Alps!!

My, how time does fly!  I can't believe that I've already been in Germany for nearly 7 weeks!!  That means that I'm more than halfway done with my stay here, which, when I finish, will be my longest time out-of-country ever.  I REALLY like Germany, though, and it's even beginning to feel a little like home.  I could totally see myself coming back here for an extended period sometime later, whether to study or work... I *probably* won't move here permanently, but you never know... ;)

The second part of our third weekend in Munich, we did something that I had been looking forward to the entire time.  I finally got to legitimately use my new hiking boots!!  We met at 10 (which meant that I had plenty of time to do other things beforehand ;]) and hopped on a regional train that would take us to the Alps for a lovely day of hiking.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating with our plans very well, and it was cold with a driving rain when we got on the train in Munich.  The ride to the mountains took an hour, and we had passed through most of the bad weather by the time we reached the foot of the peaks, but some ominous clouds could still be seen on the other side of the mountains.  I'm always just happy to get out in nature, but I was even more excited when I was informed that the majestic, snow-covered (in late June!!) peak I was looking at was actually the highest mountain in Germany.  Its name is Zugspitze (which, literally translated, means "Train Peak") - probably because there is a train that goes almost all the way to the top of it.  However, our group was by far not prepared for a trek in those kinds of conditions, so we had to content ourselves with climbing the mountain NEXT to the highest mountain in Germany (which is, unfortunately, not quite as cool :P)  As it was, we didn't even hike most of the way - we took a train to the very foot of the mountain, then rode a gondola up to the lowest peak.  This was cool, too - it was like an enclosed ski-lift, and gave plenty of opportunity for scenic pictures (and wasn't the scenery beautiful!!) When we stepped out of the gondola building at the top, I suddenly realized why Hannes and Mareike had chased me back into my room to grab a sweatshirt when I appeared in the lobby of the Wohnheim in hiking shorts and a sleeveless hiking shirt - it was cold up here!  And the wind was much stronger than at the bottom, too.  We were already at an elevation of nearly a mile high (which is the highest elevation I have ever climbed to, being the height of Mt. Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine).  After a few more pictures from the viewpoint, we set off on the path that would lead us to our destination at the other peak, Alpspitze.  The way was a broad gravel road large enough for a car to travel on, so it wasn't particularly exciting except for the fact that we were walking along the crest of a ridge, so we had a great view of the landscape for miles around on both sides.  I took 100 pictures that day - usually 100-picture days are reserved for zoos, so it was pretty special ;)  The clouds that we had seen from the bottom of the mountain soon overshadowed us, and before long precipitation was falling.  However, since we were so high up, it was more hail or freezing rain than rain, and boy was it cold!  Some of the less hardy members of the group began to complain, to which I wanted to respond that if they couldn't deal with a little weather, they should have stayed in the valley and gone shopping or some other equally prissy and non weather-dependent activity, but I held my tongue.  Soon enough we reached another stopping point, where there was another gondola car which traveled to our destination.  I vehemently opposed such a wussy alternative, especially after eyeing the rest of the trail to the peak which was an actual hiking trail instead of a gravel road.  At my pleading the group decided to split into two, with the majority taking the train car to the top and an adventurous few braving the trail.  Now we got to the actual mountain climbing, and I was happy.  The trail was steep and winding, but absolutely beautiful as it led through high mountain meadows filled with hardy flowers and squat bushes (we were by this time more or less above tree line).  Suddenly, as we approached one particularly steep ridge, I was struck with an idea.  I whipped out my iPod touch, searched my music library until I found what I was searching for, and the six of us crested the ridge to the epic sounds of the Lord of the Rings Fellowship theme (for those who have not recently experienced the epicness, it can be heard here :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovxbXaJs-90 - imagine this with a background of breathtaking scenery.  It was amazing).  It seemed we hiked through every kind of weather on our way to the top - rain, hail, sun, wind, even snow!!  As long as we kept moving it wasn't too cold, and adversity only means a better story when you're all done, right?  Finally we gained the peak, where we were slightly surprised to see a cozy restaurant/gift shop.  Guess the Germans don't miss an opportunity for entrepreneurship...  The food was pricey, as could be expected, but since they had a corner on the market we didn't have much choice.  I split a serving of knödel (think potato balls) and sauerkraut with Greta and was happy.  I also investigated the souvenirs, but most of them were also quite expensive (and I'm trying to avoid the feeling of "I have to buy a souvenir just because I was here".)  I was very tempted to buy a stuffed mountain goat for my best friend Jennifer, but decided that my 4 Euros could be better spent another way, so I contented myself with a couple of postcards and a pen in the shape of a pickaxe (that ended up not even working, but at least it's pretty, right?)  Afterwards we got to the real highlight of the day, which was the observation deck which stretched several meters off the side of the mountain, allowing a nearly 270˚ view of the scenery.  The floor of the observation deck was open metal grating and the sides were Plexiglass, which naturally made some people a little nervous.  I just laughed and tried to find the resonant frequency of the deck by bouncing up and down; when I did, the entire deck swayed with me which caused the nervous ones to clutch wildly at the handrails and scamper back to the safety of bedrock (aren't I awful?).  I am also a little scared of heights, but the rush of adrenaline that the fear produces is also quite exciting, and I even rather enjoy it!  Many many pictures later we were finally ready to return to the mountain's foot and the boring life of a flatlander.  We took a different gondola down, and it seemed that everyone else also thought that it was about time to head home, because the car was standing room only (which again made some people a little nervous, but as an engineer I know that you don't build something like that which isn't strong enough to function correctly when comfortably filled ;]).  The train ride back was a quiet one, as many people who were exhausted from the day's travels (though we really didn't exert ourselves much, in the big picture, by my opinion :P) chose to sleep.  We got a double-decker train this time, which was rather exciting, so I naturally wanted to sit on the top level in order to better observe the countryside as we passed through.  About fifteen minutes out of Munich a family with three small children boarded the train and sat beside me - the two boys were dressed in lederhose and the girl was wearing a tiny dirndl.  When I commented on their clothing and asked them why they were all dressed up, they only stared at the funny girl with the strange German accent.  The mother then chuckled and explained that they had all just come from a baptism - seriously, dirndls/lederhose ARE the formal clothes of Bavaria.  I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT MINE!!!!  

Well, we were soon enough home, and I was more than glad for the leftovers I had which meant that supper required little more than to put them in the microwave for a couple of minutes.  And so ended another grand weekend.  Despite the weather, I thoroughly enjoyed the Alps, though I wish I could have gone and hiked for a solid few hours, instead of our measly trek up to the restaurant.  Oh well, you have to cater to the group, I suppose.  Maybe another time, in some far-off future life when I have the kind of money to vacation in Europe and I come back to Bavaria (possibly with husband in tow, depending on how far out we're talking) for a week or something and can really do what I want... ;)

Sorry that this blog post is shorter than most (although, perhaps you're not ;]), but it was really supposed to be part of the one I posted last week.  I would go further, but it's time for me to go meet the group - we're taking a trip to Hamburg this weekend.  Next weekend I'm in Heidelberg for a conference with my internship - by the time I finally return to the US I will really have seen Germany!!  A little silly, isn't it, that I've already been in Clausthal for nearly three weeks and still haven't told you all how it is?  Well, sorry!  I'm going to try awfully hard to put my nose to the grindstone (or fingers to the keyboard, as it were), and get substantially caught up on this next week, but no promises.  I can only say that it will get (mostly) done eventually, and hopefully before I return.  Until then!!

Museum Marathon

My last full weekend in Munich.  I was determined to take full advantage of it - I'm not quite sure whether I succeeded or not, but at least I had fun!

I had grand visions of a museum marathon on Saturday, since that is my biggest attraction in any city, having grown up in a small town (and for that matter, in a small state) where such collections of knowledge on a specific subject are few and far between.  My background combined with my curious nature means that I love learning more about almost anything.  I put together a list of six museums that I would try to visit; and seeing that I had an entire day (one of the museums opened at 8:00) and giving me even two hours at each (which was quite generous, as these were smaller, more specialized and less well-known museums) would mean that I might even get through all of them before they started closing at 6.  Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan.  I should just start planning for things not to go according to plan, if I could figure out how that would work... :P

First of all, I had been waking up so early every day that I felt like I owed myself a day to sleep in. Now, my idea of "sleeping in" means that I don't get up until 8 or 9, which is still early for most people (especially for a Saturday), but that's beside the point :P  Anyway, that didn't end up happening, although instead of getting up at 5:30 I did wait until 7 or so.  However, since blogging was also on my list of chores, I ended up doing that until about 8:30 so right away I knew the day wasn't going to look like I had planned it to.  I finally arrived in the area of the first museum on my list, the Paleontological Museum, a little past nine, but then spent the next hour wandering the space of a couple of city blocks looking for the museum itself, which was definitely NOT marked. When I finally did locate it, I discovered to my dismay that since it was connected to the university, it was only open Monday through Friday (I had mistakenly written down that it was also open on Saturdays).  However, all was not lost - in my wanderings I came across a second-hand DVD/CD store with nothing other than Lord of the Rings in the window!!  It wasn't open at 9am on a Saturday, of course, but I came back later that week and bought The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in German.  Unfortunately I wasn't thinking too clearly; of course, being in German, it is a European DVD that won't play on my computer or an American DVD player.  I *thought* I could get around this by downloading a media-player program that would also play Zone 2 DVD's, but couldn't get it to go past the title screen... oh well, even if it doesn't work, it was only 2,50€.  Not a great loss, and at least I have the case, which looks pretty cool :)

After the disappointment with the Paleontological Museum, I trekked off to the next stop on my list - the Firefighting Museum.  Fortunately this was both easier to find and open (in fact, it is only open on Saturdays).  It is actually housed in one of the fire stations of the city, and it was quite interesting.  It had lots of firefighting memorabilia all the way from the earliest history of organized firefighting in the 1700s to today.  The coolest part was an exhibit commemorating an event in 1982, when one of Munich's U-Bahn (subway) trains caught fire between stations.  (I couldn't understand all of the German, but I don't think anybody died - just a few people went to the hospital because of smoke inhalation.)  There were pictures of the event, like the smoke pouring from the U-Bahn station entrance, and they actually have the recovered burnt-out shell of the engine car in the museum.  The deadly power of fire is eerily evident in the burnt and melted seat cushions and twisted and mangled metal frame.

