Guten Tag Germany

FRANKFURT Finally, after a long Greyhound bus ride to LA from Visalia and a late 3am trip to LAX, a layover in Seattle, I arrived in Frankfurt Germany at ten in the morning. Everything went surprisingly smoothly, my bag was the first one out and my best friend was excitedly awaiting my arrival. I quickly walked through the sliding glass doors and heard her yell, "COLEEN!" After two months of anticipation we were finally reunited. We both could not believe it as we embraced eachother for about 5 minutes jumping around and laughing. We giggled and talked the whole way to her car and of course as soon as we got in started playing our tunes just like old times. I survived my first trip on the Autobahn and emjoyed going 165kph which is about 102mph. We weren´t able to check into our hostel until 3 so we went and grabbed a bite to eat by Lisa´s possible new apartment. So you know how in the US there are apple juice boxes and that is usually what size our milk comes in too, for kids right? Well in Germany the boxes are like four times that size and I was in heaven because if you know me you know I love my milk. I also had a delicious chocolate pastry. Mind you at this time I am fighting the worst exaughstion I have ever felt. We went to the river and sat and people watched another of our favorite past times together. Now at this point I am deliriously tired but Lisa pushes me onward to a pub. Here we have the worst and unfriendly service known to man, Lisa pleads with me to ignore this German because she does not represent all of them, of course I do gladly. After much waiting on my part we are allowed to check into our hostel A&O Frankfurt. Lisa is guiding me blindly at this point as I had no clue how I was still standing. We got settled into our room and I immediately took a nap. I allowed myself one hour for recovery, then Lisa and I got ready and headed out on the town. We strolled all over the place but finally ended up eating yet again (also one of our favorite past times). I tried schnitzel with mushrooms which is called Jagerschnitzel and it was life changing. We walked around more and found an Apfelwein Festival which Frankfurt is famous for. There was live music and tasty drinks to be had. We found an Irish Pub and stopped in there after I drank some beer on the streets in front of the polizei. Here we met the nicest bar tender who´s name at this moment I cannot remember but he was from Enlgand and told us a lot to see in Frankfurt. We found our way home after a long way wondering the streets because the metro had closed. We hit the hay and woke up the next day fresh for sight seeing shopping in Frankfurt. We hit H&M, New Yorker, Zara, Primark, and many many, more. Then we went to the financial district and went up the highest building to see the view, it was breath taking. From here we could even see the Apfelwein Festival, which I thought was awesome and Lisa laughed at me for. We stayed one more night in Frankfurt with nothing too crazy happening the second night and then packed up, got brüten, and hopped in Lisa´s car for the journey to her hometown. We stayed in Frankfurt from Sunday August 10- Tuesday Augsut 12. GOSLAR We arrived in Goslar and she took me to here village which literally means chicken village. It was the cutest place I think I have ever seen and I could not get enough of it, I am pretty sure I could live there. We dropped our stuff off and picked up Lisa´s best friend Lea and went to the grocery store so I could pick up what I needed to make American pasta salad (American because it was full of bacon and ranch.) When we got back I started to prepare because Lisa warned me her family is very timely so if they say 7pm is when the BBQ is that is when the BBQ is. Oh that´s what I forgot to mention her whole family threw a BBQ in honor of my arrival. I was in heaven, family and food I could not have asked for more. Lisa´s mom reminded me so much of my own it was uncanny. Gabby, Lisa´s mom was short, small, stylish, and adorable. She ran around the whole time making sure everyone had everything they needed. She was happiest when we were happpiest, and our plates and glasses were full. I met Lisaçs whole family, her mom Gabby, her aunt and uncle, two cousins Jannis and Julian, Julian´s girlfriend Marieke, her mom´s boyfriend and daughter, and her grandparents it was quite the hilarous BBQ. Of course they made me sing, so I sang If I Ain´t Got You and Ave Maria which, turns out was every woman in the family´s wedding song so they all cried. We laughed until dark throwing the english and german language around until we couldn´t breath any more. Then Julian scored us a ride to this club called something Factory but I am going to call it the weird factory. There were some interesting characters there but we had fun dancing and drinking anywayñ. Julian sat with me at the bar for a good hour talking to me about how the dark side of Germany was the East side and I should be cautious of them haha. He told me he hated to speak english but for me it was okay. We took the cab home and said goodbye to the cousins. The next day Lisa and I awoke and went to the public swimming pool and surprise surprise her other uncle was there and two cute cousins. We played with them in the pool and promised we would stop by their house later. Lisa gave me a tour of where Monument´s men was filmed and of the castle near her. We then had more food (Schnitzel for me yet again) and went to her aunt and uncle´s house. Here they made us eat more food waffles with cherries and ice cream (yes I know hard life for me.) We had a lovely time talking with them and I promised I would come back and be an au pair for the children there because I loved them. We booked it back to Lisa´s to get ready for this huge lake party in Hannover. We stayed in Goslar from Tuesday the 12- Thursday the 14. HANNOVER The Lake party in Hannover was an extreme night to remember. Ce Lina came to pick us up with Hannah and Samira in the car. We then added Denise to the group shortly after. The Lake Party was called Maschseefest Hannover