Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Met my mom on the train (by accident, crazy, right?) to Garmisch from Munich just as it was leaving. We rode that for an hour and a half and got a cab from the station in Garmisch to the military base here.

She had her own apartment in the PLTCE (some military Arabic language course thing) housing so we dropped all the bags off there. Kelley was randomly walking the streets outside the window when we looked out, right before we were about to go looking for her since mom thought she had died in Paris or something. I don't know, they're both weird.

But, I've been staying on the army base here for a couple weeks, some of it in a cabin, some in the Edelweiss Lodge & Resort, and some on hard concrete floors. I've been exploring Garmisch a lot, and even though it's not that big, it's pretty rad. Very traditional Bavarian and huge ass mountains on every side.

My first week in Garmisch, I went sledding here:

on this:

It was an awesome four hour adventure of high speed sledding down a 14 kilometer ski run. I met another army brat named Patrick and we kept riding the gondola up to the top to get in as many runs as possible. We did stop by the restaurant at the top for a beer before the last two runs though. Yeah, German ski resorts have restaurants and bars all over the place. Fucking bomb.

Two days after that even I went back up to Munich to pick up Rob from the airport. I stayed at the Euro Youth Hostel again (still awesome) and hit up one of the Augustiner Breweries for a couple beers. I sat down with two old German guys who spoke a bit of English and had fun talking to them for a while. Apparently they've been coming to those same two seats every week for over 20 years! One recommended the Augustiner dunkel (dark beer) and so I got one of those and I have to say, it was like an even tastier Amber Bock. Hopefully I can bring home some of it.

The next morning I went and met Rob at the airport at 9am. We almost got arrested on the train from the airport to the central train station though. I thought you could buy tickets on the train, but apparently not, and it's a felony to ride without a ticket. The crazy looking old ticket woman made us get off and called the polizei. They showed up a few minutes later, took our passport info and told us that they would have to take us away if we didn't pay the 80 Euro fine. So we paid it and got back on towards Munich. Super dumb. It was kinda funny though because the two cops looked exactly like Seth Rogan and the lady cop from Super Troopers. Rob and I wanted to get a picture but didn't want to get in any more trouble. So instead, just pretend that these guys are slightly more European and standing on a train unloading platform.

But yeah, after that little incident, I took Rob to the Marienplatz and the Hofbrauhaus again

(cause I really dig it) and then we bought 39 cent beers from the underground shopping district

and as we were drinking them, we stopped nearby a statue to listen in on a tour that was passing by. The tour guide was telling her group about the statue of Juliet and how if you give her a flower she will give you good luck in love, relationships and sex and so Rob rushed over to the flower vendor a few feet away and paid a Euro for a small flower.

After that, we climbed the 400-something steps of Saint Peter's Church tower to see the views of Munich. Worth it.

After Rob bought a Cuban cigar, we left for Garmisch and went to a huge liquor. Apparently Garmisch's is actually pretty small but it's one of the biggest I've ever seen.

Premixed cap'n and coke

9 Euro mini kegs

And huge ass bottles of liquor

Afterwards we went out for dinner and back to the hotel.

I really, really like Munich.

My first full day in Munich was jam packed with super neato stuff. I woke up pretty early and had a buffet breakfast at the hostel for 3,90 Euro and it was tasty as could be.

Then I went for another walk down to the Marienplatz to see everything in the daylight. When I got there, they were having some kind of faux coronation for the German holiday 'Epiphany' where apparently two young-looking adults get crowned king and queen of something and dress up in all white and gold and there was a stage and weird costumes and dancing. I'm not sure what it was all about really.

I'm not sure if that was a dance or if they were legit pointing at something.

I kinda hung around there for a while because of all the music and craziness on stage, plus the glockenspiel goes off at 11am and noon and that's pretty cool to watch.

Walked around a bit, saw St. Peter's Church, other plazas and stuff.

And I got lunch at this huuuuuuge underground shopping center/mall thing? It had everything inside. Everything ever. I should have taken pictures. Instead I got lunch and ate it at the hostel. And then I accidentally took a nap.

