your to-do list for munich

although i'd been to bavaria and the outskirts of munich with my wonderful host family in germany several years ago, i hadn't yet seen the city itself; so when the other students suggested a weekend trip, i went along and am very glad that i did! the city can definitely be seen in a weekend, and entirely on foot, but be prepared for an ambitious itinerary.

1. deutsches museum. first thing i did after checking into the hostel was to drag my roommate across the city to see this museum. admittedly, i didn't understand most of the very technical scientific explanations in the exhibits on space travel and engine mechanics, but there was a great deal to see and i definitely felt smarter after we left. my favorite part was the futuristic nanotechnology exhibit, which projected that before long we'll have tiny little robots swimming through our blood stream and filtering out impurities and clearing out our arteries. yeah, that was my reaction too..

2. kaufingerstrasse is a nice broad street that makes for a very pleasant stroll. you'll pass by the rathaus-glockenspiel, a very impressive and beautiful building on marienplatz. there you'll also see mary's column, and you know i love anything with my name on it. kaufingerstrasse also has good shopping, and maximilianstrasse will give you a nice ritzy stroll past the mercedes, prada, gucci, etc. stores.

3. the hofbrauhaus is a good time, and a fun way to try munich's world famous brews. dinners in touristy places can get expensive, so i grabbed a veggie doner kebab and caught the happy hour at the bar.

4. there was a free walking tour of munich offered in a brochure in our hostel. i just grabbed the map they offered and followed the tour myself, which allowed me to wander off a bit and get a closer look at the parts i found most interesting. munich is definitely walkable, and as we were only a couple blocks away from the train station i didn't catch a single subway or bus all weekend.

5. st. peter's belltower is well worth the climb and offers a beautiful view of the city. plus just 1 euro for students!

6. the englischergarten is the largest city park in continental europe (larger than central park in nyc!) and is a wonderful place to go exploring. don't miss the surfers riding the perpetual wave generated by the water rushing in to fill the park's meandering stream-- they're even out there in february!

7. the alte pinothek art museum is just one euro admission on sundays. you can guess what i did with my last afternoon!

my favorite thing about munich was just getting to wander around on my own time and seeing the sights and sounds at my own pace. my own pace is, admittedly, rather fast, but if you've only got the weekend, you have to fit in everything you can!

Reasons to love Vienna

after living in this beautiful city for over a month, i hardly know where to start! i've been making a mental list of just some of the things i love about vienna though...

1. you can drink the tap water, no filter needed. i can't tell you how happy this makes me, though admittedly i'll drink tap water anywhere, even in morocco (though there were times i swore i never would again). the tap water here is piped down from the alps and only has a tad bit of preservative chemicals (added only, in fact, because of and during the American occupation after WWII) that are supposed to keep it cleaner.

2. the public transport is clean and wonderfully easy to use. for 50 euros a month, you can ride anywhere in the city limits by bus, subway, train or streetcar. however, as the weather turns warmer (it was a balmy 50 degrees today. i'm very excited about this.), i'm going start walking everywhere instead (it's about 30 minutes to the city center from our house in the 19th district) and put the money saved into going to budapest and bratislava, both short distances away. which brings me to

3. vienna is so close to so many places! we've already been on group trips to munich and prague, and i'm planning several trips of my own to budapest, bratislava, salzburg, and even barcelona (found cheap tickets on ryanair.com). next week i'll be spending spring break in florence and rome with my parents (making italian my unofficial 5th language of study)!

4. vienna is very clean and there's not as much smoking in public as i thought there might be, which is nice. then again, my last trip was to morocco where i was surrounded by nicotine junkies. nonetheless, they do a good job of keeping things tidy and swept around the city (and unlike moscow, no packs of feral dogs roaming the streets. wunderbar!)

5. it's quite a cosmopolitan city, and people speak all sorts of languages and hail from all different parts of the world. the lingua franca is definitely english, and i've been enjoying seeing illustrations from what we've studied in my linguistics classes in daily conversations. i enjoy speaking german while out, but i'm also comforted by the fact that if i need to, i can communicate in english.

6. there are plenty of things to do for a few euros (or less) here. the stadtpark is a huge woodsy park in the first district, but there are many more smaller (but still span several square blocks) parks scattered about the city. turkenschanz park is just a block from our house, and offers running trails, sledding hills, beautiful views and even a little restaurant that may be nice to visit as the weather warms up. you can also get standing room seats to an opera or a concert for a few euros; monday night we went to see falstaff by verdi and it was wonderful. they even have little screens where you can read the words in german or in english!

7. cafe culture is also wonderful, and you can linger over a cup of coffee in a kaffeehaus in vienna without getting hurried out by your server.

8. every day, i find another thing to love about vienna! especially as the warmer weather approaches... for the first couple weeks, the temperatures never went above freezing!

oh by the way, i'm still alive...

i hereby promise to post on my blog very, very soon. i have several entries scribbled out just waiting to be typed, and have yet to sit at my computer long enough to actually post them here. i've been really busy and can't wait to share my experiences in prague, munich, and of course vienna!

... but as it happens, i'm about to go my first ever opera (falstaff by verdi). i understand there are subtitles on little screens, so hopefully i'll understand what's happening.

again, my apologies and i will have many posts, very soon!!!!

xx