It was already nearly 11 by the time I left the Firefighting museum, and it had started to rain (most of the reason I had decided to make Saturday a museum day was because of the predicted rain which would have put a serious damper on any other activity).  Nonetheless, according at my map, it seemed that I would be able to walk to my next destination, the one I was most excited about - the Center for Unusual Museums.  I eagerly set off, only to encounter much the same problem as with the Paleontological Museum - I simply couldn't find it.  I criss-crossed the same three-block stretch three or four times (finding a Beer and Oktoberfest Museum in the process, but unfortunately that one didn't open until 1pm or I might have investigated...) before finally caving and asking a local.  The man behind the counter of the bakery told me that it was "easy... just go along this street, you'll see it."  Though I had already been up and down that street several times, I nonetheless set off hopefully, to no avail.  The next storekeeper I asked simply grunted and pointed me back in the direction that I had come, but at least now I had boundaries to my search.  Finally, exasperated, I walked into a Tracht store situated exactly where the museum should have been and inquired of the proprietor - who informed me cheerfully that I was in exactly the right spot.  She then went on to explain that since the curator of the museum died four years previous, his wife didn't feel like maintaining the museum anymore, and closed it down.  My face at the news looked exactly like this: -_- .  Well, at least I had my answer and didn't have to aimlessly wander the city anymore.

Next on my list was the Toy Museum - at least I knew exactly where that one was, since I had seen it on my first day in Munich and made a mental note to come back and investigate later.  Tired and a little despairing that I was so far 1 for 3, I walked back to Marienplatz - but was stopped just outside the door to the museum by a deafening crash.  A little bewildered, I looked around for the source of the noise, and finally located a detachment of military men on the balcony of the belltower of the nearby Peterskirche who were firing what I supposed to be blanks from rifles at regular intervals.  The reports from the rifles crashed and echoed around the tightly enclosed square with a deafening racket.  In fact, I noticed that there were all sorts of unusual goings-on in Marienplatz... I was later to be informed that this particular weekend was the celebration of the city of Munich's founding.  It was a terrible weekend weather-wise, but I suppose the city fathers couldn't have planned that... There was an entire biergarten, complete with dozens of umbrella'd tables, set up in the middle of the square, and a smallish stage on which a tracht-clad band was playing traditional Bavarian music while personages representing the different faces of Munich paraded across the stage.  There were also some strangely-clad fairy-type people on tall stilts that made me wonder what THEY were about, but I didn't seem to know any more or less than anyone else in the crowd, so I just gawked and wondered like all of the other tourists.  One of the more interesting figures was the pretzel-king? A man with an ample beer-belly dressed like the Burger King king strode across the square and mounted a white horse with a blue-and-white checkered blanket that covered its entire back (which is the pattern of the Bavarian flag) and a giant basket of pretzels hanging from each side of its saddle.  He stopped to pose for pictures before riding off in a stately manner, one hand on the reins and one busy stuffing a pretzel into his mouth.  Germans are strange folk, indeed.

Still puzzling about what I had seen, I returned to the Toy Museum - and then discovered what was certainly not my first hang-up of the day.  The only thing I had in my wallet was a 50-euro bill and a bit of spare change, and (perhaps owing to my time in Russia) I was reluctant to use excessively large bills to pay for things (in Russia, small store-owners rarely have lots of cash. If they don't have the proper change for your bill, they just won't give you change - it's your problem, not theirs).  The only other museum I had managed to reach, the Firefighting museum, was free, so this was the first time I ran into this difficulty.  I was barely able to scrape together the 4-Euro entrance price from the spare change I had, but it ran me completely out (at first I offered the woman the 50, but she looked at it with dismay and asked "Don't you have anything smaller?", a reasonable question since the museum had only been open for an hour, so I tried with my change).  The museum was quite interesting, especially the old toys from the beginning of the 20th century.  Most of the exhibit text was in both German and English, so I actually got to read about the history of these toys.  Some of my favorites were the mechanical toys from the turn of the century - it was amazing all the things they were able to do with purely mechanical parts!!  Of course, there were plenty of toy soldiers and baby dolls and wooden figures, as well as some of the first teddy bears and a quite extensive Barbie collection (most of them, from what I could see, were very early Barbies from the 60s).  The museum itself was housed in a series of several rooms off of a turret, so one had to climb a very narrow winding spiral staircase to get from one room to another.  That in itself was pretty fun, and the highest rooms were probably five floors up with a great view of Marienplatz from the small inset windows.  Nonetheless exploring the entire museum only took me about 40 minutes and I soon found myself back in the gift shop.  Nothing there really interested me as a souvenir for myself or someone else, but a couple of the postcards caught my eye.  They were old pictures of children playing with teddy bears and dolls, and I thought that my Great-Aunt Shirley, being fond of most things antique and classy, would just love to receive a postcard from me in general and this postcard in particular.  Here came the problem, however - the postcard cost 0.40€ and I only had a 50 note and about 15 cents in change.  With many apologies to the poor cashier, I handed her the only money I had - fortunately by this time the museum had gotten more visitors and she had enough change.

By this time it was a little past 12:30, I was very tired and wet from wandering in the rain, not to mention more than a little hungry.  Although I still had the Alpine Museum on my list, I decided to call it a day, and headed back to the Wohnheim to do some necessary chores, such as blogging, writing emails, and even a little studying ;)

I was not done for the day as I supposed, however.  I returned to find an email in my inbox - it was an invitation from Professor Rankin to "cake and coffee" (a very German tradition) with some friends of his from Swabia, a region of Germany in the south-west, of which Stuttgart is the capital.  One of the grad students, Hannes, is from this region, as well as the German mother of my best friend that I've known since birth (who was my original motivation for learning German).  I gladly accepted the invitation to interact with some native German speakers (as well as the opportunity to experience some genuine German culture and cuisine not at my own expense ;]).  So at 3 I once again headed into the city center (accompanied by Dan, whom Professor Rankin had also invited) and met Professor Rankin at a cafe near Marienplatz.  His friends were very pleasant people, also Christians, but the entire conversation felt a little awkward and stilted.  I'm not sure if it was because Professor Rankin's friends didn't know how much German we knew, though we are both fairly capable in normal conversation and I'm pretty sure all of them spoke English, or what, but it seemed that both parties tended to speak through Professor Rankin instead of to each other.  It didn't last too long, however, and we soon returned to the Wohnheim for the latter part of the afternoon.  I got to Skype my family, particularly my father and sister, which was very nice as it is something that happens quite rarely (when I'm away from home, which is most of the time, I usually end up talking to my mom).  In fact, this was the last time I spoke to my parents while I was in Munich, and it was an entire week in Clausthal before we could arrange a time to talk again, so it was very nice to check in, get the family news, and such (I'm remarkably independent, as a rule.  Contrary to some people I know who call or Skype their parents every day when they are away, I rarely speak to them more than once a week, and often FAR less - try about five times a semester.  It works just fine for me, and my parents say they're also happy with the arrangement - although I'm sure they wouldn't be miffed if I called home a LITTLE more often ;]).  Then it was back into the city for an ice-cream outing with Professor Rankin, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I am quite thankful for the Monatskarte we were given as part of the program - I don't know what I would do if we had to buy a ticket every time we wanted to use public transportation to move around the city.

So, this Saturday turned out to be one of my less-eventful days in Munich, but it was still good and I got some valuable cultural exposure (as well as doing some much-needed communicating with my family).  Even when things don't go according to plan, there's usually some redeeming and useful experience, and sometimes a little unexpected adventure.  After all, the best parts of life are often spontaneous. :)

Getting into the Swing of things

On account of the many Catholic holidays in June, there was only one week where we had five days of class, that being the second week.  While this reduced the already short time we had to learn new material, it also helped prevent burnout, so necessary in an intensive program such as this.  Besides, half of the program is just LIVING in Germany anyways, so I certainly didn't mind.

Tuesday I was up early (4am) to Skype, and despite my best attempts to get a good amount of sleep I found it extremely difficult to concentrate and keep my eyes open through class and precept.  After precept Mareike generously volunteered to come with me to try and open a German bank account that would be necessary for me to receive my stipend during my internship.  They had sent me a form that stated only that I would have to make a bank account and send them the details, so I assumed that would be better done from Munich so that I could get the money more quickly once in Clausthal.  Thus we set off to Deutsche Bank, only to be told that I would have to live in Germany for minimum one year in order to be eligible to open an account.  Only slightly discouraged, we went around the corner to the Sparkasse, where we were informed that their policy was six months - closer, but still no good as I was only there for three.  Our last hope was the Postbank (the bank associated with the post office), where they informed us that the six-month minimum was actually a European Union law.  Now I was confused - none of the interns would likely be in Germany for more than three months, so how were we supposed to set up a bank account if the minimum stay was six months??  I was later to find out that, at least in my case, the bank account is set up through the University in order to bypass this restriction... wish I had known that then, it could have saved an entire afternoon of frustration.  In any case, the afternoon was not completely lost, as I was able to buy stamps to send postcards back to America (at .75€ each, and postcards being an average of 0.50€ apiece, they make pretty handy and affordable souvenirs... ;]) to keep all of my friends and family (especially those without computer access to read my blog) in the loop.  Since it was already getting on towards 4:00 by the time we gave up on the bank account, it wasn't worth trying to do anything else this afternoon and I returned to the Wohnheim.  However, I had more time than usual for supper, so I decided to make something a little more involved and bake Shepherd's Pie.  Not very German, but delicious and inexpensive nonetheless (contrary to what I had always thought, ground beef is MUCH less expensive than chicken breast, at least here).  The batch I made left plenty of leftovers, which I enjoyed with the help of the microwave for the rest of the week.  I also set to work sending emails about important things like the whole bank account situation and my rent downpayment which was ostensibly due a week before I arrived in Clausthal (I now know that since I'm staying in a dorm associated with the University they want to make things as convenient for me as possible, but at the time I was worried about my contract being voided if I failed to make the 300€ payment by the deadline - the last thing I wanted to do was lose my housing).  It was a little weird, only being a little more than halfway through the Princeton in Munich program and already having to think about the next phase of my adventure.

