München

Two of my best friends from home finally finished the spring semester at home and visited me here in Germany. We had a bit of a whirlwind weekend in München which began with a painful 7+ hour bus ride on the hottest day we've had thus far this year. First thing we noticed upon arrival: everything was closed when we arrived at just after 8 PM. It turns out that this is the norm down in Bavaria and if it weren't for the Müller and Yorma's in the Hauptbahnhof, I would have been without toothbrush and beer that first night. But for that reason itself, those two stores are forever fondly stored in my memories :)

As tourists/Americans, we had to see Schloss Neuschwanstein AKA the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland - and that's exactly what we did on our first day. I underestimated the journey; one has to take the train from München Hbf to Füssen, then take a bus to the village below the castle and climb up the hill to the castle itself. No matter... it was worth it, and even better I undertook the trip with two friends I haven't seen in quite a while, so there was no shortage of conversation.

We had some time to kill between when we finally reached the castle and our tour, so we did some off-path hiking. Tip: Wear better shoes than old Converse, Vans, or boat shoes because those aren't conducive to climbing or descending an "unofficial" trail of sorts. But that is also how this magical photo was captured:

 ...yeah, I take this over a Fantasyland copycat anyday.

To be honest, the inside of the castle wasn't memorable. We only went inside because we figured YOLO (cringe) as it will be a very long time before we come back. We missed our bus back to the village after an unsuccessful footrace down the hill and ended up walking the 3 or 4 km back to Füssen, but the sun was shining, the birds chirping, and the flowers along the path abloom, so the walk was beautiful.

We returned to München and treated ourselves to a Maß each at the Hofbräuhaus. A Maß is a liter of beer that dwarfs this already-small Chinese girl. It was the perfect pairing with my meal, which I don't know the name of and downed without asking too many questions as to what I was eating.

Speaking of not knowing what I was eating, Bavarians have different names and specialties for food. For example, I had no idea what Semmel was until I asked a man from Heidelberg at my table at Viktualienmarkt during lunch; turns out it's just a particular kind of Brötchen. And I never dared to try that Weißwurst, although my friend tried it and liked it.

We spent the next day seeing the sights, beginning with the BMW Museum. The museum is more or less a huge advertisement for BMW & subsidiaries, but it was a nice stop for my friend who loves cars. All the shiny vehicles!

We also ascended the tower of St. Peter's Church, which provided a wonderful view of the city and in particular the Neues Rathaus, or City Hall.

The climb to the top of the tower was actually one of the tougher ones I've done since the steps are quite high; furthermore, take note that there is no one at the top directing people to walk in a certain direction so you end up stuck in these narrow walkways, unable to move around freely unless you start shoving people around. (Yes, I'm still a little bitter.)

In addition, we visited

• Olympic Village: this is the first I've ever seen, and it was surprisingly small. Have they gotten bigger over the years, or are my expectations just that far off?
• several churches but most notably Asamkirche, an insanely awesome but also extremely creepy Gothic church on Sendlinger Str., a big shopping street
• Westpark, where sun was soaked up and cheap beer from an awesome Getränkemarkt was consumed

We ended the trip with brunch at Cafe Westend, which was right around the corner from our Airbnb. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, and fruit salad! Perfection.

Dresden

FYI: This post is being composed in a cafe on a street corner near my hostel in Brussels, one of the more interesting cities I've visited in Europe. Just sitting here, slowly sipping on my cappuccino (is this considered pretentious?) and listening to the French, Dutch, and English conversations around me while waiting for my friend to arrive. More on that to come!

The only thing I knew about Dresden before visiting was that it had been heavily damaged during World War II per Slaughterhouse-Five. It's fairly close to Berlin, about 2.5 hours with bus, and two friends in January actually trekked out there for a day trip. Fortunately for me, I had the chance to stay there for a weekend - and what a weekend it was :)

Dresden is quite different from Berlin. It's a lot like Prague if my memory serves me, namely it is an incredibly cute city.

What distinguished it particularly from Berlin was the people. Berlin, aside from the neighborhood where I live, is full of young adults eager to go out and have a great time. I was slightly surprised when I hit the streets of Dresden to find that the average age of the surrounding people in touristy areas was 40+. Fortunately, that was not the case in Neustadt, which is where the bars and our hostel were located.

Something Dresden has in common with Berlin, on the other hand, was this lovely little Hinterhof. Tucked behind the facade were cute stationary, dress, and jewelry shops in addition to quite the dandy installation on an inside wall.

