From Desert to Winter Wonderland

What an insane two weeks it has been – February has truly been non-stop. After coming back from Jordan, I went on a work team offsite skiing and sledding on the Austrian alps. It had been snowing for two weeks nonstop, so the snow was incredible!

First time sledding: Don’t go without goggles, gloves, snow shoes, basically the full gear as you basically eat snow going down - a ton of fun when there is a chairlift that takes you up – steer by digging your heel into the snow with the leg in the direction you want to turn.

Skiing in the Austrian Alps near Ehrwald, Austria: Amazing views; great long runs that weren’t too steep. Know “alles good” if you’re going to tumble down the mountain and worry non-English speaking strangers as many times as I did – in all fairness, the snow was fairly thick and uneven, so it was SUPER difficult to ski without the wider skis meant for the fresher, unmanicured snow. Luckily, I escaped without my team seeing any of my falls!

Woods walking-tour: BE ON TIME in Austria; we were roughly 3 mins late (which we warned them that would be the case) and they went ahead and started the tour without us…luckily we still made it to the end where there was hot wine (a Bavarian specialty called gluewine) waiting for us.

Driving on the highway: You don’t see the speedometer reading b/c we were going over 200km/hr (roughly 115mph) on the highway – amazing non-existent speed limits on many Germany highways! It’s only great when the cars on the road are all BMWs/Mercedes/Audis (ubiquitous in Germany) and can actually all travel at that same speed so there’s no traffic – it turned a regularly 2 hr drive to 1.5 hrs including 5pm traffic. INSANE!
Aside from the ski trip, there was Fasching aka Fat Tuesday in Munich – a public half-day holiday that I definitely celebrated (me with modern art). Strangely enough, it’s like Halloween here in basically all the cities in Europe – people dress up in costumes and party it up; full on drinking and debauchery in the streets!

Finally, last weekend, I had quite a few visitors to host in Munich. Brenna, a college friend’s sister, came to visit along with two friends and Dan Davis. The weekend started out phenomenally with probably the nicest day I’ve had thus far in Munich – we walked through the English Gardens (a giant central park in the middle of Munich), and went through the Olympic Park (where Munich hosted the Olympics about 30 years ago) and the BMW Museum.

We rounded out the day by participating in the annual tradition of Starkbierziet (“Strong Beer Season”). Long ago, one could not eat during Lent and as a result, the Monks created a strong beer (some with the content equaling 16 loaves of bread) that has about 9% alcohol compared to the normal 5% alcohol. The strong beer is only brewed during this season (4 weeks of the year) and is similar to a mini-more-local Octoberfest. Men and women walk around in traditional lederhosen and dirndls and you are expected to drink half-liters of strong-beer at these events – due to the strong beer, the beerhalls close at Midnight during this season.

Would love to tell you that was the end of my night, but we actually went out to a Munich club, Pascha…here’s a picture of the table we got front and center of the DJ Eric Prydz

Apparently, you can be a disaster even after graduating college…I woke up feeling horrendous from Friday, and had to let Brenna and friends go tour a Munich brewery by themselves. I did pull myself together and went with them to Dachau – the only concentration camp to have been operating throughout the 12 years during WWII / Nazi reign in Germany. The concentration camp was massive and recounts of the stories and suffering were horrific – it’s incredulous to think this happened only half an hour away from Munich 70 years ago and to know that similar mass genocide still exists today.

We searched for happier tourist options for the rest of our trip – I tried to recreate my Jordanian experience by taking everyone to a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner. Dan and I agreed the food really just didn’t come close to the food experiences we had in Jordan – but I think our expectations are a little high. The night ended in partying at Neu Raum -- a giant club with at least five dance floors – I learned from Friday night though.

Unfortunately, we didn’t end the party soon enough as we still didn’t get home until 4am with alarms going off around 6:30-7am to go to Neuschwanstein Castle (King Ludwig II’s castle that the Disney Castle is modeled off), two hours southwest of Munich next to the German/Austrian alps. I had no clue it was so close to the Alps, and even though I was told it was snowing, I didn’t realize there would be snow/ice on the ground…yeah, I didn’t quite wear the right shoes for walking up and down hills in snow and ice. Needless to say, I was a bit grump-grump all day Sunday – I definitely slipped and fell towards the end of our hilly climb to the Castle.

Finally, the weekend came to an end – loved having visitors and have so many great not appropriate for public blogging stories to share.

A Trip of a Lifetime

Background on Jordan: Apparently, Jordan is not quite as close to Munich as I originally anticipated; the flight definitely took over six hours, but the experience was unreal. Not quite sure what I had expected of the Middle East as I had never traveled anywhere (culturally) similar to it, but I came to find out it is an AMAZING place (or at least Jordan was for me). Jordan is extremely mountainous, quite developed in terms of roads and other infrastructure, pretty clean and well preserved, and people were pretty open and welcoming (as long as you were respectful of the culture and customs of the country—yeah woman were definitely more oppressed than other cultures, but that is probably the case in many non-western cultures). Lastly, the food is UNREAL! I think it was some of the best food I’ve had in my life – I definitely stuffed my face with olives, hummus, grilled meats, falafel, pita bread, etc. the entire trip!
Dan met me in Amman (capital of Jordan) where we met up with one of my oldest and closest friends, Grace, who is currently teaching English in Jordan on her Fulbright fellowship. Grace had a palatial apartment that she shared with two other Fulbright-ers (Jen and Hannah) that is roughly 10 times the size of my Munich apartment. We started the trip with shisha (tobacco that we proceeded to smoke from a hookah every day for the next five days there—I think my lungs are still coughing up smoke); it’s a Middle Eastern cultural experience that we obviously had to partake in religiously.