Wednesday I woke up early without the use of an alarm clock, on account of having gone to bed so early the night before.  I finally felt rested as I hadn't since before Berlin, the weather was gorgeous, and it had all the makings of a great day.  I had been looking forward to good weather for some time so that I could go to the zoo - it was one thing I definitely didn't want to leave Munich without visiting, especially after not having been to the Berlin Zoo.  I had thought about going Tuesday, but the bank account attempt took priority.  Unfortunately (as was to happen many times), the grad students also wanted to take advantage of the weather by taking the group to another of the nearby lakes and going swimming, and that apparently sounded more exciting to everyone than a trip to the zoo.  I was a little disappointed but nonetheless determined to fulfill my heart's desire, even if it meant going alone.  I did not regret my decision in the slightest - the lake they went to was dirtier than the one we had visited the first week, here in Clausthal there are more than 60 lakes in the area that I can visit (if we ever get a nice day...), and the zoo was amazing.  I'm even rather glad I went alone, because it meant that I could tour it in my own special way.  I determined to see every single animal in the zoo, and armed with my trusty large-zoom digital camera, I proceeded to do just that.  Not only did I stop by every exhibit and get some quite amazing pictures, I also (through some clever calculating) managed to be in the right place at the right time more than once.  I saw the zookeepers give the elephants their daily bath (and boy, didn't they LOVE it!!), not to mention the recently-born baby elephant out for a stroll with her mother, watched the sea lions and seals get fed and "sing for their supper", as it were, and even forked over 0.50€ to feed the zoo's herd of pinto Shetland ponies which included several foals (who hadn't quite figured out how to use their tongues to eat the pellets and tended to nip) - capturing it all in living color in both photo and video.  I saw baby animals of all kinds - giraffe, cow, duck, elephant, horse, mountain goat, deer, antelope, chimpanzee, and lemur.  I walked into the open bat cave and had one of the inhabitants come land on my hand, looking for food.  I saw rhinos, tigers, antelope, camels, zebras, ostriches, llamas, penguins, wolves, Prezwalski's wild horses, pelicans, cranes, parrots, peacocks, yaks, tapirs, wild boars, deer, kangaroos, orangutans, gorillas, polar bears, and many more.  I took almost 200 pictures - and few are multiples of the same animal.  To cover the entire zoo took five hours - but I did it, and I can safely say that I saw EVERYTHING that the Munich Zoological Garden has to offer.  It really is more of an Animal Garden than a Zoo - nearly all the animals are housed in mini-reconstructions of their natural habitat rather than cages.  The weather was perfect for walking around and even the animals were all out enjoying the sun.  Overall it was a perfect day and I returned to the Wohnheim at 6 beaming from both sun and contentedness.  Supper was made easy with leftovers and I enjoyed a low-key evening catching up on some much-needed vocabulary study.  There was also a moon eclipse that night, but the cloudy skies meant that there wasn't anything to be seen, unfortunately (although I didn't really begrudge the excuse not to stay up until midnight).

Thursday's weather also turned out to be nice for the majority of the day, but despite getting plenty of sleep Wednesday night I again found myself fighting to stay awake in class.  I had ambitions of visiting the dinosaur skeletons at the Paleontological museum, but because of my tiredness and the lack of interest from classmates I ended up just returning to the Wohnheim directly after precept instead.  This was good, because it meant that I could spend more time studying for the second test on Friday before my evening activity.  I was quite excited, because  one of the other participants in the program was quite active with the Swing Dance Club back in Princeton, and she had done the necessary legwork to find out about events held by the local swing dance group in Munich.  While there had already been several opportunities, this was the first event that I was able to attend, and as an added bonus, one of the instructors of the Princeton Swing Club, a German graduate student at Princeton, would be there!!  Greta, another avid swing dancer, also met us at 8:30 to head in to the city center.  We arrived around 9 and found a quite small bar where not much was happening.  The bartender came over and asked us what we would like to drink: Sarah and Greta ordered beers, but I was still quite nervous about drinking any serious quantity of alcohol (the most I had had was three sips of a beer on our second day here), and besides had no idea what to order (you can't just say "beer" because there are always at least three types if not multiple brands) so I originally said "nothing for me" but accepted her offer of a glass of water, when pressed (though I had thought ahead and brought a water bottle with me).  We sat around and chatted for awhile, because though there was swing-era music playing (all in English, from actual vinyl records) there wasn't anybody dancing, and I certainly wasn't going to go asking anyone.  Our Princeton friend Matthias arrived after a while, soaking wet (the predicted rain had finally arrived) and we gladly struck up a conversation with him.  He remarked at how strange it was for us to be speaking to him now in his language, instead of ours.  Language certainly adds a certain tone to a conversation, and speaking to him in German was actually different than speaking to him in English.  Finally about 10:00 something happened - but it wasn't dancing, unfortunately.  Unbeknownst to us, the real feature of the evening was the showing of some 1920s silent comedy films, which we watched willingly, as they were quite amusing - for awhile. After about 45 minutes of this I began to get restless; after all, we had a test the next day, I hadn't been getting the best rest throughout this week, and I really came to dance, not watch movies.  Fortunately just as I was about to leave at 11 the movies came to an end and the dancing finally began.  I danced with Matthias, and a local friend of his, Erich - both much better dancers than I, but quite enjoyable to dance with for just that reason.  A very good lead (guy) can make even a mediocre follow (girl) look and feel like a quite good dancer.  Swing dancing, however, reminded me of the fact that in Princeton it was one of my favorite activities to enjoy with my boyfriend, and we always looked forward to Wednesday evening Swing Dance as one of the highlights of the week.  He isn't nearly as good as Matthias, having just begun to learn in February, but it always makes me laugh to dance with him and watch him concentrate so hard and mess up and be sour about "not being good enough".  I don't mind - I'm always having fun.  Besides, there are plenty of things that we do together which he is better at than I, and I have to resist the temptation to do the same thing when I make mistakes.  Part of being a perfectionist, I guess ;)  So dancing made me miss him, and my other friends from home, but it was also great fun and I'm so glad I went.  Finally at 12:15 I dragged Greta and Sarah away, reminding them of our need to get good rest before the test tomorrow.  Still, it was worth it - even if 1:15 was the latest I had stayed up yet in Munich.

Unfortunately my biological clock is fairly oblivious to what time I actually get to bed, and I woke up at 5:30 just the same as every other day (the rising sun shining through my thin curtains probably had a lot to do with it).  I curled up under the covers in denial until 7, but snoozing is never a good substitute for solid sleep.  I tried to be ambitious this morning and make myself an omelet, but my lack of experience and being in a rush (as I always am) backfired (as it usually does... you think I'd learn...) and I burned the bacon to a crisp, making a rather crunchy and char-flavored dish.  I choked it down regardless and rushed off to class, where (at least) this test was much easier than the last simply because I knew what to expect.  After class I was determined to take some serious steps towards shrinking the list of museums on my Munich bucket list, and therefore trekked off to the German Hunting and Fishing museum.  I was rather hoping for a more exotic selection, but, true to the name, the exhibits were constrained to trophies baggable within the borders of Germany - lots of mountain goats, wild boar, rabbits, deer (mostly just the antlers), ducks, eagles, even a stray raccoon or fox - as well as some rather impressive fish trophies (how about the six-foot catfish?) and all of the trappings that go with the hunting and fishing industries.  Most interesting was the Worpeltinger - a mystical beast which appears to be the demonic offspring of a rabbit and a chicken.  It has a rabbit's body, feathered wings, a cock's comb, and usually also fangs and antlers - like Germany's version of a jackalope, but much more frightening (just as German fairy tales are much more frightening than their Americanized versions - just read a literally-translated version of Hansel and Gretel or Rumpelstiltzken some time!).  The fossilized Giant Deer and Cave Bear skeletons were also quite interesting, and further piqued my interest in visiting the Paleontological Museum at some point.  Looking at the fishing section where they had a few exhibits on fly fishing and fly tying reminded me of my late grandfather, who really loved fly fishing and tried (unsuccessfully) to get me and my siblings interested in it several times.

