Barcelona

Zurich - On the way to Barcelona my train was 20 minutes late so I missed my overnight train to Barcelona and I ended up staying the night in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich was nice but I had the worst Hotel experience of my life in which I decided to walk out at 5 in the morning.

In Barcelona I was lucky to stay in Marcellos cousin’s apartment, which saved me some good money to spend on other things. I met up with Thomas and Shawn who had already gotten keys to the apartment so it was all very easy. I didn’t end up taking many pictures in Barcelona but we had a good time checking out the history, culture, and nightlife. We decided to buy 2 day passes to the double decker bus system running that took you to a bunch of different must see locations. It was a very tourist thing to do but very helpful to get around and see the city. My favorites were Sagrada Familia, Port Olimpic, Catedral Gotic, Placa Espanya, La Pedrera, and the Torre Abgar. All of these sights were really cool to see very interesting architecture and amazing beauty. I am glad we rode this tourist bus. Barcelona was relaxing especially having a nice place to hang out and keep all of us stuff. Shawn also knew a friend that was playing some Frisbee so we went and watched a little Frisbee game and met some cool people that were studying abroad. I really enjoyed this visit but wished Marcello’s cousin was there to hang out and show us around a little bit more.

Olympic Stadium

Sagrada Familia

I was stoked because Kelly got to meet up with us in Barcelona, which made the weekend. We all went to this Spanish club that was playing some cool hip-hop, which was actually a really cool scene. We walked around a lot and visited the Ramblaus and checked out all the local street performers and little shops. Barcelona was overall a really fun place.

Wien, Austria

I think Austria is great. I don’t know why I decided to come here but I am so glad that I did. I like traveling this way because it seems when you just let things happen they work out in the best way. Vienna was a really great city. There is so much art and history, great food, and lots of people to meet. Every single person I met was incredibly friendly even when there were obvious language barriers. I was staying at a pretty famous independently owned and operated hostel called Hostel Ruthensteiner, which was very accommodating, and in good location. The first day in Vienna I probably walked 10 miles at least. I first journeyed to Schonbrunn palace. Schonbrunn is an amazing palace and national park that was once occupied by Napoleon and has housed many great historical noblemen and leaders. It was enormous. The grounds have a huge forest surrounding the main garden and palace which all center around a small hill which overlooks the entire city. Breathtaking. The grounds also have a Labyrinth, Zoo, small lake, and many intricate fountains. This was such a cool place to spend the day and especially because the weather in Austria was amazing. Hot all day and quite cold at night gave it the best of both worlds. Austria has a very good public transportation system so I took the metro to the city center and walked around Karlsplatz and got to see Stephansplatz church and the bustling center with loads of shops and restaurants and things. I know these things may not mean much but they are fairly historical centers in town. So I kept going and made it through Petersplatz, Michaelerplatz, and Josefsplatz to end up at the Volks Garten and the Neue Hofburg. I lounged in the Volks Garten, which is quite big and very green starring up at the Neue Hofburg which is pretty famous museum and tourist spot. Just next to this area of town is the Natural History Museum and the Kunst History Museum which are probably the most famous museums in all of Austria. I was approached by some people and was informed that tonight was the Lange Nacht Der Museen, which translates to the Long Night of the Museums. It only happens once a year, so why not especially when an 11 Euro ticket grants you access to 94 museums all over Vienna. I went to seven museums: The Naturhistorisches Museum, The Kunsthistorisches Museum, designforumWIEN, Kunstlerhaus, Leopold Museum, Museum Moderner Kunst, and Choco Vienna many of which were at the Museums Quartier. I think my favorite was the Natural History museum because it has all these cool little tables set up with microscopes or live animals so it was very interactive. It also had a huge collection of birds, mammals, fish, and invertebrates all on display. I had never seen so many butterfly species in my life. They also had jewels, all sorts of minerals, and a large collection of fossils. My second favorite was definitely the Kunsthistorisches because I got to see a large collection of art history. I also got to see “The Art of Painting” by Johannes Vermeer, which has been my favorite painting for a while now because I did a project about it in school. This was amazing to see I was literally in awe and felt like I should be talking to everyone around me about what was in the painting. It was so great to finally see this painting. I also got to see paintings by Bernardo Beletto, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Rembrandt, and many others. I really enjoyed this museum. The Modern art museum was pretty cool a lot contempory paintings and sculptures. In the Leopold I really liked an artist named Theodor Van Hormann. At the Kunstlerhaus there was a Darwin Evolution exhibit that was small but interesting. I took that picture of the two birds at the Kunstlerhaus Museum. The Choco Vienna exhibit was really cool too, I got to try some samples and see chocolate art. There was also a spirits and chocolate exhibit at this museum. I am glad I made this trip.

Schonbrunn Palace

Stephansplatz church

Neue Hofburg

Kunst History MuseumNatural History Museum

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

The Art of Painting

Overall I am very glad I got to do such cool things revolving around art and history in Austria. The next few days I walked around and saw Parliament and Rathaus Park and just spent time relaxing and checking out the city. This was a great weekend visit.

Oktoberfest!

