Milan, Italy / Munich, Germany

This was quite an eventful trip. A lot, a lot of things went wrong on this trip. I mean so many things (though most were rather small) to where it was almost getting pretty ridiculous. Despite all this "bad luck", my trip to Munich was one of the funnest weekends I've had abroad.

So the trip started off great by me missing the train to go to Milan with my Fashion Marketing class. Nice. The worst part was that I packed and got everything ready the night before and was probably the most prepared for a trip I've been since being here. So once I finally get on a train, I'm only an hour behind them. Of course my train makes a little pit stop in Bologna. Yeah this pit stop ended up taking over 2 hours because of "mechanical difficulties". Eventually I get there and meet up with Kelsey and Kate. Kelsey is actually an old comrade of Lightweight's from page school back in high school. She is a great girl and has become one of both Kate and myself's good friends while abroad.

So we spent the afternoon in Milan checking out the more urban, fritzy lifestyle of the Italians. It was an interesting city and home to one of the most badass churches (can I say that?) I have ever seen. We got on a train around 6:30-7pm and made it to Verona. In Verona we had a long layover in waiting for our night train. During this time we entertained ourselves by "people watching". Much like an airport, the people watching in train stations is rather superb, especially late at night. We saw some interesting characters to say the least. We finally got on our night train around midnight and were in for a long ride to Munich. While I am very glad I experienced riding in a night train, I hope to never have to do it again. Cramped, hot, and tired, night trains are a lot of fun.

We got into Munich around 6am. We made our way to our hostel after some helpful advice from a friendly bloke working at a hotel near the train station. Once we arrived at the hostel, we found out we couldn't check in until 11am (of course). So we killed some time by picking up a croissant and coffee at a nearby cafe. We then proceeded to go back to hostel and crash in the lobby until our room was ready. Once we were done "napping" we decided to find the metro and make our way to Springfest. Munich's metro system is one of the best I've ridden as it's extremely efficient and clean. Once we got to Springfest, I came to the conclusion that none of us really had any idea what to expect. It's basically a huge carnival that specializes in beer drinking (as I find the Germans do in general). Not wanting to disrespect the local culture, we decided to find a tent and drink some delicious steins of beer. We found a table to sit at with this older German couple. They were great fun, especially the man with the incredible mustache. This leads me to elaborate on how friendly and fun the German people are. They are some of the friendliest, most down to earth people I have met since being in Europe. Extremely warm and courteous, they also know how to have a good time. Perhaps it was my blonde hair and blue eyes, but I felt very "welcome" while in Germany. I also found the German women to be exceptionally "warm", if you will. They also happened to be some of the best looking women I've seen while abroad.


After a while in the tent, we decided to unknowingly buy the worst cigars I have ever had and take a nice little ride on the ferris wheel. This provided us with a great view of both Springfest and Munich in general. After the ride, we met up with the rest of our crew from Florence and headed back to the tent. Yeah, we did our fair share of beer drinking in Munich. But for good reason. Not only is it the local custom to throw a 'few' back, the beer is delicious and the best I've ever had. After a few steins and great music from the jam band in the tent, I feel as though most people in the tent found their way on top of the seats at the tables. We had a blast in the tents.

After the tents closed, we met a couple very friendly German fellas who took Kate, Kelsey, and I to a local club. On our way to the club, I thought it was a great idea to slide down the railing down some stairs right outside of the venue. This was not one of my bette ideas. Once I reached the bottom, I found a tear down the seaming of my cords from just below my hip to my shin. I liked those cords too. Torn pants and all we decided to go in the club and had a good time. The German dudes we were with even bought me a beer. Cool. After overpaying the cab driver, we got back to our hostel and passed out.

The next day were all a little slow getting up. Understandably so, but we did get a great complimentary breakfast which helped start our day off on the right foot. It soon found the wrong foot. On our way to our next hostel, we stopped in an internet cafe briefly to print out our boarding passes for the plane ride back to Italy the following morning. Once we got online, we found out that our flight back had been cancelled due to this...


Damn you Eyjafjallajokull. So we had to figure out how the hell we were getting back to Florence the next day for classes. We decided that train was the best option so we went to the train station and got tickets for the next morning back home. At the time of purchase, we had no idea how lucky we were to even have the chance to buy tickets to get the hell out of there. We found out later on that we had paid more than necessary for the tickets (of course) and that trains were sold out everywhere due to the volcano acting up. Once we had the ticket situation under control, we spent the rest of the day checking out the city of Munich. Awesome city. Germany is awesome. Definitely want to go back. We decided to have dinner at the Hofbräuhaus brewery. This place was sooo cool. Beer drinker's paradise. The beer was delicious and served, once again, by the stein. If you have an appreciation for beer, or just like really good beer, you need to make your way to Germany some day. It spolied my taste buds. After the Hofbräuhaus brewery, we made our way back to the hostel for drinks at the bar inside. It was a cool bar and we got to meet out Aussie buddy, Steve. Though the girls give me shit that he was hitting on me, I think they were just jealous that he was buying me more beers than them. They got their share of jagerbombs though. After an interesting night at the bar with some interesting people, we cashed it in and called it a night.

The next morning we caught our train and made our way back to Florence. The tickets we bought didn't have assigned seating so I was constantly moving the entire train ride until I finally said screw it and rode in between cars right next to the shitter. It was a long ride home. On the bright side, I had an amazing trip to Germany with great friends and had gorgeous views of the Alps and Northern Italy on the train ride. I threw on a little Beirut once we got into Lombardia as it seemed only appropriate.

If you care to see just how many things went wrong on this trip, take a look at "THE LIST" Kelsey and Kate made on the train ride home. You probably won't understand a good portion of it, but it's still an entertaining read.