But not before getting my kinder eggs.

So after my way-too-long nap I went down to the hostel bar with one of my roommates, who was also travelling alone. And after a couple beers we went to get some food at Munich's famous Hofbräuhaus, which inspired the drinking song "One, two, drink!" It is also where Hitler's National Socialist Party held it's first meeting in 1920.

Expensive, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere and history of the place. You aren't seated by anyone, you just find an empty seat at a table (usually with others) and sit down. The tables have names of people hundreds of years dead scratched into their surfaces and you just get a really traditional Bavarian vibe in there.


The next morning I wanted to see the so-called English Garden and spent about 40 minutes walking there in the dark to hopefully get to see sunrise in the park. However, I think I only saw about 2 hours worth of sunlight the whole time I was in Munich because of the constant snow and cloud cover. Luckily I love snow enough to not hold a grudge.

I only scratched the surface of the English Garden because I was meeting my mom at the central train station in couple hours, but it was a cool place.

There was a Japanese style tea house near the front.

And all the bridges over the creeks had locks all over them. I looked at them and realized they all had names and initials all over them, always in pairs.

Oh yeah, and then there were surfers. These two dudes and this chick were just surfing in this liitle man made swell that was there specifically for the purpose of surfing in. Righteous.

I gave them the thumbs up and then booked it to the train station. ...Where apparently they paint new trains to look like really old ones? I would have just preferred the old ones.

You know that stereotype about Germans being rude?

Totally false. (Unless they work for Scandlines ferries.)

So when I got to Stralsund, I went to the information desk to ask for directions to the bus station because I'm cheap and wanted to take a bus to Rostock, but the woman there didn't speak much English. I'm pretty sure she was telling me that there was no bus to Rostock when another older German woman walked up to me and said "Rostock? Come!" She was smiling and beckoning me, so I followed her down a flight of stairs, up another, and onto a loading area for the high speed ICE trains. We kinda talked for a bit, I understood enough to tell her that my mom was near Munich and that's where I wanted to go. I tried to tell her that my mom was a student in an Arabic school but she thought I kept saying aerobics, haha. So she was suuuuuuper friendly and helpful since the ticket checker/seller person didn't speak English either. I told them I wanted to go to Munich- I think I said "Ich möchte nach München" but it may have come out differently- and a German guy sitting across from me translated that they recommended I go to Hamburg for a connecting trip since the train I was on was headed there.

After the first stop (I forget where it was) a German girl about my age sat in the seat behind the older German and I and she spoke English very well. She was super helpful too, she overheard us having another conversation with the ticket checker and was able to translate everything perfectly. When she found out I wanted to go to Munich she even used her iPhone to look up prices and schedules for trains out of Hamburg for me. She recommended I take another ICE train rather than a bus because it would only take 6 hours instead of like 14, hah. And she wrote everything down for me. Adorbs.

I tried looking her up on Facebook but apparently Müller is a super common last name for Germans. =[

So I took her advice and then said thanks and goodbye to her when she got off at Rostock. Then, in Hamburg, I got off the train with my German lady friend and she took me all the way to the track I had to wait by before she said goodbye to me. I thanked her but she was so nice and helpful that I wish I could have expressed it better.

I ate lunch (way cheaper in Germany, under 5 Euro for a sandwich and 1,5 liter bottle of juice) and got on the train when it showed up 40 minutes later. The ride wasn't all the bad. I did have to get out of my awesome window seat because some jerk "reserved" it. I didn't even know you could do that on trains, and he never proved it so I any time he walked past my new, crap seat I kinda glared at him and his kid. Whatevs. The scenery was nice.

Took that one out the train window.

And then I arrived in Munich. I walked around a bit, found a Starbucks with free wifi, but I hate Starbucks so I refused to go in and just used their internet outside on a bench. Found a super sweet hostel called Euro Youth Hostel and walked there from the Marienplatz and booked a night.

Copenhagen, Southern Sweden and Northern Germany

And how I have come to hate them all.