Our first full day there started with a delicious brunch followed by a dip in the Dead Sea – the lowest point on Earth! It’s insanely salty, which keeps the water buoyant and resulted in the inability to sink.

We followed our dip in the Dead Sea and mud treatment with teaching English to Sudanese & Somalian refugees in a Jesuit Center. Interestingly enough, Amman is a safe-haven for quite a few refugees as it has the resources and is fairly welcoming; Grace, along with other Fulbright teachers and volunteers, teaches English to children and adults who are in the process (sometimes decades long) to obtain a visa for a more developed nation. It’s incredible how important it is around the world to have a strong command of English – everyone there was so appreciative of the lessons. Our three hour lesson ended with a double dose of schwarma (grilled meats wrapped with tomatoes/tatziki in pita bread).

Day two began with Dan and me exploring the streets of Amman successfully without being scammed – never undervalue a good guy friend who can not only protect you from random men but can also mimic accents like no other and be confused for a local.

After our adventure filled with falafel and shisha smoking, Grace joined us for a four hour drive south to the city of Petra, an ancient city (established in 6th Century BC and was once the capital for the Nabataeans people) that was once a mecca of economic activity -- we experienced Petra by night [read a race to make it to this night show where Bedouins (nomadic Arabs of the desert regions of Arabia and North Africa) played a flute and some other old-time instrument]. The scenery along the ride was unbelievable – think rolling mountains vaguely similar to Southern California.

After much needed rest, we filled day three with Petra by day. Imagine scaling mountains (we really did climb hundreds of steps up and down giant mountains and ruins) and falling/tripping over and almost dying several times to get these great shots of us at different vantage points.

Of course, the trip didn’t end there; we continued our shisha tour of Jordan and headed off the next day back to Amman on the Dead Sea Highway. This time around, the “White Visitor” (female form of giant white dust/sand storms that blocked anything beyond fifty feet of eye view) wasn’t around and we got GREAT views of the Dead Sea and Israel right across the water.

We stopped off at a castle that was once used to protect the city of Karak during the 3^rd Crusade and ended the afternoon with a panoramic sun-setting view of the Dead Sea atop giant cliffs, eating ice-cream and sipping hot chocolate of course. Alas, my trip came to an end with more amazing Middle Eastern meals and sweets – I think I ate enough for two people on this trip – and shisha smoking.

Can't wait for what the next adventure holds!

Start of what is sure to be an absurd six months in Europe...

Trip to Munich: After nearly sleeping through my flight (thank God for awesome roommates who will wake you up and drive you to the airport at ungodly hours!), I landed in NYC seven hours later to have dinner with a group of college friends at a Mexican restaurant that was apparently in the middle of nowhere (but uber convenient for me to get back to the airport :)). NYC Dinner @ El Parador Cafe

My flight routed me through London Heathrow (it was my first time there, and I hope I never fly through Heathrow every again – it really is the most confusing airport I have ever had the displeasure of walking through) and then finally to Munich. SO GLAD my flight was on Saturday – apparently it started snowing on Sunday in London and half the flights were cancelled – another reason to never fly through Heathrow, it shuts down with just an inch or two of snow.

Living in Munich: So I’ve only been around for roughly two days, but I’m already in love with Munch. Aside from the fact that German food is just as terrible as I remember it from my Berlin trip, the weather is literally ten degrees or lower here right now, and I speak absolutely zero German, it’s great. Typical German meal (had this on Sunday at a beerhall / restaurant):

My apartment is roughly two feet big – please come visit, you can stay in a hotel , kidding! The location of the apt, however, is amazing (except it’s roughly 45 mins away from work) – within a block is a Tacos y Tequila restaurant as well as other cafes. Luckily Munich is fairly international regarding cuisines so I won’t starve for the next six months. Apparently, a number of Vietnamese people live in Munich (I go to Vietnamese restaurants so that I can read the menu and know what I am eating), so I’ve made friends with a local shop-owner who offered to have her son (who conveniently has a lot of time on his hands and happens to be 22 yrs old. Haha) take me around if I got bored or needed a guide.

Touring Munich: I expect there will be many more posts regarding Munich and its surrounding areas, but here’s a first glance. Stumbled across Marienplatz after going to a Catholic mass in German that lasted for 30 mins (short and sweet, and apparently anyone who is religiously affiliated has to pay a tax to the Church here); picture below of Marienplatz, the center of Munich:

Tomorrow, off to Jordan to see Grace!