What can I say about Oktoberfest? Munich the first time I visited compared to now was completely different. Munich transformed into a crazy party city filled with tourists, and drunk singing Germans, and loads of police. HOW FUN DOES THAT SOUND??!!? Hahahaha. I was lucky to find a hostel to stay at. They all seemed full online, especially the two that I wanted to stay at. Luckily Wombats my first choice had one night open so I decided to go for it. When I got there I asked if they had more room and sorted me out for 4 nights. Worked out perfectly. The next day, I was a little nervous about getting a spot in the tents so I got up at 730 and made it to the tents by 8 o’ clock but found nothing open and all the tents closed not opening until 10. This was not what I expected because I had heard everyone gets up at 6 and there is a big line to get in and yada yada, but no. You can easily find a spot in the tents and probably your own table until 12. Anyways, I was thinking I was going to the Augustinian tent because I heard this was a great local tent, but randomly decided to wait out of a tent I had never heard of. I am so lucky sometimes. I got my own table at 10 when it opened and was amazed at how beautiful this tent was. Blue painted sky on the ceiling and beautiful paintings of Bavarian people outlining the whole tent it was incredible. They put a lot of effort into building these tents for only 3 weeks a year. Somebody told me they start in July. The tent I ended up in was called Hacker-Feltzet and is known as “Heaven for Bavaria”. This tent was the Bayern tent that many local Bavarians go to and seem to know all the songs and doesn’t have many tourists. I had my own table for maybe 15 minutes before a group of young kids asked if they could sit down. 8 guys from south Munich but only one spoke any English. I enjoyed this they taught me a lot of German sayings and showed me the Bavarian way to get down at Oktoberfest. They all had Lederhosen so I felt a little left out of place but my inhibitions soon left and the tent started getting pretty rowdy.
Night time in Oktoberfest is wild. There are carnival rides everywhere and all sorts of people from everywhere on the planet drunk and screaming and falling over. My favorite ride was this little tent you pay 3 euro to enter. And it’s basically like a bunch of people sitting around watching this spinning disc throw people off. There was an announcer and he would say something in German and all the guys would run up there and pile all over each other, then the disc would start spinning and who ever was able to stay on was the winner. Then the last person would be lassoed by a couple of wranglers until they were able to pull him off. This was basically a German rodeo. Sometimes it would be all girls, sometimes all Ledehosen, sometimes all pants, sometimes all guys, and sometimes 2 guys would have boxing gloves and try to box while this disc was spinning. I thought this whole scene was absolutely hilarious and tried to stay on a couple times but pretty much got flung off right away.
There were also loads of police walking around and garding every city block surrounding the festival. They were all in leather jackets and kind of looked like Indiana Jones to me. Unfortunately, I had many interactions with the police. Stupid Taliban made a threat on Oktoberfest and Berlin so there was a huge police effort to stop such an attack. I got stopped 4 times at least by police thinking that I was some sort of il Talibano. One day it took me an hour to walk 4 blocks to the festival. Ridiculous. It was definitely the beard (they even told me so) which made me feel like cutting it. I felt bad in this situation because the police even said that they had to resort to racial profiling in order to try to find any threat, but I guess I don’t know what else they can really do. So everyday I would walk around for a while looking for a barber but only found 1 and chickened out. Hahaha. I’m thankful that they put such effort into stopping an attack, but I didn’t want them wasting their time on me.
I rode lots of carnival rides including this huge swing that goes 100 feet in the air, definitely scary. I went to almost every single tent I think as well. I took pictures of each one. Although my favorite was still Hacker-Feltzet the first one I went to. Those liters of beer are huge good luck trying to take down very many of those. Big ups to the Germans. They also had a dish called Die Hendl, that was easily the best roast chicken I have every eaten. I liked the bio-hendl, which they described as “happy chicken”. They Germans should probably be considered carnivores because the only vegetable I ate the whole time was Sauerkraut. They even eat a traditional white sausage for breakfast, which was actually quite tasty. I had a great time at Oktoberfest. I love the craziness of festivals especially when you can feel apart of it and can contribute to the fun.
I happened to have a group of Nurses from an American military base north of Munich staying in my room in the hostel, which were all very cool and had lots of cool stories. It was interesting to learn about the trauma of wars in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan from someone who actually treats the soldier’s injuries. A couple of them were also hardcore nurses and gave themselves saline IV drip hookups to re-hydrate the day after drinking I was totally shocked and had never been so close to this process before. Quite interesting. I went to the Hofbrau Haus, wore funny hats, sang the German songs and all that riot it was great.
I extended my stay 1 more day although 5 nights and 6 days may have been a lot. But, I really enjoyed the atmosphere and was meeting lots of new people everyday. On my last day I went to the BMW World, which was really cool. They had all these amazing new models that were so luxurious it was incredible. The décor of the building was quite impressive as well. I got to sit in all the cars and on the motorcycles and was stoked to do something a little different on the last day. Overall I spent a good amount of time in Munich and absolutely love that city. I hope to go back there soon.

Before

After

These are all the different tents.

I loved the Hendl!

So scary riding this thing..

View from the swing.

Best game at the whole festival.

Launching frogs.

BMW World

Miss everyone lots. Wish you could have been there.