Deutschland!

Well, I'm back from Germany. What an amazing trip. We had about 5 minutes of the lightest rain possible the entire trip...the rest of the time it was never colder than 15 degrees and the average was like 20, and sunny, with white fluffy clouds. No lie. Gorgeous. Most of the time we were surrounded by the Bavarian Alps...either that or at the top of them, drinking beer (hey man, it's Germany, it's what you do when you go to Germany). Actually, to be fully honest, I either drank Radlers (a lager mixed half and half with sprite) or Russes (weiss beer mixed half and half with sprite...DELICIOUS. Weiss beer wins).

We only stayed in Southern Germany (and into Salzberg, Austria), landing in Munich, driving to Rothenberg, then Garmish, then Berchtesgaden, then finishing up again in Munich. One day I'll go back and visit Northern Germany, and see Berlin. We pretty much stayed in those places and then we drove to different places during the day. Neuschwanstein (aka the Disney castle) was definitely a highlight. It was never finished, did you know that? I didn't. It's cuz King Ludwig II ran out of money from making too many castles. (...he was slightly insane and pretty much spent all his time dreaming...one of the castles we went to, Herrenchiemsee, he made as a copy of Versailles, in France, because he was obsessed with Louis XIV...)

I'm quite surprised with how much German I understood. My mom's first language was German, until she went to Kindergarten and learned English (is that ironic because Kindergarten is a German word?...). So she could talk pretty easily with people in German, and I could always follow the conversation, even if I didn't know every word. I could probably have had a conversation with someone, although it would have been pretty broken on my end, hahaaa.

Americans really do have a bad name for themselves...I mean, not all of them...but you come across some, and it's just like. POW. That is why no one likes you...when we went to the Zugspitze (the highest peak in Germany), we came down the mountain on a cable car (we had to take a train up, which SUCKED), and there was this HUGE, obviously American (hello accent) guy who was THE most obnoxious person I have ever seen. I wanted to punch him. We think his name was Milt so whenever we saw an obnoxious American for the rest of the trip, we'd talk about Milt. We also tell all our friends about him. ahahahaaaaa. Also, when we went to the ice caves in Austria, our (very attractive) tour guide (who my age-ish) was kind of cold to us at first, because we spoke English, but then he saw the Canadian Flag pin on my Dad's hat and asked us if we were Canadian, and from then on he was a lot friendlier. I highly enjoyed that tour, I have to say. Not just because of the tour guide, either, lol. These are the biggest ice caves in the world, and they reminded me of that part in Ice Age when they're sliding through the ice caves (couldn't find it on youtube, curses!).

Also...right now it's Asparagus season in Germany. Not just boring, scrawny, green asparagus, though, oh no. White asparagus. THICK. And if you ordered it, you'd get way more than in that picture, you'd get pretty much a whole bunch, about 3 times what's in that picture. These people SERIOUSLY love their asparagus. When you go to a restaurant, they give you their regular menu, and then a separate asparagus menus. Usually asparagus is the main dish, and then you can order things to go with it it, like potatoes and schnitzel (I ate a lot of schnitzel...delicious). They have festivals for this vegetable. That's how much they love it.

And now, I have to get back to reality...back to my job search...and I'm currently trying to catch up on my distance education course that I'm taking over the summer, sociology...I have to write essays!! I haven't done that since grade 12...so long ago...