Just kidding, though I did have a string of bad luck through here. Let's see, first of all, Kelley and I slept for a good portion of the 8 hour drive from Oslo to Copenhagen. Oh, and did I mention that we only paid for a ticket to Malmö, because that's where I needed to stop? Yeah, well we woke up as they were unloading for Malmö and I told Kelley to get off but she thought we weren't there yet and stalled for so long that the bus started again. So we had to go into Copenhagen, which was farther away from where I needed to go, but more convenient for her. When we got to Copenhagen, Kelley activated her Eurail pass and got on a train to France... I think. We split up in the station so I'm not 100% sure, but she did give me some kroner for a train back to Malmö. The lady gave me a ticket for Ystad instead though (because I said I needed to get on a ferry to Germany) so I went there, and found out that Ystad was actually past Trellebourg (the town with the flipping ferry). So after I got to Ystad, I waited for two hours for a bus to Trellebourg and I got lucky because the buses credit card machine wasn't working so I got to ride for free! So spice.

When I got to Trellebourg I went to the Scandlines building to try to buy a pass onto the ferry that goes to Rostock, Germany. It was closed, even though the hours of operation were posted and it wasn't supposed to be closed yet. So I decided I would try to hitch a ride with one of the cars getting on the ferry. After about 2 hours of standing in the rain a semi driver picked me up and we drove to the semi truck loading area. He went into the office to get his ticket and paperwork while I waited outside. He didn't speak of word of English (though he was really nice) but I understood enough of his German to find out that he couldn't take me after all. Inside they told him that they charged by the person now instead by the vehicle so I walked back into town and by now the Scandlines building was open. I paid 185 NOK for a ticket (about 25 Euro) and had to sit and wait for 6 freaking hours for the next ferry at 11pm.

I fell asleep for 2 or 3 hours on one of their waiting benches, heh. When I woke up, the building was full of other passengers and their bags and it was about an hour until the bus to the ferry would come. Well, it came right when the ticket lady said it would and I asked the driver if it was going to the Rostock ferry. He said yes and drove us onto the ferry.

I don't know why I put that picture on here, it sucks and doesn't show anything useful...

Well, after sitting in the cafeteria area of that ferry for 3 and a half hours, it announced that it would shortly be landing in Sassnitz. I asked the guy at the information desk if Rostock was next and he said that the ferry wasn't going to Rostock and that after it landed, it wasn't going anywhere again until morning. Fuck. I was really mad; plus the guy at the info desk (and the lady in the duty-free shop on the boat) was a jerk.

My set up on board.

I got off at Sassnitz (because I had to...) and followed the crowd of other passengers to- a parking lot. Yeah. That's all there was. No bus station, no train station, no rental cars, no other ferries, nothing but personally owned vehicles. Also, there were no hotels, hostels, B&Bs or even church doorways to sleep in and the security guard for Scandlines was locking the doors behind us. I asked him how to get to the nearest bus station and he gave me poor directions in broken English. I blame myself for not speaking better German on that one, but still. It was totally lame. So he left and then I was stuck at this stupid ferry, with the only other building nearby being a factory or unloading dock or something for all the semi trucks. This is about a fourth of a kilometer up the road.

Turn down your speakers for this, it's pretty much all wind-static.



After recording that little gem, I walked about 3 kilometers to the (only?) stoplight nearby and looked at my map and the street signs. Apparently I was still about 8 kilometers away from Sassnitz and there were no visible street lights anywhere nearby, just the lights on the now distant ferry dock and factory street thing. It was pretty scary. I didn't know if I should go back to the ferry and wait until morning or try to walk to Sassnitz but the thought of sleeping in the freezing cold, light rain was not appealing at all.

So, at 2:30 in the morning, on an island in the Baltic Sea, on January 6th, I walked for 5 miles through a pitch black National Park to get to a train station where trains only arrive and depart once per hour from 5am to 11pm.

It was pretty scary. But I convinced myself that there probably weren't any roving packs of carnivorous animals since it was an island and all. It took me about 2 hours total since I took a really long time making up my mind about which way to go when I got to the stop light, I went about half a mile down one road because it looked like there were lights closer-ish in the distance (reflecting off the clouds?) but I changed my mind and turned a 180 back towards Sassnitz.

