München: Getting engaged and stuff

So, if you aren’t already aware: I have had a VERY exciting week and a half.  From getting engaged (eeek!!!!) to being in the hospital, it’s been a crazy time!  I’ll just start from the beginning: Ella and I arriving in our hotel room in Munich and thinking WHAT THE ____ (fill in with your favorite four-letter word here).  It was FILTHY!!!  Like, SICK!!  I felt like my cousin (shout-out to Danielle!) when I said I wanted a new room.  You guys, this room was nasty.  I don’t know WHAT was all over the walls; dirt, dust maybe.. but, in one corner, there were DRIED BOOGERS on our wall!!! EWWW!!  I don’t know how to explain how truly disgusting it was.  I was NOT a happy camper and am now probably a bigger germaphobe than I was before.  Great.

On our first day in Munich, we kind of explored a little and got to know the main city-center area we were staying at.  Then we also learned the S-Bahn (subway) system for the city.  I’m still loving the public transport here.  I think it’s just great and WISH we had something similar in Iowa… (I know that will never happen).

Anyway, I can’t remember anymore which days we did what until Joel got here, so I’m kinda just guessing on the days.

Friday we went to the Deutsches Museum.  It was pretty big and they had this huge, like, mine underground.  It was a fake mine that they built in so people could see the evolution of mining.  We were walking around down there for probably a good twenty minutes (maybe climbing on some of the equipment too – it didn’t say NOT to..) before we ventured out into the rest of the museum.  We saw some lightening be made as well in this lab area, so that was cool.  After the museum, we had free time for the day, so Ella, Zach, and I decided to just venture because it was a nice day.  We found the parliament building and it was BEAUTIFUL.  And there was also a rive that ran in front of it and people were just sitting out by the river and enjoying the nice weather, so we joined in.  It was so perfect; the sun beating down on us after lots of snow, hearing the water rush by, just hanging out.  It was lovely.  But we finally decided to go so we could shower and get ready to go out for the night.

That evening, Ella and I found a bar nearby on the internet.  We didn’t want to have to go to far since we didn’t know the city that well yet – but don’t worry: we didn’t go just the two of us.  Zach, our body guard for all intensive purposes, also went with us.  We weren’t planning on being out too late because we had to leave the hotel at 9 the next morning for the days events. Well… 1:30 rolled around and we finally realized it was actually late and we should probably go!  But here’s the thing: We weren’t just sitting, just the three of us talking about stupid stuff in English.  No – some regulars at the bar came and sat with us and we talked to them all for FIVE HOURS IN GERMAN!!  Only one of them knew any english.  Needless to say, we were all pretty impressed with ourselves to have been able to carry that conversation for that long!  It was definitely a breaking point for me – I didn’t realize that I could do that, so it was really really cool.  And we didn’t just talk about stupid things – we talked about culture, religions (they were all Islam, so there was a lot to talk about), music and so much more!  We actually had intellectual conversations and it was so great!  But we did end up finally leaving and getting back to our hotel pretty late (or should I say early).

On Saturday, I am so sorry, but I don’t remember what we did…. woops!!  Something cool, probably.  😉

Sunday morning (Joel’s coming Joel’s coming!) was the day that (Joel’s coming!!) I was really excited because (Joel’s coming!) Joel was coming that day!  He was supposed to get in at about 11, but his flights got WAY screwed up, so he wasn’t going to be able to get in until 4ish.  But that ended up being okay, because we saw my favorite thing in Munich that day; the Residenz Palace!  Oh. My. Lordy was this place huge. and. beautiful!!  I can’t even explain to you how beautiful it was!  Like, seriously, it was amazing.  And I can’t imagine having LIVED there!  This place was cool – if you’re ever in Munich, you MUST go!!  They even had three little harps. 😀

After the Residenz, we went out for coffee and cake, a great German thing that I love.  You just go sit and drink coffee and eat cake for, like, an hour.  Why not?  Of course, I can’t partake in the cake eating, but it’s okay.  I love the down time.  Then I left coffee and cake a little bit early toooooooooo GO PICK UP JOEL!!!  WOO!!  I was SO SO SO SO SO happy to see him!!  Like, SO happy!!  I’ve been doing really wel and haven’t actually gotten homesick here really, but it was definitely amazing to see him.  We took the S-Bahn for 45 minutes back to the hotel and then headed out to be with the group.  Everyone, however, was pretty much already back – there was a St. Patty’s festival that they went to, but came back relatively early to do other stuff as well.  So we hung out in one of the other rooms (one that WASN’T super-duper disgusting).  We were all getting ready to go out and Joel admitted that he was too tired, so we turned in for the night.  I understand – travelling can be exhausting!!  Especially from US to Europe.