After perusing the museum, which really wasn't that large, I still had plenty of daylight left, but didn't really feel like visiting another museum.  On somewhat of a whim, I decided to scout out another important item on my list - buying a dirndl.  A dirndl is the traditional Bavarian dress for females, just as Lederhose are traditional male attire.  Now, unlike traditional clothing in many areas, which is rarely seen except on high holidays and other solemn special occasions, it is not at all unusual to see a man in Lederhose, complete with suspenders, hat, white shirt and wool tube socks, waiting for the 8:15 S-Bahn into the city or walking down the street.  Dirndls are slightly less common, but walk into nearly any church which requires formal clothing and you will be greeted by a sea of the brightly-colored Tracht (German word for garb, usually used only for the traditional kind).  A dirndl basically consists of a short-sleeved cut-off blouse that reaches about the middle of your ribcage and is often quite low-cut (but really doesn't have to be), the main dress which is basically a sleeveless corset on top with a flowing skirt from the waist and can fall to anywhere from mid-thigh to ankle (the more traditional versions being, perhaps obviously, the more modest), and an apron, often made of fabric in a contrasting color or pattern.  When the apron strings are tied over the left hip, it means the woman is single; right hip, married; and behind the back for a widow (just as braided hair traditionally signifies an unmarried woman).  I have always been a fan of vintage-style clothing (and by vintage I mean going back several centuries, not decades) and looking slightly ridiculous/awesome, and one of my boyfriend's more secret interests is Renaissance ballroom dance, complete with (of course) period garb (sorry dear, cat's out of the bag now ;]).  So, I just HAD to buy a dirndl.  The only problem is that real high-quality dirndls can easily run up into the hundreds of euros, and many stores market them for the tourists, which makes them more expensive.  But after a bit of diligent Internet research, I had uncovered several possibilities for inexpensive dirndl purchases in the city, including a couple of second-hand stores.  My original plan was to scout the stores on this day, find out where the best deals were, then come back later to make the purchase.  When I walked into the first store to find that all of the dress-apron sets were in the 70-100€ price range, and the blouses were all an additional 25-35€, my dreams deflated a little.  In the next store, however, I was given hope by the sign attached to a rack outside that read "Sale: Dirndls 19,90€".  There were a couple of promising candidates on this rack, although many of them were only knee-length and with my lack of ladylike finesse (owing to the period of my life between the ages of 8 and 18 where my wardrobe consisted almost entirely of jeans and T-shirts) I try to avoid wearing anything in which I would have to keep my legs permanently crossed in order to be modest (because I simply won't remember to do so).  The next store on my list was Kleidermarkt - a second-hand store.  At first there didn't seem to be anything here, though there was a display in the window that advertised Tracht - the only thing I could find was a rack of dirndl sets for 70-80€ each.  But then I made the fortuitous discovery of the second floor - and hit gold.  Half of the floor consisted of "vintage" clothing - meaning mostly dirndls and lederhose.  It being a second-hand store, most of the selection was quite ugly, though the prices were certainly more reasonable.  I quickly discovered that none of the dirndl dresses that I would consider wearing could beat the 19,90€ price of Weisn Tracht & Mehr, the previous store - and I began scheming.  Who said I had to buy it all at one place?  I looked at the blouses - most of them were only 15€ compared to the 25€ of WT&M.  Why not buy my blouse here and my dress at the other store?  I had by this time decided to forgo the apron temporarily - I really couldn't justify spending 15€ on a simple piece of fabric I could make myself for less than $5 (my boyfriend actually suggested that I make the whole thing myself, but while his mother may be talented with a sewing machine, I am decidedly NOT).  Returning to the racks of dresses I found one which was remarkably similar to those on the sale rack at WT&M (though twice as expensive, and not new) in order to select which blouse would fit/look best underneath it.  It didn't take too long to find one that was a good balance between uncomfortably low-cut and buttoned to the neck.  Beaming, I made my purchase and tripped back across the street to WT&M (the three stores I looked at were all fortuitously placed in the same neighborhood).  To my delight, upon closer examination of the sale rack I found the perfect dress - just my size, mid-calf in length, with hooks for the decorative ribbon up the front (one of the most distinguishing features of the dirndl in my mind), and Bright Orange.  Yes, everyone, I found a Princeton Dirndl.  This will give me SO many more opportunities to wear it (not to mention making it exponentially more ridiculous and probably obnoxious).  I briefly also considered some dirndl sets that were priced at a much more reasonable 50€, but even the pretty blue apron with the black polka-dot dress couldn't distract me from the utter attractive ridiculousness of having a Bright Orange Dirndl.  Having decided to skip on the apron, I decided that an orange ribbon would be better at the moment than a contrasting color such as turquoise or black, but ribbon is easy to come by and I can change that later ;)  Glowing from the pride of my relative frugality and the success of my purchase, I walked on clouds all the way back to the S-Bahn.

Unfortunately my day was not destined to end on such a sweet note.  As part of my internship I am required to attend a three-day meeting in Heidelberg in mid-July, and I wanted to buy the tickets sooner rather than later, in order to get the best deal.  However, I had not fully thought out my course of action and foolishly went to the Central Train Station to make my purchase - at 4:15 on a Friday.  Not, as most of you could probably tell me, the brightest idea.  When my number finally came up after the excruciatingly long wait, I went up to the desk and tried to remember the times and routes I had researched the night before.  (I would have ordered the tickets online, but then you must have them mailed to you, and I wasn't sure whether they would arrive in Munich in time or whether I should send them to Clausthal, and I wasn't entirely positive of my address there yet...)  The woman was understandably harried and spoke quickly, too quickly for me to understand everything she was telling me.  My foolish pride prevented me from repeating queries of "wie bitte?" or "was?" until I understood (I didn't want to exasperate her unnecessarily), and the necessity of thinking on my feet ultimately resulted in my paying 15€ more than the online price had showed, and booking an incoming train that was at the very tail end of the allowed check-in time, though it wouldn't have been any problem for me to get up in time for an earlier bus/train.  In addition, now that I'm in Clausthal, I realize that my beginning point (the central bus station) isn't really the most convenient starting point for me, as it is a drive of several minutes from the University, so I will either have to take an additional bus or walk down to the bus station in the morning with all of my luggage (which will hopefully be not much - I think my backpack will suffice).  But, I will get where I'm going and things aren't QUITE as bad as they could be.  After all, I did it all alone and in German - I think that's called progress. :)

Berlin

Firstly, sorry that it's been so long since my last post, and without any warning.  As you can probably imagine, things got quite busy with the end of the Princeton in Munich program and my subsequent travel and adjustment to a new locale, but I've finally started to settle in here and can resume what is now more of a reminiscence than a chronicle.

After two weeks of class we had a long weekend on account of Pentecost - Monday was a national holiday.  To take advantage of this we had the opportunity to travel to Berlin for three days, and as has happened again and again, Papa Princeton was able to help us out by paying for our hostel stay, meaning that we only had to pay for the cross-country ticket.  We traveled there using the fastest train in Germany, the ICE, and crossed the entire country in only six hours.  The ticket cost 160€ - that's about $225, but not bad for crossing the entire country.  After all, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Friday the tenth was the day of our first test in class.  Despite having gotten to bed rather later than usual the night before, I was up at 5AM so that I would have enough time for everything before heading off to class, as we were leaving for Berlin in the afternoon and there were several chores (most notably laundry) that needed to be done before that.  I had really tried to think ahead by trying to do laundry on Thursday morning, but was foiled by the fact that someone stole the detergent that I had been planning to share with a classmate.  I had been warned that the laundry was quite complicated but didn't find the array of buttons, switches and lights TOO terribly bewildering.  The only confusing thing was that the display would say something like "24" and one assumed that that was the time left in the wash cycle, when really it was the time left in that PART of the wash cycle.  I never figured out how long the entire wash cycle was, I just knew it consisted of many parts and took more than an hour total.  I tried to be as efficient with my time as possible and do other necessary things like make my breakfast while my laundry was running, which turned out to be less efficient than I hoped because of the confusion with cycle time remaining.  I think someone must have opened the door on one of my loads before it was done the spin cycle because when I finally found it finished, my darks were soaking wet.  Not sure how to activate only the spin cycle, I tossed them all in the (equally complicated) dryer regardless and set it for as long as I could figure out, about two hours.  Unfortunately because of the thwarted spin cycle even this wasn't enough (when usually 45-60 minutes will suffice, even for jeans...) and I was forced to leave my laundry in the dryer when I left for class.  This of course didn't help my anxiety level or test preparedness, and I was understandably nervous for the test because I had no idea what to expect.  Sure enough I hadn't studied the right things and had a frightfully difficult time with the vocabulary (which is always the most difficult part for me even with my good memory, just because flashcards, which are my preferred method of vocabulary memorization, are so tedious), but still managed to come out of the test with a A- (barely, I assure you).  This sounds quite good until you realize that the scale only goes down to a B- (50% being a B=).

After class I called Hannes and tracked him and Mareike down in a nearby cafe where they had hidden to work on the Berlin schedule.  We discussed the possibilities of my travel to and from Clausthal (for example, I wanted to avoid having to book a hostel in Munich the last night if at all possible, and wanted to make sure I didn't get into Clausthal too late) and decided on the best options for me, but he was much too busy to come with me to the Hauptbahnhof to help me buy my ticket.  This made me quite nervous as I was sure I would mess something up, but he was confident in my ability and sent me off with a pat on the back and an encouraging smile.  Sure enough I stumbled through the transaction and came away with a ticket to and from Clausthal-Zellerfeld as well as a railway discount card that would get me 25% off any ticket for the summer... but still managed to bungle it.  I told the lady I would only be staying in Germany for two more months, so she made the discount card valid for two months... the 10th of June until the 9th of August.  Unfortunately I'm not leaving Germany until the 21st of August... let's hope this doesn't mess anything up too badly... :P

Returning to the Wohnheim, I packed my carry-on suitcase for Berlin (and even then it wasn't nearly full) and still had plenty of time to catch up on some emails.  This was an especially good day for me in this regard as I had received no less than THREE emails from good friends and was ecstatic to read them all several times over to soak in the news and familiar writing styles from home.  It really made me miss people, and be thankful for the magic of the internet that lets us be so close, even when we are so far away.  The last thing I did before heading off to meet the group was cook my supper of ravioli (pasta has become a common theme in my meals, as it is both easy and cheap).