and we were lucky enough to be there. It was a party fully and entirely around a lake in Hannover. There was endless food, live music, and drink. By the time we left the lake party we were well on our way to having a fabulous night. At this party I tried Currywurst which was heavenly also I had tons and tons of beer (I mean I was in Germany right?)Then we went to this crazy club where they were playing all kinds of German hip hop and music and I loved it. Danced with some great people and by the time we left it was very late. We got some McDonalds which remains far superior in other countries than the US still. By the time we got home it was 4:30am and we had a bus to catch at 10am...oops. I´ll sleep when I´m dead right? HAMBURG Her grandparents took us to the bus stop about an hour and a half earlier than we needed to be there, which I thought was adorable and Lisa thought was annoying. We relaxed in McDonalds and had a hilarious morning. Probably so funny because we were so tired. The Meinfernbus came and we got on for a six hour journey to Hamburg. I went to lean my seat chair back and had no idea how it worked so my chair shot back all the way into the guy sitting behind me. Before I could say anything he shouts, "Seriously, Are you kidding me!" Lisa and I die of laughter and he becomes the butt of our jokes for the rest our traveling time together. We arrive after what seemed like eternity in Hamburg and attempt to find our hostel. Lisa pulls out her print out with the directions and we take a metro to our stop. We walk about three blocks and arrive at A&O Hamburg...or so we think. The woman tells us with no help at all that we went to the wrong hostel and have to find our actual hostel but does not tell us where we are or where we are going. So we head three blocks back to the metro and get off at where we think we are supposed to go. We ask another woman where to go and she tells us some weird way. Once we exit the metro its pouring rain and we are already exaughsted. Finally, a man takes pitty on us and sees we are lost and cannot find our way anymore. He tells us we are quite a bit away from our hostel. We walk for about thirty minutes more and finally we see it A&O Hamburg. It was beautiful and glorious. The line to check in was huge but we survived that too and checked in. We went up to our room and had the whole thing to ourselves we were eccstatic. Then we slept for a good two hours. When we woke up we felt like new people so we went to the store and got groceries and had a picnic in our hostel on our bed, it was delicous. We started getting ready and went to the Reeperbahn (A street in Hamburg famous for the guilty pleasures of men kind of like the strip in Vegas but worse) I saw my first prositutes here and a secret red light district women were not allowed to go. I saw a ferris wheel and begged Lisa to go there so we did and surprisingly ran into some of Lisa´s friends from school. We drank and rode the ferris wheel which gave us a spectacular view of Hamburg. We left this festival and headed back to the hostel for a decent night´s sleep before our sightseeing the next day. When we got back to the hostel we sat at the bar for a bit and I met Swen (Pronounced Sven so immediately I thought of Frozen.) He had the most blue eyes I had ever seen and I asked his plans for the next day. He said he wasn´t sure but we exchanged numbers and spoke about maybe meeting. The next day Lisa and I got up and set out for shopping central of Hamburg. We saw many cathedrals, ate delicous donut things, and beautiful stores. We took a boat tour on the river in Hamburg and it was lovely. We had lunch at a place right on the lake and yes I ate a hamburger in Hamburg, I mean I had to. After we were ready to head back we tried on the traditional dresses of women in the South of Germany. We loved them so much we wanted to buy them but they were like 100 euro, so sad. We headed back to the hostel and got ready for Reeperbahn round two. We found a great place with live music and chilled there for some time. Then Swen said he wanted to meet so we met him and he took us to this amazing pizza place. Swen and I danced the night away until Lisa was ready to head out. We left around 4am and got back to the hostel around 4:30am. Then we had another bus to take the next day. We stayed in Hamburg from Thursday the 14- Saturday the 15. BERLIN Our bus from Hamburg to Berlin took way longer than expected but we finally arrived. Our hostel was relatively easy to find but was the worst hostel we stayed at. We were so exaughsted from Reeperbahn we slept the whole day in Berlin and did not go out at all even though it was a Saturday night. We woke up early and went to see the famous sights. We saw the Jewish memorial, the Berlin Wall, parliament known as Reichstag, where the Prime Minister works, the Brandenburg Gate, Siegessäule, and I watched an Imax film in 3D at the famous Sony complex. The film was about underwater life and it was in German but it was still amazing and beautiful. We ate a delicious lunch at a restaraunt that took three hours of our day. I almost missed my bus from Berlin to Frankfurt. I made it literally running and had to quickly say see you later to Lisa as I hopped on. The ride took 10 hours to get to Frankfurt and when I arrived the metro was closed so I had to take a taxi to the hostel. I literally just slept in Frankfurt and then bright and early set out for Barcelona. I truly loved every moment I had in Germany it is really hard to pick a favorite place here or a favorite memory. I was so happy to spend the entire time with my bestie Lisa, and to meet her whole family. I think if I had to choose the best and my most favorite I would say the family in Goslar, the partying in Hamburg, and the sight seeing in Berlin. Should I go back these would be the places I would visit again. Sorry this post was so long, I had a lot to catch everyone up on. Let me know if there are anymore details you care to hear and I will do my best to continue the stories. My next post will be all about my adventures in Barcelona!!!