Wildlife park

I have been spending a lot more time with the kids lately because my host mom started a new job that is much more time consuming than the last one. A couple weeks ago the kindergarten was closed so I was with the kids the entire day. From when they woke up to half hour before they went to bed. It was a very very long day so I wanted to take them somewhere so they weren't in the house the entire day. My host mom suggested we go to a wildlife park nearby. It was an awesome park. I think it was better than the zoo. When you first walk in there are deer walking freely and some even follow you around. They had really awesome animals like wildcats, owls, and little pigs that were adorable. Unfortunately, it was a very very cold day and Amelie(the 3 year old) was freezing and not having a good time. So I had to take the kids home without seeing the entire park. I was really looking forward to seeing the wild bears but hopefully I'll get to go back before I go home. Here are some pictures from the park.

Cheers

I was so excited to go to Scotland for more than one reason. I fell in love with the UK when I went in 2006 with my high school. I always wanted to go back and of course because I'm a Wallace I feel a strong connection with the Scots. I also was excited because for the last 10 months I have been in a world of German. I was so excited to speak the common language and be around happy cheerful people. I was so lucky to have made a great friend who's boyfriend lives in Scotland. Alexa was so kind to invite me to stay with her and Niels at his flat in Aberdeen and spend Halloween night with them. Lets be serious no one wants to spend the most fun party holiday in a country that doesn't celebrate it and is filled with people who don't have fun or party. I was one lucky girl.

Of course I have a travel curse on me and in order to keep the universe aligned I would have to have something go wrong in my journey. Without fail it always happens. The day I traveled to Aberdeen every SINGLE means of transportation I was using was late. This Includes the S-bahn in Germany which is like clockwork and is NEVER late. Let me break it down for you:
-The bus to the s-bahn LATE
-The s-bahn to the airport LATE
-The flight from Munich to my layover in Amsterdam DELAYED (in turn missed my connecting flight)
-my new connecting flight DELAYED ( which in turn made me miss my train from Edinburgh to Aberdeen)
-had to purchase a new train ticket for five times more than the original price
-that new train LATE

I was suppose to arrive in Aberdeen 5pm and didn't end up arriving until 10pm. I left my house that morning at 6am. I did the calculations and In that time I could have flown all the way home from Munich to California. In the end it was worth all the fuss.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Aberdeen and Alexa showed me all the wonderful things to see. We did a lot of walking and I ate some of the best food I have had in a while. The best thing I ate was a macaroni pie. OMG delicious!!! Whoever thought of putting yummy macaroni in a flakey pie crust is a genius and should receive a noble prize for it.

The Great thing about the UK is that for an American it's the perfect combination of Europe and The States. There are a lot of the same stores and Alexa and I spent a good 3 hours shopping in TK Maxx (no that is not a typing error it's TK Maxx instead of TJ Maxx in Europe and the UK). I felt like I was home for those three hours of looking at every single thing TK Maxx had to offer. Alexa also took me to the coast to see the North Sea. It was cold and raining so we didn't spend much time there but it was very beautiful. We then went to the arcade and played some lame but awesome arcade games winning ourselves 3 lollipops and 2 ugly bracelets.

The last night of my stay in Aberdeen was Halloween night. Alexa and I both brought our dirndls with us and went as beer maids. We had a very nice pre-party at Niels neighbors house and then walked to a club called Gavarillo. The building used to be a school but they turned it into a club. Fun fact: many churches in Aberdeen have also been turned into clubs. Not sure how happy God is about that. The great thing about Scotland and the people who live there is they LOVE to party. I did a little to much of it myself that night and ended up staying up all night long. It was totally worth it and I met some of the coolest people but I paid my dues the next day.

We had a 9am train ride back to Edinburgh the next day and I didn't sleep a wink before that train ride. My body was very upset with me and my choices and had no mercy on me. Lets just say I spent a lot of my train ride not in my seat. when I finely got to Edinburgh Alexa, Neils, and I went our separate ways. I took a taxi to my hotel and was going to take a little nap and explore the city but it turned into a 13 hour sleep fest. I slept right through my alarm and many text messages. I didn't see much of the city that day due to this.

The next day I was very well rested and ready to start my day. I was staying in Edinburgh by myself in a very nice bed and breakfast. It was right on the coast of the North Sea. It was a very cute little place. So I went downstairs to claim my breakfast and it was very good. The owner of the place made my meal and we had a little chat. After breakfast I went into the city to explore. My first stop was the Edinburgh castle and it was just as beautiful as I remembered. I walked around the castle for a while. I did a little shopping and went back to my hotel to drop off the things I bought. I then went to a restaurant that my travel book suggested. I couldn't go to Scotland and not eat haggis. It wasn't bad but it wasn't something I'd like to eat a lot.

Beautiful Edinburgh

Edinburgh castle

William Wallace statue 

The Castle again

Haggis....yummy!