Getting to the Hauptbahnhof went smoothly and we got there in plenty of time.  The only snag came when we actually boarded the train and found that the block of seats that we had reserved were not marked as such by some technical glitch and many already had occupants which Professor Rankin was so kind as to take the responsibility to gently but firmly evict.  I ended up with a window seat on the west side of the train, which had the mixed benefit of a beautiful view of the countryside with a permanent glare from the setting sun right in my eyes.  I'm still glad I got the window, though.  I spent some of the time reading The Case for Christ which I am reading with a couple of friends this summer, but didn't want to read too much since the other people reading the book are too busy to read it much, and we are trying to discuss it via a shared Google doc as we go.  Fortunately my seatmate was a very nice acquaintance and we could spend most of the time talking and getting to know each other better (in particular, we spoke about long-distance relationships.  He and his girlfriend have been together for over a year now and have attended different schools during the entire duration of the relationship, and I was most curious to hear how they coped with always being so far apart.  Their strategy is frequent communication - every day, in fact - something that I'm frankly not capable of or willing to commit to, so we'll see how things work out for me.  I'm not too worried :P).  Since it was a six-hour train ride (six hours across the entire country!  That's how long it takes to drive across MAINE!) and late, I also slept a bit, and so the time passed until our arrival in Berlin.  The first thing I noticed about this city is the massiveness - even the central train station was three floors!!  Fortunately the hostel was right in the center of town, so a mere one stop with the S-Bahn brought us to our final destination for the night.  We had to walk along a canal to get to the hostel and the lights dancing on the water were quite pretty, though I was by this point very tired.  We split up at the hostel into several groups - my roommates for the weekend were four girls from my spring German 102-5 class, Greta, Kathy, Olivia, and Claudia.  I was quite happy with the arrangement and we traipsed off to bed as soon as possible - even though that meant dragging our luggage up five flights of stairs.

Thanks to my usual sleep schedule, I was up the next morning at 7 whether I liked it or not.  I managed to snooze until 8, but still had a solid 90 minutes to get ready before we met for our first day's activities.  We all bought our breakfast from a bakery in the train station - unfortunately the pastry I selected looked much better than it tasted, so I consoled myself with an ice cream cone from a shop that was for some reason open at 10AM.  We started our day with a tour of the city center. The weather was nice and the buildings were pretty, so it was fairly enjoyable.  Then we split up to go to one of several museum choices - I went with Hannes and a large contingent to visit the Deutsche Historische Museum, and couldn't have been happier.  The museum had exhibit displays in both German and English which provided a fantastic summary of German history since the first centuries AD, and the artifacts themselves were naturally also fascinating.  They had one of the original Gutenberg Bibles, a copy of Martin Luther's theses, several suits of armor for men and horses (one of my favorite aspects) and a wonderful array of artifacts pertaining to daily life in the Germany of the Middle Ages.  This has always been the most fascinating time period to me for many reasons, so I was delighted to read more about it and would gladly have spent the entire day at the museum.  As it was I was one of the last members of the group to emerge into the museum lobby, and then only reluctantly and after hurrying through the 15th-20th centuries.  Perhaps most unfortunately, the exhibits after WWI were in a separate room that I didn't even get to look in, so I missed out completely on this perhaps most interesting period of German history.  But we had far too much to do to stay in one museum all day, so we scurried off to meet the other members of the group.  If I ever come back to Berlin I may return.  Though I am by no means a fan of history in general, I really like the summary that a museum can give, and history museums are some of my favorite museums (behind science museums).

We met the rest of the group in an open-air market, where we ate lunch (I found a cheap pizzeria and was quite content).  Most of the stalls sold handiwork, but there was also an area of people who had all kinds of antiques, mostly WWII-era.  I made a mental note to come back here souvenir hunting, particularly for my WWII-buff father.  After lunch we set off for another part of the city to do yet more exploring: this time we visited the Brandenburg Gate, the site of the former Berlin Wall, and other city-center historical sites.  This part of our exploration ended at the Holocaust Memorial, one of the best-done memorials I have ever visited.  It covers about the area of a small office building and the memorial consists entirely of cold, upright blocks of granite of gradually increasing height placed in an eerily exact grid on undulating cobblestone ground.  It effectively conveyed the sense of being lost, identity-less, cut off and bewildered.  Perhaps appropriately, just as we reached the memorial it began to rain.  After exploring the above-ground part for awhile, those who wanted visited the information center located underneath.  Overall the entire complex is very well done and sobering.  The information center had a timeline of Hitler's genocidal rule, biographies on specific Jewish families from all over Europe and their stories of surviving (or not) the war, copies of postcards and letters sent from concentration camps and ghettos to the outside world, and one room where the death count of Jews from each country in Europe was estimated.  The entire history of the event - that one man would set out to single-handedly wipe out an entire ethnic group from Europe and eventually the world - is so surreal that more than facts and staggering statistics, it is these individual artifacts of everyday life and people's impressions that are needed to bring home the reality of it all. I am even more curious now to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., to see the similarities and differences between the views of the two societies.

Once I finally emerged from the Information Center, I discovered that I was quite alone - the others had all left quite a while before and our instructions were to find supper before our next meeting point.  This was a daunting task for someone of my small-town background and I texted Mareike for advice, but before receiving an answer I found a couple of the members of my group and we managed to scout out a reasonably-priced Chinese restaurant.  I was really craving Asian food for some reason, and while what we found wasn't anything special, it was pretty good.  The sauce was a little spicy for my tastes (yes, but even medium salsa is a little spicy for my tastes, I'm so completely not spice-tolerant) so to get rid of the burning sensation in my mouth I just had to buy some ice cream ;)  We met afterwards at Potsdamer Platz, which used to be the Times Square of Europe in the 20s and 30s, then was destroyed in the war, leveled and deemed "no-mans land" during the time of the Berlin Wall as it divided East and West Germany, and finally revitalized all at once in the 90s in an attempt to bring it back to its former glory.  Everything seems a little artificial since all of the buildings are less than 20 years old, but it's a regular tourist hotspot and there's tons to see and buy.  Next to the Berlin Wall memorial was a man dressed as a member of the DDR State Security (Stasi) advertising the opportunity to get your passport stamped, as you would have had to to cross from West to East Germany.  It was necessary to get 7 different stamps!  One from each of the four sectors (American, British, French, and Soviet), as well as one for East Germany and West Germany in general, and the stamp from the particular crossing point you were using.  I would have done it, but 10 Euros seemed a little steep for a piece of paper with stamps on it...  Once we had all gathered we went over to one of the buildings on Potsdamer Platz and took a remarkably fast elevator up to the 93-meter-high observation deck from which to observe the city (aerial views of major cities seems to be a theme this summer...).  Berlin isn't as pretty or as green as Munich, but that's rather to be expected.  The pictures were cool anyway, but the wind was blowing strong and we soon got cold on the exposed observation deck.  Professor Rankin escorted a couple members of the group back to the hostel, and we saw another group of PiMers on the way (whom I unashamedly stalked ;]).  By the time we got back, I was exhausted from being on my feet all day.  The grad students were boldly (and probably foolishly) organizing an outing to a bar/club later that night, but my being tired gave me an excuse to skip out on what would undoubtedly not have been a very enjoyable evening.  From the stories I heard later, it wasn't very enjoyable for anyone else, either.  Let's just say that American college students have a very difficult time engaging in normal, healthy, mediated drinking behavior.  Case in point: certain members of the group pre-gamed (drank excessive amounts of alcohol beforehand) the bar. *facepalm* Basically, I didn't miss much.

The next morning was Sunday, and Professor Rankin (unsurprisingly) knew of a church in Berlin that he wanted to attend.  Not having been to church in a couple of weeks (the previous Sunday we traveled to Neuschwanstein and the one before that we were flying to/arriving in Germany) I was more than willing to go, since not much else would be happening on a Sunday morning and the last thing I wanted to do was bum around the hostel the entire morning.  What surprised me were the other people who also wanted to attend: nearly all of my roommates as well as several other group members.  I wanted to make sure I had a good breakfast beforehand as I supposed that the service might go well into the noon hours and I didn't want to be distracted by a growling stomach.  Fortunately the hostel offered a breakfast buffet for 5.50 Euros - unfortunately it wasn't very good.  I ordered the buffet and even threw in some eggs for extra protein, reasoning that I could eat 7 Euros worth of food, but none of it was all that notable.  The eggs looked good but had too much pepper for me, and even after filling up on several pieces of toast with jam and bowls of yogurt with musli I didn't really feel like I had gotten what I paid for.  We met at 9 to travel to church and after navigating a combination of S-Bahns and U-Bahns we finally arrived at the church, "Lukas-Gemeinde".  It was a non-denominational evangelical church much like Calvary Chapel or Westerly Road (the churches I normally attend while home and at school, respectively), belonging to the association of churches in Germany called "free churches" (which I am assuming has many the same connotations as non-denominational).  The dress was relatively casual although most people wore button-down shirts or skirts/dresses, so we fit in perfectly.  Professor Rankin even met one of his college roommates at the church, and from what I gathered he knew that his friend attended this church but didn't know whether he would be around this particular Sunday.  The service was also much like what I was accustomed to, and I even recognized a couple of the songs - namely, "Open the Eyes of my Heart, Lord", and "Holy, Holy, Holy".  Singing along in German is SO much easier than in Russian!! Probably the alphabet thing has something to do with that ;) After a few worship songs one of the elders got up and made some announcements, including a baby dedication and prayer for a specialist doctor in the congregation who was being sent to Afghanistan to perform reconstructive surgery on wounded soldiers and civilians.  Then the pastor came up and spoke on I Cor. 3:16-17, where it talks about us being the Temple of the Holy Spirit (due to it being Pentecost weekend).  I understood about 70% of the sermon, which was entirely in German of course, but the combination of travel fatigue and my long day on Saturday worked against me and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open.  Of course, following along while falling asleep is hard enough in one's mother tongue, forget a foreign language!  As a result, I don't remember much about the pastor's point, but it was nice to be back in church anyway.  (And I wasn't the only one who spent the whole time fighting sleep - Dan was on one side of me and Sheng on the other and I caught them both nodding off at one point or another.)

