OKTOBERFEST!!

Okay Wow. So I went to Oktoberfest with some kids from school this weekend, and man it was a blast.

I didn't really know any of the kids who I had rented the car with, but it was the cheapest thing to do and I really wanted drive on the autobahn :) So another Schiller guy named Elias and I found two other people to rent a car with, we ended up with an Audi A4.

On the way down it took nearly 5 hours because of road construction (a familiar feeling) and traffic. When we got into Munich we dropped one of the guys off because he was staying with another friend, then we headed to a small town (Bavarians call them villages) outside Munich where Elias lives. We met up with some of Elias' friends that night who were all going to Oktoberfest the next day and invited me to join them!! I was pretty excitedd to go to Oktoberfest with Bavarians (people from south Germany). Or as they like to say Bavaria is south OF Germany.

So Saturday morning we woke up at 6:45 to catch the train into Munich. Yes 6:45, you have to get there early or you won't get into the tent.
So if you check out some of the pics on FB you can see what the inside of the "tent" looks like. It's best to be inside because there you can get the full experience. They have live music which really gets people energetic.

So we sat inside for about 2.5 hours before we got kicked out, due to people reserving the table about 10 months ago.

After we left the tent we went to the biergarten, which is just another huge terrace with tables and beer. We sat there for the majority of the day, drinking beer and eating food.

The best thing about Oktoberfest is the clothes. Men wear the traditional Lederhosen while women where Dirndl. Lots of people think this is a German outfit, and it is, but only people in the southern half of Bavaria wear them-one thing I learned while being with the Germans.

Well there is so many more details I could share about, if ya wanna know more i'd love to tell ya.

Last thing, on the way home we had some open road and I got the A4 up to about 220 km, which is about 135 mph.. Very fun, but tough to drive that fast for a period of 10 minutes.

Hugs and kisses

Eric

I Amsterdam

So this weekend was quite the experience. I went to Amsterdam with a friend I met from Schiller. Her name is Araceli and she is coincidentally from Mpls.

So Saturday at 5AM we left with another friend from Schiller, his name is Philipp-- he is spending the week in Brussels. Phil borrowing a car from someone at school so we drove there. I was pretty excited because I knew there wasn't going to be many people on the autobahn so we were gonna blaze a trail. It took about 4 hrs from HD to Brussels, and the top speed was hit about about 230 km/h which is about 140 mph. I'm hoping to rent a car sometime soon so I can drive that fast-legally.

So when we got to Brussels Araceli hopped on a train to Amsterdam. It was a very scenic ride thru Holland and Belgium. It was about a three hr train ride but we didn't mind because we were both pretty tired.

When we finally got to Amsterdam we learned that there were NO hotels or hostels available cuz there was a media/tv conference in town all weekend. So we weren't really sure what to do, but we went to this travel agency and they had just got a fax about an available hostel/hotel/apartment. Yeah it was weird, ill get back to it.

So by now it was 3PM and we were happy about getting a place to stay so we ventured over to Vondelpark where they have to big "I amsterdam" sign. We took some pics then headed over the van gough museum which was very interesting. After that we headed to the place we were staying.

Okay, so this place we were staying was basically an apartment that a landlord rents out. So we ring the foorbell and the guy comes down and shows us the apartment, it was a bedroom with bunk beds, a kitchen living room, and bathroom, so it was pretty big, but we only spent 7 hrs there-sleeping. So after we checked in we headed into the city at about 9pm to check out the night life.

I didn't really know what to expect in the Red Light District, but it certainly was an experience. Basically it was a lot of "Coffee shops," Restaurants, Souvenir Shops, Bars, and prostitutes. We didn't spend a whole lot of time in the RLD cuz we were super tired, but I will say I saw enough of it for a LONG time.

I went home actually kind of sad because the city is filled with so much sin. Seeing the prostitutes was a hard thing to see because I felt so bad that these women lived like this.

So came home around 12 and enjoyed a good night of rest. We woke up Sunday at about 8:30, checked out of the apartment and headed over to the Ann Frank house.

This was pretty sweet because it has so much historical significance. We spent about an hr here than had some lunch and went on a Canal ride. The canal ride lasted about an hr and took us thru the streets of Amsterdam.

After the canal ride we did some shopping and killed some time before we left at 6. We rode home with some girls from Mannheim, a neighboring city of HD, I found them on mitfahrgelegenheit, the website like ride share.

We got home at about 11 Sunday night and I was to bed right away.

The End.

Eric

Bonn for the weekend

Well, I spent the weekend in Bonn with the bethel crew thats there. Dan, Dan Chang, Kenny Lui, Laura Barton, Mark Stockhowe, and Jen Swanson (her dad's name is Todd, haha (Todd Swanson)). I used this service called mitfahrgelgenheit which is basically a ride share program, it costs me 12 euro for the ride up, pretty cheap. When I got there I didn't know exactly where to go which was my fault because I forgot to write the address down. So it took me an hour and a half to get about 10 minutes where i needed to be.

Friday night I was introduced to this game called big 2's which is a really sweet game, we played some much over the course of the weekend.

Saturday, we went to Cologne where I saw one of the biggest Cathedrals i've seen. (pictures on fb) Since we didn't really know what to see there we just wandered around for about 2 hrs and didn't see much. ---Next time i'm going to have a plan when we go to a city---

One thing i've notcied about cars in germany is that they're all clean, and well kept. I have yet to see any car with mud or dirt all over the side. and if they put a dent in there car, it's fixed almost immediately.

The ride home i also used to ride share service which was a little more interesting, I rode in a 9 person van and it was full. We had to make three stops so it took a little longer to get home than i anticipated but i made it back.

One thing that was fun about using this service was that I got to take the autobahn which was awesome, I think the top speed we reached was about 100mph, but some cars we doing about 120 which was pretty cool.

Thats it for now, peace.

Guten Morgen

So I've finished my first week of class-not to bad for the first week, I think I'm going to learn quite a bit, but I am worried about my Marketing Management class, the general consensus is that the professor is very difficult. The school is also thinking about dropping the German program??? It is a decision they make at the main campus in Florida. I'll keep you updated on that.

Other than that the weather has been pretty good the entire time. I've been itching to get out of Heidelberg and see some other cities, I was looking at some of the pictures from the Bethel trip and it looks like they are laving a blast, and I want to see more of the sites.

As of right now it looks like I'm gonna head up to Bonn this weekend to see Dan and some Bethel kids. I'm going to arrange for a ride on the mitfahrgelegenheit which is like a ride share thing in Germany. BAsically how it works is that people will say they are going from city X to city Y and whatever time and they will drive you there for whatever price. So most people only ask about 10-15 euro which is about 150 euro cheaper than a train, and more direct.

Anyway thats it for now, bye