The city is quite small and walkable - but take that with a grain of salt, as we almost missed our bus home when walking from Neustadt to the Hauptbahnhof and actually had to take a cab to make it on time. If the weather had been nicer when we were there, it would've been even better to stroll around and hang out in parks with a beer or two.

The Dresden skyline is quite renowned, and I remember the first time I caught a glimpse of it on the train home from Prague. I was able to see it during a beautiful sunset when my bus first arrived in town, one that unfortunately no camera in the world could accurately capture. Take my word for it... it was glorious.

Much of the Altstadt that comprises the skyline and tourist zone was actually destroyed during WWII, so there are parts of the Neustadt that are older than those buildings. They sure look the part though!

One of the highlights of my weekend was reuniting with a travel companion I had met in London in February who also happens to be one of the nicest people I think I've ever met. I danced the night away in someone's apartment to the early hits of Britney, Destiny's Child, and everyone's two favorite 90s boy bands while sipping on peppermint schnapps that looked and tasted like Listerine from a bottle that was nearly as big as me.

It was a wonderful weekend that brought me a bit closer to my friends here and provided me with a nice little break away from Berlin. I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend in Dresden, and I look forward to going back one day!

Der Erste Mai

May 1st is International Workers' Day AKA Labor Day in Europe. I'm not really sure about the historical context behind the holiday, but I do know that the day has developed quite the reputation in Berlin. Instead of taking advantage of the day off and going on a spontaneous trip over the long weekend, I was highly recommended to stay in town and enjoy the festivities in the streets of Kreuzberg.

After a late start to the day, my friend and I were dropped off at an U-Bahn station by my host siblings. Coincidentally, we met up with our fellow Californians who were headed to the party with a huge group of Germans. Since there were 20+ of us, we ended up having to walk much of the way because there was no way all of us were getting on already completely stuffed trains.

It was absolutely insane how many people there were. I had a hard time contacting anyone I was planning on meeting because texts took many minutes to send and calls were simply not going through from too much activity on the network. We were warned by the Germans who had been before to try and stick together as much as possible, or we would completely lose one another.

Our first stop was, oddly enough, Hannibal at Görlitzer Bahnhof. We stayed there for a while and I contemplated not drinking at all, but it was way too bright outside and I was not too keen on dancing. My friend offered me some of this:

"It tastes like Dr. Pepper but with alcohol!"

And the party began.

After illegally obtaining a very, very large bottle of jäger, we headed to our second stop. We stayed long enough to get confetti-ed, watch a guy climb up a light pole, and finish the bottle of jäger. At this point, we all realized that we needed to take a bathroom break in Görlitzer Park, the unofficial bathroom for the day, but a friend and I lost touch with everyone else in the group at some point. We ended up sitting in the (very crowded) park for a bit and meeting up with another friend after some painfully slow back-and-forth texting.

I was going to go home at this point, but then I was able to get in contact with another one of my friends with whom I had earlier planned to meet. It took a while, but I found this group and we went to a hip hop stage (where I randomly ran into a couple of the friends I had lost in the first group I was with) until we needed to buy more beer. We proceeded down Oranienstraße and there were live acts and flamenco music and Indian music and it was just such a wonderful time. At some point we stopped for greasy Chinese food, and the guys I was with kept saying, "I want to hear you order in Chinese!" which didn't end up working out.

The day became night and everything in between is quite hazy in my memory. I wasn't drunk, just blissfully buzzed, enjoying the music, dancing, and soaking in the atmosphere.

It was a day/night quite unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I got in a couple of personal milestones of the embarrassing nature, too. Thank you for a great time and getting me out of my funk, Berlin.

Girls' Weekend in Prague

Something to lighten the mood, ja? I swear I am still having the time of my life here. Shit happens. That's actually what my host mom told me Saturday morning when I woke up and told her what had happened a few hours prior - Scheiß gelaufen! It honestly could've happened anywhere at any time, so I take it as a lesson learned.

I was fortunate enough to travel with people for the first time since arriving in Europe. Four girlfriends, one of whom is Slovakian and studies there, and I headed to Prague on Easter weekend, and we had a swell time together.

Prague is one of those places that make you wonder why people ever settle for the bullshit version of fairytale towns - Fantasyland in Disneyland, I'm looking at you! I know why I did: I never knew such glorious places existed in real life.