After church Professor Rankin, being the wonderfully generous man that he is, treated us all to lunch back at Potsdamer Platz.  We went to an Italian restaurant called Vapiano's, where I ordered a Cesar salad that proved to be quite enough for me (especially after intentionally having stuffed myself at breakfast).  I shared a slice of cheesecake with Claudia and Dan for dessert, but it was disappointingly bland.  Afterwards I was planning to rejoin the main group who had gone to a street festival, but Professor Rankin's suggestion of visiting Gedänkniskirche (the famous ornate church which was destroyed by Allied bombs during the war and retained in its broken state as a memorial) sounded much more interesting and I decided to do that instead.  It was quite a disappointment when we reached the site only to discover that the church is currently undergoing renovations (renovating a blown-up building... hmmm...) and the iconic jagged outline is obscured by the scaffolding and temporary structure they have erected around it for the purpose.  Nonetheless it was interesting to see the information-memorial inside and the new church that was built beside it, and I bought a postcard with the destroyed church on it so I suppose that will have to suffice.  Since we couldn't see much, the visit didn't take us long and we were soon ready to find the group once more for a last bit of guided-tour and museum-visiting.  We walked to the nearest S-Bahn stop through the Tierpark, which means "animal park" but is really just the name for the largest park in Berlin.  We did pass the zoo and I looked at admission prices, as we had Monday free and I was considering going to the zoo, but the 10-Euro admission price (even for students!) convinced me that my time would be much better spent seeing something else (however, when I later found out that the Berlin Zoo is one of the largest zoological gardens in the WORLD, I had second thoughts about my decision...).  The Tierpark in general was nice, but nothing too special - not any prettier than Nymphenberg Park or English Garden in Munich.

We found the rest of the group near the famous East-to-West Germany crossing point, Checkpoint Charlie.  (Now, it also happened to be right outside of a Starbucks with free Wi-Fi, which I promptly took advantage of with my iPod touch to check email. ;]) We saw the sign that says "You are now leaving the American Sector" in English, French, and Russian (why did it not need to say it in German?  Was it just self-evident to them?) and were going to visit the Checkpoint Charlie Museum until we realized that it cost 6 Euros even for students.  Professor Rankin and the grad students were quite upset about such blatant extortionism, since the museum was neither very large nor very good, in their opinion, so we contented ourselves with pictures of the guard booth and sign instead.  Then it was time to split up into groups once again to visit museums based on interest - out of the options (Jewish Museum, some cathedrals, the Stasi Museum, and some other random art museums) the Stasi Museum sounded most interesting, but unfortunately it turned out to be little more than an exhibit while the actual museum was under construction.  Nonetheless it was somewhat instructive, as far as the exhibits had English descriptions, and having watched the movie "Das Leben der Anderen" ("The Lives of Others") about the DDR, I had a little more background to the subject.  The fact that the Stasi (state police) had a file on every single citizen or extended visitor to East Germany was the most mind-boggling thing.  Professor Rankin is even pretty sure that they have a file on him somewhere due to a visit of a couple of weeks in East Berlin back around 1986.  The size of the exhibit meant that it didn't take very long to see everything and I was soon back on the street wondering what to do next.  I returned to the Starbucks to look up possibilities for Monday online and discovered two particular treasures in the DDR museum and the just-opened Computer Game museum, and decided that since it was already getting on towards 6:00 (the time when most museums close) it really wasn't worth it to try and visit another one that day.  Instead I decided to do a little souvenir shopping, though I knew that the stores around Checkpoint Charlie were likely to be quite expensive.  In particular I wanted something with the iconic East-Germany crossing-light silhouette on it: Der Ampelmann.  www.ampelmann.de And they had exactly what I was looking for - bookmarks, pins, earrings, signs, calendars, you name it.  Success was achieved for only a small price and I soon strutted victoriously back to the hostel.  Our next meeting point was at 7:30 at a pizzeria, but because of my two large meals already that day I planned to skip that and only join them when they went to a Biergarten (an outdoor area where you can bring your own food or buy it there and they specialize in selling - what else - beer) a couple of hours later.  This gave me enough time to do my homework reading assignment and take a 1-hour nap before our supposed meeting point, but of course nothing ever goes according to plan.  At 9:15 I texted Hannes and asked whether the group was heading to the Biergarten yet - he replied that they were still at the pizzeria (but my impression was that they would leave soon).  Armed with only my trusty map and good sense of direction, I found my way to the restaurant only to discover that everyone had only JUST gotten their pizza after an excruciating 90-minute wait.  I sat down anyway and was only going to observe, but did partake in a couple of pieces of pizza when it was offered to me.  When it became clear that we weren't leaving right away I was even prevailed upon, against my better judgement, to order a plain cheese pizza for myself, since it turned out that Princeton was paying 5 Euros towards everyone's pizza and a plain cheese 10" cost 5,40€.  Finally at nearly eleven everyone was ready to pay and go, and my pizza ended up coming just as we were all leaving (I asked for a box and devoured it as quickly as possible).  Some brave souls still wanted to brave a Biergarten, but I knew that I wouldn't really enjoy anything this late and I wanted to have as much time as possible in the morning for museum exploration before we had to meet for our train back to Munich.  So, I joined the group heading back to the hostel, which we reached via tram this time, and clambered into bed at midnight.  The evening wasn't a total loss - I got a pizza nearly for free (nothing special, but I love pizza) and to hang out with the group, which is (nearly) always enjoyable.  One of the other members of the group asked me as we were walking back, "Did you come to the pizzeria late?" I answered affirmatively, wondering why he was asking.  He said, "I thought so.  We had been there for a bit when I thought, 'Where's Erin? I haven't heard her laugh for awhile.' But then I looked down the table and you were sitting there at the end, so I was confused."  Well, it looks like it doesn't take long for people to figure me out - this particular individual is someone I hadn't hung out with hardly at all before the program, and already he had learned that I am almost always pinpointable - one only has to be quiet for a moment and listen for my laugh. -_-

Monday.  Our last day in Berlin, and finally we are given a bit of free time to do whatever we would like.  I had finally decided on the Computer Game museum, the only downside being that it opened at 10 which gave me a couple of solid hours in the morning.  I got up at 8, packed my suitcase and stored it downstairs, but even doing it as slowly as possible meant that I checked out at 9.  Returning to the train station of the first day I revisited the bakery and purchased both breakfast and lunch for the train (the pastry I chose this time was much better, thankfully).  Since it was only about a fifteen minute train ride from this train station to the Computer Game museum, I stopped off about halfway to scope the antiques market, but the sellers were in the middle of setting up their wares, so I decided to return afterwards to buy my souvenirs.  Even with all of the dawdling I could manage I ended up at the Computer Game museum about fifteen minutes before it opened, but the wait was worth it.  It only opened in January of this year and was quite small, but all of the exhibits had English displays and it was very instructive to read about the history of the computer and video game.  In true German spirit many of the displays were interactive and I played some of the original arcade games (Centipede, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong), all of which I remember playing on the Atari that was my first video-game system... but I date myself.  There were exhibits on everything from landmark games to creation of a video game to aspects of video game fan culture to video games in the DDR (a highly regulated industry, like all of them).  All in all, though, the museum only took me two hours to thoroughly explore everything, which was just the right amount of time to make it back to the antiques market to meet my friends.  I found the perfect souvenir for Daddy (the identity of which I won't disclose here to avoid spoiling the surprise ;]) as well as a very pretty pair of earrings for me.  There was quite a bit of jewelry there, which naturally made me think of my sister, but I'm so bad at figuring out her tastes that I didn't dare buy her anything until I had spoken with her to get a better idea of what she wanted (not that that would necessarily help).  Then it was back to the hostel once again to gather everyone and head out.  As always with a group this size (nearly everyone had elected to come to Berlin, so we were about 40) there was a lot of waiting around, but we still made it to the Hauptbahnhof in plenty of time for a "last meal" in Berlin (I found a pizza-pastry at a bakery and - of course - more ice cream ;]).  The train arrived exactly on time (it's Germany.  Everything's exactly on time) and we clambered on, trying to get in first to avoid the situation of the ride up.  The seating situation was better this time and we soon settled in for the long ride back.  I had set up a Skype date with my boyfriend for the next morning (Monday, being the 13th, marked 3 months of dating - collective *awww* :P) so I knew I wouldn't get too much sleep Monday night, and in light of this I tried to sleep on the train, but I have a very hard time falling asleep when I can't get horizontal, so it didn't work too well, regardless of whether I tried the window, the table, or my seatmate's shoulder as a support.  But the scenery was pretty, and I had my iPod for music, and the pickle-and-egg sandwich that I had bought as lunch wasn't even that bad (really! it wasn't!), so it was an overall pleasant journey.  For some reason the S-Bahns weren't in operation when we got back to Munich, so we had to take a bus back to the Wohnheim, but that was all figured out by the grad students and required minimal thinking from us.  On the way back we passed a store that seemed to sell exclusively dirndls, which reminded me how badly I wanted one, and I made a note to go dirndl-shopping sometime before I left Munich.  At 10pm I finally crawled into bed back in Munich, and for some reason I felt like I was back home. :)

Up Before the Sun

By the second week of the program I had settled firmly into a comfortable routine and was even beginning to enjoy my chosen sleep schedule, unusual as it may be.  It works particularly well if I want to Skype someone from home, especially since most of the people I would be interested in talking to have day-job commitments.  If I get up extra early (I've done 4am a couple of times) it's only 10pm on the East Coast and I have a good couple of hours to talk to whomever it is while I am nice and fresh and before they get too tired.  On Monday I tried this out with my boyfriend and thoroughly enjoyed a nearly two-hour conversation, after which I still had almost two hours before I had to leave for the Institute.  Unfortunately this schedule won't work for my family who are of the same "early to bed, early to rise" philosophy as me, so finding times to talk to them is a little more involved.  At the very least, in the mornings I tend to make my breakfast and do my homework (various grammar exercises and reviewing vocabulary), as well as write an email or two if I'm lucky enough to have received one (hint, hint), before scurrying off to class at 8:30.

