Oktoberfest :D

Oktoberfest: The Quintessential German Event

Oktoberfest. Beer. Pretzels. Dirndls and Lederhosen. Lots of people. 

Because I am staying in Germany for a year, I thought that going to the original Oktoberfest was a must and I'm glad I did. I had an amazing time with some great PPPlers. I took the train early Saturday morning to Munich and arrived in the city decked out in my dirndl around noon. I walked around the festival and got some food until the other PPPlers arrived. A group of PPPlers from Radolfzell and Cologne arrived around 3 pm and we managed to find a table outside of the Augstiner Brauhaus. We sat, drank, talked, and laughed until it got dark. All of the sudden it started pouring down rain! The non-intelligent group decision was to run back to the train station the pouring down rain and so we ran. Once we arrived at the train station soaked, I changed into some dry wear, bid farewell to my other PPPlers, and waited for my train to Augsburg. One of my many relatives in Germany lives in Augsburg and she let me stay with her on Saturday night. It was so nice to have a warm bed to sleep in after the torrential rain storm I experienced. All in all it was an awesome day with awesome friends and I am so glad I went. 
 Here's some pictures from Oktoberfest:

 

        

 

And Augsburg:

I apologize again for the delay in posting. Hopefully I will post about Dresden/Berlin soon but I can't make any promises...my mommy's coming Wednesday and I am so excited!!!!

PARIS!!!!

First off, let me say how grateful I am for the generosity of the German people I have encountered. My host family has been so helpful and eager to help me travel during my language school phase and see all sorts of areas of Europe. If you read my previous posts, you saw that my host mom, Reingart's friend Ullie paid for Natalie's and my train tickets to Radolfzell. I was overwhelmed by his generosity then and was even more in shock when he told me that he would pay for myself (and a friend) for a trip to Paris. Ullie paid for two round-trip train tickets to Paris and gave us 100 Euros to spend when we were there. This gesture was incredible and I can not believe how amazing he is. 

So let's start talking about Paris. I decided to travel with Natalie (who traveled with me to Radolfzell) to Paris because she has seen the sights before and could show me all that Paris has to offer. So we set off Saturday morning with a French train bound for Paris. After buying our metro passes for the weekend, and dropping our stuff off at our hostel, we met up with a lot of people and took a free walking tour of Paris. This company doesn't charge people for the tours, but instead asks people to tip the tour guides according to how well they gave to tour. With this tour we walked around a large part of Paris and saw a ton of the famous sights. The tour lasted about 4 hours and boy were my feet tired afterwards.

Here are some pictures from the walking tour.

The fountain where we began our walking tour

A bridge where couples "lock" their love on the bridge and throw the key in to the Seine

The Louvre

Myself in front of the glass pyramids at The Louvre

Arc de Carrousel

Obelisk and the Arc de Triomphe

First views of the Eiffel Tower

Sacre-Coeur in Montmarte

Notre Dame

That evening we had a quick but delicious dinner at an Italian Restaurant then ran to catch our boat tour of the city at night. It was truly beautiful but I only got a few good pictures.

After some mishaps with our hostel room (miss-communication between us and the hostel) we finally went to bed and woke up ready for a new day. We made a quick stop by the Paris Opera House to take some pictures then headed by train to Versailles, the insanely ornate palace built for Louis XIV. It was gorgeous and crazy to think that the royalty spent that much money on one building (guess that's why that whole revolution took place :P) 

Paris Opera House

Versailles

Once we visited Versailles, we traveled back into Paris and took a tour of the Catacombs  It was crazy to see all of the bones and skulls down there especially because it was slightly dark and creepy down there. It was definitely interesting and worth the visit though.

Right after the Catacombs we took a quick trip to Saint-Chapelle, a gorgeous church.

After the Saint-Chapelle we decided we were pretty worn out and headed  back to the train station to catch our train back to Saarbrücken. Overall, this was an amazing, jam-packed weekend that I will always remember.

And the next weekend? What else, Oktoberfest! :D