After dinner I wanted to go to a pub and do karaoke. It was a bit harder than I thought to find a place offering karaoke on a Friday night. I went to a pub that was suggested to me by the waitress at dinner. It was a pub filled with a bunch of old Scottish men and was not offering karaoke. I sat down and had a drink anyway. Everyone was so friendly and sweet to me but I could only understand half of what they were saying. I felt like I was back in Germany. They bought me another drink and then I went on with my pursuit to find a karaoke bar. I ended up finding a place and I am not kidding when I say I was the only girl in the entire pub.
I sang a couple songs and met some really nice people and didn't get back to my hotel until 1:30am.

The next morning I had to get up pretty early to meet Alexa at the airport. We ended up purchasing the same flight back to Munich with a 7 hour layover in Amsterdam. When we arrived in Amsterdam that day it was really nice weather and the train ride from the airport to the city was so fast. Alexa and I spent 5 hours wondering the city and taking in the culture. Everyone knows about Amsterdam and the legalization of drugs it is a completely different story when you see it for yourself. Alexa and I had a blast walking around and exploring the city and its beautiful canals. I'm very happy to have spent so much of my trip with her. She was and is a great travel partner. It was sad to be on a plane back to Munich but my trip to Scotland was by far the best trip yet.

Just a small portions of the many bikes in Amsterdam

Alexa < 3

The beautiful canal

Alexa and I 

Jack-O-Latern

So the kids and I carved a pumpkin the other day. It was their first time they have ever done it because they don't celebrate Halloween in Germany. They had a really fun time taking out all the seeds and picking out a pattern to cut out. They were in such aww watching me carve the pattern out. They were so excited with the finished project they waited down in the dark basement with the pumpkin until their dad got home. It was so cute. :)

 

Oktoberfest

The best word to describe Oktoberfest is "CRAZY". It's what you imagine it to be and more, much much more! We were crazy enough to go on the first day which is one of the busiest days. We got up at 4am to be ready by 6am. We got to the grounds at 8am and stood in line to get into a tent for 2 hours in the rain. It was incredible how many people were there to get into a tent just like us. We finally got into a tent and found a table. We then had to wait another 2 hours to be served a beer. After an hour and a half we were told that the table we were sitting at was reserved at 12 and we had to leave. We were so upset because there was no sign saying that the table was reserved and if there was we would have sat at a different table. It was very frustrating after all the waiting we did. There was no way we could find another table at this point so we just had to stand around and luckily we found a nice bavarian man sitting at a table and he bought us a mass (a liter of beer). After we got our beer we started to have a good time. The only problem was that we hadn't eaten since 6 in the morning so the already strong beer was even stronger. It was a fun time and we eventually found a table. At this point people don't sit at the tables they stand on the benches and sing, dance, and prosit (cheers). Germans take their drinking seriously and it gets really crazy the more people drink. On the way out of the tent Alexa and I ran into a guy who was wearing a kilt and only a kilt. He had taken his shirt off and was walking around in the cold weather basically naked. Alexa and I went up to him and he offered me his shirt so I took it. haha. When we left I opened the shirt and it was the funniest shirt I have ever seen. It was the cookie monster wearing Britain flag printed shorts kicking a soccer ball. Alexa and I laughed for like an hour about that shirt. :)

Me at 6am in the rain

The building of the tent and then the tent during Oktoberfest

The tent we went into the first time

Siobahn and me

Sarah and Alexa

If you can imagine the second time we went was even more crazy than the first time. We didn't go so early this time and we went on a Sunday so it wasn't so busy. We got into the Augustiner tent and we found a table right away. The only problem was that the table was reserved again so we would have to move again. So after about an hour we tried to find a table in the non-reserved section. We found a table of Italian men and they let us sit with them. It was really fun at first and then they started to be very inappropriate to the point that we had to move. We switch tables and sat with some 70 year old Bavarian men who in the end were not any better than the Italians. However, we didn't have to deal with them for very long because they ended up leaving not to long after we sat with them. It was a fun night but it was crazy. The thing about Oktoberfest and being a girl is that before you're done with your mass there is a new one waiting and ready for you to drink. You have no idea where it came from and who bought it so you drink more than you really think you are drinking. The crazy hilights of the night consist of Alexa being proposed to by a man she has only known for a half hour (actual wedding ring present), Me being accused by an Italian of stealing his wedding ring (really??), and getting an entire liter of beer poured down my front. It was a fun time but it was almost to much fun. It's much to intense for my taste.

Alexa

Sarah

Alexa with one of the old Bavarian men

All of us with one of the Italian boys

Alexa and old Bavarian man

Me and another old Bavarian man haha

View of Oktoberfest from the swings

View of Munich from the Ferris Wheel

Rischart 

So basically I missed the last week of Oktoberfest because after my fun crazy night I got really super sick. I again came down with tonsillitis and was in bed for five days. I don't know why I keep getting it but maybe Germany is telling me I don't belong here haha. It was okay though because after the two days I had I was okay not going again. I'm really glad I went and experience it but I wouldn't make a special trip to Germany for Oktoberfest.