So yeah, I made it to their tiny little train station just as a train was leaving for Rostock, convenient, right? Too bad I missed it by about 30 seconds. So I had to wait another hour and 15 minutes in the cold with my sleeping bag around my shoulders for the next train. But after the initial aggravation of finding out I had been on the wrong boat, I was surprisingly, to myself, not unhappy about the situation. I should have been tired and really mad or something but mostly I was thinking about how it was an adventure. Now it kinda seems boring, but oh well. I got on a train to Stralsund at 6:09am on Friday, and there are trains to Rostock from there, so it worked out.

And here's my progress so far:

Oslo, Norway

[ Wow. Free wifi is harder to find than I thought it would be. I wrote this a couple days ago in Norway but haven't been able to stay online long enough to upload it until now. ]

So, Norway, eh? The first thing we did upon arrival was buy two 48 hour Oslo passes. They give you free entry into most museums, discounts on food, and unlimited public transport within the city, which was well worth it.

The first day in Oslo was pretty difficult. I was really tired and hungry and cold and couldn't figure out the damn buses. But Kelly, my sister, and I walked around and got to see a really cool city. We couchsurfed for the first two nights with Stine and Bjorg, two really awesome people who let us use their spare room and internet and had a lot of fun conversations with us. They even made us a delicious fish dinner and we are really grateful for how hospitable they were! They also had a sweet view of the city from their apartment, which I failed at capturing. (You can see exactly where I edited the pictures together, hah.)

The second day we totes had the buses (mostly) figured out and it only took us two or three tries to get to the Kon Tiki museum. Unfortunately we didn't have much time since we had slept for about 13 hours each (jet lag or just laziness, I'm not sure which) and we took the wrong buses so we only got to spend half an hour each in the Kon Tiki and the Vikingskipshuset. They were both pretty awesome though and we got some cool pictures.

We hit up the national bibliotek for some free internet to find out where best to go after Oslo. Then we spent the rest of the night looking for the entrance to the central train station and the bus station so that we could check prices to Copenhagen. We got dinner at Peppe's Pizza and even with the 20% discount from the Oslo Pass, a large cheese cost us 150 NOK, which at the time equaled $25.90 in USD. And that's why I brought so many energy bars with me to Norway!

Day 2 found us in the Fram museum, which I am calling out as a must-see. It's badass.

When you walked onto the Fram a projector was activated and it would play some chill music and a short clip of moving stars and the aurora.

Then we hit us the maritime museum right next door and had a snack sitting out by the... sea? Ocean? Whatevs. The water with the boats in it.

Took another bus (like a baus) and went over to check out 'The Scream' at the national art gallery. Cool stuff. Then we grabbed a snack lunch from the deli across the street, which set me back about 10 US dollars for a croissant and a juice; it was apple/pear juice though so I'm not complaining.

After lunch we went across town to the Vigeland park. Now obviously I had done research on some places I'd like to see in Europe and this was one of them. I had read some stuff and seen a couple pictures and Stine and Bjorg had told us about the park, so we went. I was not prepared. The entryway to the park is really pretty and, well, normal. But about 100 meters in, you start seeing the statues. They. Are. Crazy. Seriously, whoever commissioned, designed and places these things must have been on some hard ass angel dust. I'll just skip ahead to my favorite one:

I don't actually know if any of these have names or not, but I call this one "Flying Baby Attack". Here are a few of the others and some pictures of the park.

Young man, there's no need to feel down...

Our CS hosts told us about this one, and how the woman's back is worn down from people sitting on her, so I obliged the statue gods.

Yeah... I dunno.

The sun went down while we were there and it was beautiful. And freezing.

I think it's impossible not to stare at the balls on this picture. Also, yeah, he's like, choke-killing that lady there.

Soooo, that's the park. That night we ate with Stine, Bjorg and Iben, their daughter, and then got on a bus to Copenhagen at 22:50.