The next morning, we had to get going somewhat early again so we could get up to Neuschwanstein Castle – it was about a 2 hour trip with trains and buses.  But it was worth it (for a few reasons) 🙂 It is the castle that Cinderella’s Castle was designed after, and apparently something in Harry Potter too… not sure.  But it was breathtaking.  A beautiful place.  So, (digressing a little, but it’s important) Joel and I got an apartment in Ames for next year.  So when we were headed up to the castle, he was like, “We should try to get a good picture so we can make a Christmas card.” I thought that was a GREAT idea.  Send a Christmas card from our little apartment.  I was all for it!  And I kept saying, “Oooh this would be a good spot for a Christmas card picture.”  Like, several times… making a fool of myself because I didn’t know what was coming… So our tour was about to start in, like, 2 minutes, and Joel was like, let’s go up to the top and take our picture there!  And I thought sure, what the heck.  So the whole group came with us.  He gave Ella my camera to ‘take the Christmas card picture’ but everyone was taking the picture… I thought it was a little weird, but hey, whatever… He made us take our jackets off so we looked nice and not in puffy winter jackets (even though it was snowing…) So we got together to take the picture and, by golly, that boy was shaking like maraca in a mariachi band! I turned to him and was like, “Joel, are you cold?” and the next thing I know, he’s dropping down on one knee.  Box with a ring in it in hand.  I was floored!!  I had absolutely no idea that this would be happening right then!!!!  And then he asked me, in German, if I would be his wife.  What did I say, “Did you ask my dad?”  DID YOU ASK MY DAD!  Oh gosh – I just don’t do well with ‘on-the-spot-stuff’ ha! Finally I came around and said, “Yes, of course.” 🙂 So now I get to marry Joel!  Hopefully I’ll be getting the video soon – there’s a video!  He seriously did such a good job – this place was picture perfect.  Kinda like a fairy-tale 😉 The only problem was that there was NO free wifi in Munich and my phone wasn’t workingggg!!  So it was difficult to not be able to tell everyone personally, but it’s okay – you still get the idea. 🙂

After all the excitement, we went to the Hofbräuhaus – a Munich legend.  Of beer.  Joel had been before and loves the place and Zach really wanted to go too, so it worked well.  So Ella, Zach, Joel and I went for a bit and then met up with the group for a late dinner at a very good Italian place.

When we got back to Urbach, Tanja and Jürgen and Sophia were all very nice and welcoming to Joel.  Sophia even let Joel play tic-tac-toe with her!  We made pizza that night and Tanja had champaign and chocolate for Joel and I to congratulate us.  I am so lucky and seriously have the best host family in the world – they’re always so nice!  Joel did his own thing walking around in Schorndorf Wednesday morning and then he and I went to the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart in the afternoon when I got done with school.  It was a lot bigger than I thought.  Way more cars than I needed to see in one day.  😉 But it was cool – they showed a bunch of history of what was going on at the same time certain cars came out which I thought was pretty neat.  We also went in a race-car simulator which was fun.  On Thursday, Joel went back into Stuttgart on his own while I was in class and went to the history museum that I went to about a month ago.  On Friday, he went to Nürnberg by himself.  Which stressed me out beyond belief!!  It was pretty far away, so if he got lost, I couldn’t really help him, so I was panicked the whole day!  And he was coming back later because we had presentations that evening for school that he didn’t want to sit through, because they were all in German.  And Nürnberg is probably always going to be cooler than school presentations.  However, I ended up getting a really bad migraine and got taken to the hospital… ugh.  NOT fun…  I had to get a CT to make sure I didn’t have a stroke or anything crazy like that and then I was put on an IV drip for quite some time and some medicine too.  I was there for probably 4 hours.. maybe more.  I’m not really sure.  But it was not a fun night.  Luckily, Tanja was there with me – which I felt really bad about because she wasn’t feeling all that well either, so I felt bad that she had to wait with me.  And somebody brought Joel to the hospital when he got back into Schorndorf.  So that wasn’t very fun.  But my migraine’s almost all gone, 5 days later….

Joel and I went back to Munich Saturday morning, because that’s where his plaine was leaving from.  We luckily had enough time to enjoy the palace (since he didn’t get to see it before), and another trip to the Hofbräuhaus.  We even ended up getting souveniers this time.  It was amazing having him here and I can’t wait to see him again – all of you really!  But at the same time, I can’t believe that I only have a month left here in Germany.  It has gone by SO quickly and there are still so many things I want to see!!  I guess I’ll just have to come back again.. 🙂

Until next time…