Monday was our first Princeton precept of the program.  The two graduate students from the German department, Mareike and Hannes, are responsible for the 107G precepts as well as organizing numerous day trips and being general good resources for anything we might need here.  Mareike leads our precept, and so far they make me feel just like I'm back at Princeton.  As I mentioned, we are reading The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka in its original German, and it's slow going.  The story is much more interesting now that we've gotten into it and something is actually happening, but the vocabulary sheets we are given for each reading assignment (we read about 10 pages for every precept, which happen twice a week) are several pages long and doing the reading always involves looking up additional vocabulary as well.  The discussions are occasionally interesting but necessarily limited by the fact that they are carried out completely in German, and, being an engineer myself, these discussions of humanities topics such as "what is a monster?  Is Gregor Samsa a man or an animal?" hold almost no interest for me and are difficult for me to participate in.  It reminds me again why I'm studying Mechanical Engineering and not Comparative Literature (I can't believe I ever considered switching to that major).  German 209 - German Literature, which I plan to take in the fall should I decide to study abroad in Germany in the spring semester in order to maintain my German proficiency - should be interesting, even if I do PDF it. :P

Monday was shopping day for me, and I filled my refrigerator for only 22 Euros.  In fact, nearly two weeks later, I still haven't used up all of the food from that shopping trip and have only needed to buy essentials such as milk and orange juice since.  I treated myself to an entire frozen pizza for supper (trying to convince myself that it wasn't a completely American meal) and was so exhausted from my early morning that, after doing a bit of homework, fell into bed at 9pm instead of watching a movie in the basement with the group.

Tuesday some of us wanted to go to the BMW Museum and factory, which is one of the more interesting sights here in Munich (BMW means "Bavarian Motor Works", did you know that?).  A large contingent of the group was going to one of the three Pinakothek (art) museums and complained that we should go to BMW World another day (until this point we had done excursions nearly exclusively as an entire group instead of splitting up, though as the month wore on we would get more and more independent), but that didn't interest me at all so Nathan, Brian, and I headed off to look at some cars.  We stopped back by the Wohnheim first to do a little internet research (I learned that there is an opportunity for factory tours, but since they take 2.5 hours and the tour has been rerouted to no longer pass through the main assembly area, we decided against this), and I tried to get some other errands done as well, but the internet (which is spotty here at best) was being unusually frustrating and I didn't actually accomplish anything before we headed out.  BMW World was worth it, though.  The showroom didn't cost anything to explore, and it was almost as interesting as a museum in itself.  In addition to the newest line of automobiles on display, there were several interactive exhibits which highlighted aspects of the BMW - the new "night vision" camera, on-board internet (worst idea EVER), dynamic steering control, the advantages of a hybrid motor, etc.  Interactivity must be a very German thing - BMW World reminded me in many respects of the Deutsche Museum with its "try it and see" philosophy.  After wandering the showroom for a while (and asking the boys' opinion on which car was the "coolest" so that I could get a picture in it for my brother) we headed over to the museum - as it was already 4:00 and the museum closed at 6, I voted that we skip the main museum and only buy tickets for the special exhibit, which were much cheaper.  This turned out to be an excellent decision as the "special exhibit" were the world-famous BMW "Art Cars" - cars with special paint jobs commissioned by famous artists.  It took us the entire two hours just to look at these wonders, even though there were only 15 of them.  I got some amazing pictures!  After the exhibit I rushed to the souvenir shop to search for something for my brother - I figured something I got him from the BMW Museum would mean much more than a postcard or silly magnet to someone as interested in cool cars as he is.  For some inexplicable reason the souvenir shop had no posters (which was my first idea), and a model car is a little young for him (he's 14 now).  My next thought was a book, the only problem (besides the price) being that most of them were in German (I have to keep reminding myself that no one else in my family will understand German :P).  I finally found something at 5:55, however, and returned victorious to the Wohnheim for the night.

As has been the case several times, I found that I wasn't particularly hungry Tuesday evening, and so I contented myself with a carrot for supper and went to bed rather early.  The way I see it, since I'm paying for all of my own food, it's a much better idea to listen to my body and only eat when I'm hungry as opposed to wasting money by forcing myself to eat three big meals a day.  A typical lunch for me is a sandwich (either butter and cheese or PB&J - I found peanut butter at the supermarket and I'm SO happy about that!) and an apple, which usually tides me over from cereal at breakfast time until supper around 4 or 5, should I choose to make it.  I am also discovering the wonder of leftovers - if I make enough of something not to eat it all in one night, I make supper for the next several evenings a matter of warming up a portion in the microwave for 2 minutes instead of taking 15-30 to prepare something.  I think I'm going to like leftovers when I am independent next year at Princeton. :)

Wednesday started a vicious cycle, one that I tend to fall into far too easily.  Our first test was on Friday, and though I generally don't worry about exams (I'm a good test-taker, as a rule) I had been having trouble not slipping into the summer "don't-wanna-do-anything=productive" mode which makes studying so much harder, and that began to worry me.  I couldn't decide whether to not care about the test and enjoy my time here in Munich as a good cultural experience, or to freak out and study really hard and focus on the fact that I was here in Munich to study and my eventual goal was to be fluent in German by the end of this summer.  The indecision in itself began to stress me out, especially as I realized that I was simply trying to do too much between studying, exploring the city, blogging, several Bible studies by myself and with others (I'm reading Colossians in German for the Christian vocab, Romans with my boyfriend, and The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel with him and my best friend) and discussing them all, keeping in regular contact with friends and family from home, and getting enough sleep.  I felt like I had to cut something out or go crazy, which led to the blog post of last week as well as at least one very stressed email to a close friend.  In hindsight my freak-out was mostly just silly, but I'm very good at working myself up over inconsequential things like that.  In any case it led to a rather miserable few days, when I was still doing activities but accompanied by the nagging feeling that I was wasting my time when doing anything besides studying, even though I couldn't motivate myself to study even when I had the opportunity.

Wednesday I visited the Museum Reich der Kristalle, the university collection of precious stones and crystals.  I could read many of the exhibit signs (I'm improving - yay!) and the museum was certainly interesting (I saw the largest amethyst crystal I've ever seen - amethyst is my birthstone - as well as one of the largest single-crystal diamonds ever discovered and some really cool luminescent rocks) but nothing spectacular.  Afterwards I forced myself to sit down and study vocabulary for several hours even though it was the last thing I wanted to do (so much of it seems so useless!  Who really needs to know four ways to say "The pressure decreased"?), and because of being so absorbed in this forgot (for the second week in a row) to bring my bedding and towels down for the weekly linens change, which was rather frustrating (not, if you promise not to think less of me for this confession, that I've never gone more than two weeks without washing my towels and sheets...).  That evening we had the opportunity to swim in the oldest swimming pool in Munich, which was built in 1901 and was at the time the largest in the country? world?  Anyway, it was rather impressive, and I had a good time, but we ended up staying rather longer than I would have liked and I got antsy about the time that I wasn't spending studying or sleeping.  By the time we got back to the Wohnheim it was already 11:00, which was the latest I had been awake thus far in the program (and the first time I had gone to bed after sunset, which is at 9).

Unfortunately the next morning I still woke up at 5, whether from my newly-developed habit or because of the stress I don't know, but I snoozed until 6 before getting up and attempting to be very efficient by making breakfast while I did my laundry.  Unfortunately things never go according to plan and when I went down to the laundry room I discovered that the laundry detergent I had been sharing with Dan had been stolen (and without my even having gotten to use it :[), so that nullified that idea.  I went to make my breakfast and lunch and when I took out a carrot to peel for lunch I discovered that since I had bought them last Saturday, they had begun to mold.  Of course carrots mold, but I had never seen this before at home, whether because we eat the carrots too fast for them to decay or due to the climate/humidity in my room in Munich (they were sitting on a shelf) or whether the carrots I had bought were simply not very fresh, I don't know, but it was a very disappointing discovery.  Being as frugal as I am, I was quite reluctant to simply throw the vegetables away, and so laboriously washed and peeled them all, discovering to my delight that the mold had not yet penetrated past the first couple of layers of the carrot.  I kept the carrots in my fridge until I could eat them all over the course of the next couple of days, and I didn't get sick from them, so all was not lost ;)

After class on Thursday I decided that I needed to start thinking about arrangements for my internship, particularly buying my train ticket from Munich to Clausthal and back (my plane back home in August flies out of Munich since it was much less expensive to change the details of my Princeton in Munich-provided flight instead of booking a completely new one) and opening a bank account so that my internship stipend could be deposited (ironic how when I am most stressed out I tend to think of think of the most other things to do which have the least to do with the source of my stress :P).  So, having solicited the help of Hannes, we set off for the Central Train Station to investigate our ticket possibilities.  The entire process was quite confusing and I was very glad to have the native speaker skills of Hannes to help me in understanding what the clerk was saying.  We discovered that there were multiple options for both the journey to and from Clausthal, and suddenly it occurred to me that I should probably ask my supervising professor, who would be responsible for picking me up in Clausthal and giving me my apartment key (as I would be necessarily arriving on a Sunday, there would be no one at the apartment itself to hand the key over to me), what time would be most convenient for him for me to arrive.  Armed with the information of possibilities, I returned to the Wohnheim and composed an email, ambitiously in German, asking for his preference.  Although Thursday I should have spent the most time studying for the test, I instead ended up watching a German silent film from the 20s (called Metropolis, it was the "mega-blockbuster" of its time and one of the first Hollywood-style films) and attending a play, the script of which we had read during my German 102-5 class in the spring.  The play turned out to be a very modern-artsy interpretation of the original play composed in the 30s (Der Besuch der Alten Dame) and I was very glad that we had read and discussed the play first, or else I would have been very confused by the way it was performed (there were five young actors whose roles were constantly changing with no difference in costume, only demeanor, and the fact that I already knew which lines belonged to which character was the only thing that kept me on track with the play).  It was interesting and thought-provoking, even though it led to yet another late night (I didn't get to bed until 10:30, having done MUCH less studying than I planned on or should have done).  And so my second week in Munich drew to its conclusion, amidst much stress and conflicting desires.  It's gotten somewhat better since, thankfully.