Uhhhhh... okay... LOOK AT THE BUILDINGS. LOOK AT THE PASTEL COLORS. LOOK AT THAT CATHEDRAL AND THE BRIDGE. That's pretty much what we spent the time doing. Simply walking around and soaking in the beauty with the sun shining was comforting and relaxing.

The ugliest part of the city were the Babies. If you've ever seen them, you know what I mean. They're normal alright... until you get a nice glance at their creepy faces! This is nightmare-status stuff, people. I was fortunate enough to never get close enough to that hideous TV tower either to see these things crawling on it.

We booked our train tickets and hostel really late so we had the pleasure of standing/sitting in the cramped walkway of the train for half of the journey in both directions. Another lesson learned: book a reserved seat! It wasn't too bad though. We became experts at finding seats for the second leg of each journey, and I guess we're young and it was all a part of the experience.

Another part of the experience? The "beverages." This coming from the girl whose goal was to drink plentifully try the alcohol(s) of every country she travels to. In Prague, this meant ~1 EUR half liters of Pilsner Urquell and vodka.

And lastly, the food. Aptly described as delicious but heavy. Case in point: dumplings, a mixture of what looked and tasted like mini gnocchi, cheese, and bacon bits. Actually it is a Slovakian specialty (with a name I cannot write or pronounce and is not really translatable to English) but quite characteristic of what I felt the food in general was like. Below is a photo of a serving after my friend finished eating.

Here is a photo of me with my dessert on the first night. Because chocolate cake.

I had a lovely time, and more importantly I was able to bond a lot with the ladies. Thank you for being awesome, for being you, and for sticking with me despite my oddities and tendency to cry at parties. I love and appreciate you dearly! Can't wait to hit the road with you again :)

Stranger Danger

When I first got to Berlin, I was overly cautious. I wore my purse under my thick coat and tried not to carry one at all, instead conveniently stashing everything I needed in pockets. I was good about not getting on the train while intoxicated and/or sleepy. I avoided areas with very few people, and I really didn't stay out all that late.

With time, I felt more comfortable. I could navigate the public transit system and got better at not getting lost. I dared to ride alone in empty trains very, very late in the night and even once fell asleep. Sometimes I walked through poorly lit areas alone and often with the screen of my phone glowing. Once, I went for a run alone at 11 PM.

In short, I got cocky.

At around 4 AM on early Saturday morning, I was robbed at an U-Bahn station. While standing alone on the platform listening to music on my phone, a man came up to me and asked me for directions in very broken German. I pointed him in the right direction, and he was thankful - so much so that he wanted to give me a hug. Is that weird? Yes, Annie, that is actually really weird! But I had just had a hug-full evening with my friends and some Europeans can be that friendly, I questionably convinced myself. I was tired and had had at this point a horrendous week. I gave the dude a hug. And then he asked for another.

Now at this point, you might be thinking, "Annie, were you seriously drunk at the time?" The police asked me the same later on and no, I was not drunk. I have no explanation for why I did it, other than that I was so tired and somehow thought that there was no way this person was a bad guy. He couldn't be a bad guy. I should just be able to tell if he were. He came up to me asking for help. I helped him. It's not like he was being obviously creepy or anything. He just wanted to get home and it was late at night and I had done him a favor. He couldn't be a bad guy. He just couldn't. I had been nice.

So I give the guy a second hug and it's lasting awkwardly long. At this point, I'm mainly afraid he's trying to sexually assault me but next thing I knew, he had worked my bag off my arm and onto his and booked it. My first instinct was to chase him, but I couldn't keep up with him. At one point, he dumped the contents of my bag out, and we both knew what he was after: my phone. I reached for it and had it in my hand for a final fleeting moment before he snatched it and ran off.

At this point, I had given up. There was no point in going after him; the opportunity cost was way too high. I was lucky to still have all my cards, documents, and cash. I called the police using the Notruf button, and maybe ten police officers showed up within a few minutes. They asked me to describe the man. I couldn't even tell them what he was wearing. They asked me if the scratches and bit of blood on my arms were from the altercation. I guess they were, but I certainly didn't feel it at the time. I was absolutely, positively stunned by the experience.

I walked away with a sore arm and bruises on my chest and knees, none of which I felt until I woke up in the morning after two hours of tossing and turning. My bag and all of its contents, with the exception of my phone, are thankfully here with me. I don't regret for even a second going after the guy, even if it would've been risky. If I hadn't, I would've had to spend the entire day calling companies, cancelling cards, and writing emails.

