Danka Germany!

After I regained feeling in my little feetsies I wound up in the center of a huge outdoor outlet mall... go figure. At the time I was with my roommate Kara (who is the sweetest person ever- I love her) and a guy Adam from our program who was actually born in Switzerland and is fluent in German. Just some random facts about cool Lugano kids. We were starving and cold. So, after we bought better gloves we went hunting for food and rain boots. Then we spotted it. ZARA.

A little background about Miss Kara and me is that we have similar clothing style, but different attitudes. We had actually been referring to ourselves as Kate and Pippa (because she is obsessed with watching Casablanca and dreaming of meeting a prince in Paris and I am the more edgy sister Pippa.) The balance is perfection. So, we HAD to walk into the Zara store because not only is it where our beloved British icons shop, but they had sale signs everywhere. Adam is a sweetheart and actually has waited and held my groceries before while I was shopping in H&M, but we forced him to leave us in the store. There is no rushing the shopping experience in such a beautiful store. It was 3 stories and it's sad to say how happy I became 4 tops later (none of which were over 13 Euro.. go me!)

All the ladies that stayed in the hostel with me.

 On the walk back to our hostel I had an experience I will never forget. Our tour guide warned us earlier in the day about Neo/Anti Nazi rallies and to boo the Nazi's if we ever saw them. Little did I know that I would get caught up in one. While we were in the train station Kara and I saw kids wearing all black punk gear with hoods and spikes running all around. I assumed it was some gang of kids getting out of school. When we got to the top of the station we saw police men in riot gear and riot cars everywhere. In the middle of streets we the Nazi's with banners and cars with loud speakers on them shouting their messages of hate. All around them were police men protecting the Nazi's against the Anti-Nazi people who were yelling and trying to attack them. It was so loud on the street because the Anti- Nazi group had whistles in their mouths to drown out the Nazi messages. We asked the police if we could walk up past the riot and they said it was safe as long as we didn't try and go through it. As we walked up to the street we got stuck right at the riot line and an Anti-Nazi broke through. He hit my shoulder running past me and a cop through him up against a wall. Kara and I hid in a bank doorway with a German girl who looked just as scared as us. I was so emotional that people with so much hate still exist in this world and for the people of Munich who have to live in a city where this happens. It's a twisted road when you have to protect the freedom of speech for everyone, including Nazis.

Chaos.

After that roller-coaster of emotions, Kara and I went to go get kabobs. We had literally not eaten all day and forgotten about our hunger as soon as we saw clothes and couldn't get to food in the riot. I was originally planning on getting a kabob from every city that I visited, until I realized my insides would literally die and no amount of tums would be able to fix it. After an amazing relaxing lunch/dinner we went back to the hostel to take hot showers. After a day of frozen feet and snow I have never loved a shower more. Once we got ready we were off to the Beer Challenge!

The Beer Challenge was awesome. It was 12 Euro and came with 2 free beers and a Jaeger shot. I also happened to be staying at a hostel named Jaeger's that gave a complimentary shot at check in (if this didn't solidify my love of Germany I don't know what did.) We went to 4 famous beer halls of course including the famous Hofbräuhaus. I had the best hefeweizen beer of my life on the tour and got to try "the Pope's beer."

Some ladies on the Beer Challenge.

Me, Val, and Sarah-Margaret drinking the Pope's beer.

My new friend Jess and the band at Hofbräuhaus.

Declan and his pretzel smile. We introduced the Aussies to the wonderful pretzel and mustard combination.

Pretzels for days!

Val and the Aussies.

On the challenge we met a TON of Australians who were traveling on their summer break. If you have never  heard me do my Australian accent, you are NOT missing anything. I actually was attempting to speak to the native Aussies in it and managed to get a lot of dead stares. Go Tessa! I did manage to make some friends though! I met these three Australians Jess, Samantha, and Declan who became my partners in crime. Jess was the coolest chick ever who was the skinniest person I have ever seen who was also capable of consuming the most beer I have ever seen. (Don't worry mom I am not that cool, I only bought one beer.) We talked about Obama and how Australia was actually hardly hit by the recession and the quickest country to recover. Wooo intellectual conversations and drinking! After some delicious pretzels and our last bar the plan was to head to a dance club. Lets not forget I am American though... we wound up at a McDonald's.

I suppose you could say I had been hanging out with Declan the rest of the night because Jess and Sam were exhausted and went back to their hostel. So, after a lovely date at McDonald's I got my single girl mojo back. It's not trashy if you kiss after combo meal date right? I had a great night and now everyone who is worried about me can eternally embarrass me (yes mom I know you told Aunt Jennie and then she told Mr. Gecker about this incident.) It was actually pretty great because ironically we were both coming out of similar situations, and if you don't know EVERYTHING sounds better in an Australian accent. Even it is, "yeah it's just shit."

My last night in Munich was great. My post tomorrow will be more somber because we took the train to Dachau where the well known concentration camp is. I really want to visit Munich again and see the castles and English park surfers I missed... but maybe in the summer.