The Long-Awaited Continuation

Well, after nearly a week's break (and overcoming some serious resistance to start now that I'm so far behind - funny how that works, huh?) I'm back.  Well, we might as well resume where we left off...

On the Sunday of the first weekend here in Munich, after a week of intense German and fighting that "it's summer now, I don't want to work" mentality, we celebrated by taking a day trip sponsored by the Goethe Institute to two very interesting locations outside the city.  The bus left from the Central Train Station 7:45am, which was no problem for me (I *still* had time to make myself breakfast, do my Bible study, etc. in the morning) but caused many complaints from the other students.  We drove about an hour to reach Glentleiten, which is an open-air museum displaying traditional buildings from the last few centuries in Bavaria.  I visited something similar in Russia when I went to Novgorod, but this time I actually understood most of what the guide said in German, and it wasn't at the end of an exhausting day but the beginning, so I enjoyed it much more.  The weather was absolutely perfect - 75˚ and just enough clouds in the sky to make for better vista pictures.  Which there was no shortage of opportunity to take, since the museum was on relatively high ground in view of the Alps.  The buildings themselves were interesting and tastefully furnished with furniture and other household objects from the time period of the house.  The thing that struck me most was what small areas people tended to live in in centuries past: a room the size of my dorm here in Munich would probably have served as the kitchen or living room, or parent's bedroom if the family was quite well-off.  But in any case the ceilings in most of the buildings (unless it was a room with an open fire which necessitated a place for the smoke to gather above the heads of the inhabitants) were not higher than seven feet and gave everything a cramped and cozy feel (the reason being, of course, concerns over the necessity of heating the poorly-ventilated rooms with a fire).  The entire museum was interesting and pretty, but not especially exciting, and I was glad when we loaded back onto the bus to continue to the real attraction of the day.

After another hour's drive, we arrived at Neuschwanstein, one of the three palaces of the Bavarian king of the 19th century, Ludwig the Second.  The white stone palace precariously perched on the edge of a ridge against a breathtaking background of the foothills of the Alps is allegedly the inspiration for the Walt Disney Sleeping Beauty castle, and it even lived up to the splendor of its reputation.  One cannot simply drive up to the gates of the castle, but must instead park down in the village like all of the other peasants and approach the imposing fortress on foot, a quite steep walk that winds back and forth across the face of the ridge, unless of course one wants to brave the fee and the line to be driven up in a horse-drawn carriage or take the much less romantic bus ride up the back side of the ridge.  Before setting out on this taxing journey we of course needed sustenance, so we stopped in a restaurant down in the village for lunch.  The menu was quite expensive on grounds of the monopoly the restaurant had on the foodservice industry of the village, but this was a special day and deserved a special treat.  I ordered Wienerschnitzel (breaded pork) with Kartoffelsalat (potato salad, but better than what we think of as potato salad - made with oil instead of mayonnaise), and it was downright delicious.  The waitresses were all dressed in the traditional Bavarian women's costume of a dirndl, complete with apron and hair in braids or buns, as was our guide at Glentleiten.  One of my main goals before I leave Munich has now become to obtain one of these outfits for myself.  I have been informed that although it is not uncommon to see both men and women in traditional garb going about everyday life in Munich, such a wardrobe will be laughed at in other parts of Germany, much like wearing a Stetson, chaps, and cowboy boots in the middle of Manhattan, but this does not deter me.  The only question is finding a set in my price range...

After lunch we set off for the palace.  Of course, besides the official way, there exist many shortcuts which take a steeper, more direct route up to the gates, but for liability reasons our tour guide expressly recommended against taking these more dangerous, unofficial paths.  I was not to be deterred, however, from taking advantage of the obviously much shorter route to the palace gates, as our tour was scheduled for a particular time and, in true German style, latecomers were not accommodated.  (Given the amount of people who come through the palace every day - several thousand - the tours are remarkably well-organized and impeccably timed).  I was able to convince one other member of the group - Sheng - to accompany me, and we reached the meeting point without any injuries and well ahead of the rest of the group.  This gave us time to both peruse the souvenir shop (I couldn't resist buying a few of the most beautiful postcards to send back to friends and family back home) and take a few pictures in front of the picturesque views.  Soon the rest of the group caught up and we entered the palace courtyard to wait for our tour time.  The tour, when it finally came, was quick, efficient, and informative.  I again found, to my delight, that I understood most of the commentary of the German-speaking tour guide.  Unfortunately there were no photographs permitted of the interior of the palace, but it was certainly a sight to behold.  Not quite as lavish as those of the Russian czars that I had seen in St. Petersburg (i.e. the Hermitage, Katherine's Palace and Peterhoff), but the mosaics and paintings on the walls, as well as the carved woodwork, was still quite impressive.  Most curious was the passage which was constructed to look like the inside of a cave, complete with stalactites and eerie green lighting (which is, however, most likely not authentic).  True to the name, there were figures of swans everywhere (Schwan is the German word for swan, in case you didn't make the connection) and it was just a very pretty castle.  Too bad Ludwig didn't get to enjoy it for long before he was hauled off to house arrest by Parliment who had a doctor's certification of his mental instability, and died in Starnberger See under mysterious circumstances soon afterwards.  After finishing the tour one must pass through two separate souvenir shops and a cafe before exiting the palace altogether, so that one has every last possible chance to buy something if one has the slightest inclination.  I didn't pay much attention to these, however, as I was occupied trying to soothe a lost child we had acquired just after the end of the tour.

Her name was Alexandra and she appeared to be about nine years old.  Thankfully she was American (I don't know how effective I would have been in consoling a German-speaking child) and she had somehow lost track of her family in the masses of people traveling through the palace.  I was not the first to find her, only the first native English speaker.  Of the other two women who were talking to her when I walked up, one spoke heavily accented English and the other only German.  The German-speaker offered to go back and look for the mother while we took Alexandra to the palace exit in case the family had gone ahead and were looking for her there.  Had I truly stopped to think about this course of action I would have brought Alexandra back myself, reasoning that she was much more likely to have run ahead of her family than to have fallen behind, but things tend to happen quickly in these circumstances and my first priority was to stop Alexandra from crying.  So we slowly walked her out and I gratefully used my English to comfort her, meanwhile asking questions that would give us the information needed to reunite her with her family.  I discovered that she was in the English-speaking tour group that had been just behind us, and that she had last seen her mother in one of the souvenir shops (which cemented my suspicion that the mother was behind, not before).  Then we happened upon a potentially useful piece of information when she piped up with "I know Mom's phone number."  I immediately whipped out my cell phone, glad to have a concrete way to help, but when looking over Alexandra's shoulder I saw her type in seven numbers I knew our cause was lost - why would a nine-year-old understand that an American phone won't work in another country?  After explaining that she would need to dial a few more than seven numbers we tried again with country and area code but the call didn't go through - as I suspected, the mother was probably not using her American cell phone abroad.  I decided to wait with Alexandra until her mother came out of the palace, as I reasoned she must eventually, while Dan scurried off to the palace gates to inquire whether an announcement could be made over loudspeaker.  Soon the German-speaking woman returned and informed me that everyone behind us spoke only English, so she couldn't communicate with them, but that no one appeared to be overly distressed or looking for anyone.  However, it was only a matter of time before Alexandra, watching the people emerging from the exit as I had instructed her to, let out a cry of "Mommy!!" and ran to a youngish woman and her husband.  I was impressed with how calm the mother had remained: she just gently said to Alexandra, "Why did you run off ahead of us like that?"  She then looked at me and I informed her, "Yeah, I wasn't going to leave her until we found you, I knew it was just a matter of time."  My job was done.  Not done particularly well or efficiently, but done, and I left the family to deal with the disobedient Alexandra.  Man, my leader skills must be rusty - but then again, hindsight is always 20/20.  At least I know what I would do next time in that situation - take Alexandra back myself instead of sending a (albeit well-intentioned) German-speaker into the crowd of American tourists to search for a mother who was not overly concerned that her child had left her sight (I only hope that when I become a mother I'm as calm as that woman.  I think I will be - I can totally imagine my mom acting the same way if I had disappeared at that age :D).

Unfortunately this little escapade left us pressed for time and the group decided that we didn't have enough to take the side trip to Maria's Bridge, a footbridge over the deep ravine with a beautiful view of the palace situated in the surrounding mountains.  I refused to accept such a decision, however, and belligerently set off with Sheng to prove them wrong.  It wasn't hard with just the two of us hurrying (and even stopping to take some pictures from time to time - after all, wasn't that why we came?), and we made it to the bridge and back with plenty of time to spare - taking again one of the more "direct" paths down the ridge to the village.  At one point, when the trail narrowed to a footpath, Sheng questioned our decision to forsake the official way, but I assured him quite confidently, "I'm an OA Leader.  Trust me, I have a good sense of direction."  Those could have been famous last words, but thankfully disaster was avoided and we enjoyed a very scenic, albeit quite steep and heart-pounding, journey back to the bus. (I was certainly glad for my hiking boots!!)  Thankfully the AC in the bus worked, and I enjoyed a good nap during the two-hour ride back to Munich.  While I didn't think I exerted myself too badly during the trek up and down the ridge, my legs told me otherwise as soon as I stood up to debus back at the Central Train Station, and they were quite sore for some days afterwards.  By the time we reached the Wohnung again I was more than ready for bed, too tired even to have much appetite.  One carrot sufficed for my supper, and I fell into bed quite early, lulled to sleep by a terrific thunderstorm outside my window complete with frequent lightning, ominous quick-moving clouds, and terrifying rolls of thunder.  And so ended my first perfect weekend in Munich.  Here's to many more to come!!!