can guess, was also traveling the world after college). It was a castle built by one of the monarchs in the 1800’s, and it’s known as the “fairytale castle” because it looks like one straight out of a storybook. (In fact, a Disney movie used this place for inspiration for one of its movies). We didn’t go inside because it’s kind of expensive, but the outside was beautiful. The whalls were pearl white with a pale blue rooftop, and there were numerous pointed towers almost touching the sky. It’s the first castle I’d ever seen, so it’s hard for me to compare to what others would lool like, but the castle and the beautiful landscape around it was definitely worth the two hour train trip from Munich.

After this, I traveled back to the apartment later that night and am now sitting here.  Reality’s hitting me. I”ve got to figure out my schedule for next semester and classes will start again, but next week I”m going to Venice, Italy!