Sometimes, I forget that I am a 5' Asian girl who doesn't look like much to overtake and honestly is an easy target. As bad of an experience as this was, I got really lucky. I can't even imagine what else could've happened to me and what else could continue happening to me if I don't start taking better care of myself.

I laid in bed for hours the morning of simply reworking the scenario in my head and victim blamed myself for most of that time. I know better, what the hell was I thinking, I basically deserved what I got, etc.  Even now, I'm quite furious with myself for being so naive, and it's gonna take a while for me to forgive myself.

That really capped off a truly dreadful week for me.

But do you know what always managed to put a smile on my face?

The love and support of my friends and family both here and at home. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have gotten out of bed yesterday. They got me breakfast in the morning, laid in bed with me while I read the first pages of Emil und die Detektive out loud, checked in to ask if I was doing well mentally, met with me early so my first trip on the U-Bahn since the incident wouldn't have to be solo, they fed me dinner and beer and too many potato chips. If any of you are reading this, know that I freaking adore you.

There's nowhere to go but up.

First Day of Class

...about damn time.

I'm not gonna lie: since I arrived in January, I've spent most of my time dicking around. I took off for a month and even when I was here for "class," let's be honest... I didn't do that much learning although to be fair, I was technically learning everywhere I was - at the bar, at the club, at the bakery, at Aldi, at the Späti. Little things matter too, like how to order a G&T in German.

So imagine what it felt like to wake up this morning knowing that I would have to sit through hours and hours of economics lecture today. (Classes here meet once a week for a longass session.)

Actually, it felt pretty good, like my life in Berlin finally has direction.

I boarded the AM struggle-train to the university which was remarkably entertaining. When the students are on holiday, the train is almost empty. Now that classes have begun, it is more packed with young people than the U1 on Friday and Saturday nights. 

It helped that my first lecture was in English. It's a course on the history of economics and while, yes, that does sound rather dull, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the familiar names of famous economists and their contributions to the field. It actually brought me a decent amount of excitement to learn that Cournot is not only known for his work in game theory but also in being one of the first to propose a downward sloping demand curve. #nerd

My second lecture was environmental economics, and it passed by in a complete blur... something about fisheries, something about the prisoner's dilemma, some graphs about marginal cost and marginal willingness to pay. Fortunately, it covered mainly logistics and microeconomic principles that I more or less already know, but there were times when my brain gave out completely. The amount of thinking you have to do just to study a subject itself can already be overwhelming, but to do it in a foreign language at least doubles the difficulty of the task. I respect the foreign students in my micro class from last semester who were somehow able to keep up with the pace and rigor of the professor.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to another university to try and get into a psychology course there. I don't need it, but it sounds interesting enough to try out. And if anything, I need to get out of the house.

Academically, I think the dust is finally starting to settle.

Everything else? Sheer chaos. A neverending rollercoaster. The best of times and the worst of times. But nothing short of an adventure, always.

Carpe Diem

I'm not a social person at home. I would go as far as to say that I generally do not like people. I have a close circle of friends that I trust and confide in, and occasionally we party a bit or knock back a couple of beers together at Dolores Park or on Memorial Glade on a nice day.

And then I came to Berlin.

When I first arrived in the city after not sleeping for almost 24 hours, my host sister Alicia asked me if I wanted to go to a bar with her and her friends. I went and within my first few hours in Berlin, I had already made a couple of German friends, which is hard when you've just landed and can barely speak the language.

When I'm at a club on Saturday night, I am - in my mind - wingwoman extraordinaire, and I don't have any issue going up to any person in my intoxicated state and introducing him/her to my friend. And the only line I've ever had to use was "Sprichst du Englisch?" because it's admittedly quite funny coming from this little drunk Asian girl who may or may not know what she's doing.

When Alicia sends me a text at 8 PM on a Tuesday night asking me if I want to meet her and her (German) friends for umsonst Wodka und Apfelsaft, I'm there at the bar half an hour later and stay until 2 AM. My reasoning? This may be my only opportunity to pull these kinds of shenanigans and get away with it. At the very least I can get in some good Hörverständnis, make a couple more German friends, and indulge in something better than the usual cheap vodka.

In some ways, I feel like I'm living a double life. I wonder what remnants of this personality I will take back with me to the States. I'm hoping for more rather than less. This other side of me is kinda fun.

There's nothing quite like being in an extremely uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation to really kick you properly in the behind and motivate you to seize the day. After all, what's there to lose?