Beautiful Mountains

View from my bedroom window

My eyes are sore from looking up at the spectacular mountains every single morning. And every single morning at 5:30 I say to myself, why aren’t I sleeping. Waking up over 2 hours earlier is a bit of a challenge.

The very first thing I noticed as I smelled the beautiful fresh air, was that we were driving on the wrong side of the road. I know you’re probably thinking, yeah yeah, but really, it is kind of difficult to adjust and tell yourself you’re not going to crash. Anyway, as we headed out of the city towards the country, I couldn’t help but stare outside of the window and look deep into the green grass. Like really green grass. Picture the greenest grass you have ever seen, and now double or even triple that greenness. That’s how green the grass was. Except apparently it gets even greener in spring, and I was like what? How is that even possible. Then I looked to my left to see the most mind blowing, beautifully placed mountains, towering over the land. 

A few days later, it started to get really cold, it was about 9 degrees and it was meant to be autumn. I looked up at the mountains, and saw snow, heaps of it! We don’t normally see snow until late autumn. But here, autumn has only really started.

The first few days at school were tough. The early starts, the language, and the fact that there were no familiar faces. But everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Now, starting week three, it feels like I have known them for a lot longer than just two weeks.

On Wednesday the 11th all the classes had an excursion called Wandertag. Each class got to pick where they wanted to go, (before we arrived) and I was so excited when I found out we were going to a trampoline place called air hop. It was in Munich so it was only about an hour bus trip, but the bus didn’t leave until 9:30 so Simone and I could sleep in an extra hour. I think I was more excited about the sleep in than the actual trip. I found the day well worthwhile and so much fun.

Sorry for the late post, the website wasn't working for me.

My First Week in Germany

When we landed in Munich after the long and exhausting flight my host family surprised me with a holiday to Northern Italy. One of the first things I noticed while we were driving was the distinct style of all of the houses, very formal and pretty. Driving south past all of the vineyards, mountains and castles was reminiscent of something from a fairy tale because it was so magical.

 In Italy we stayed in a hotel in a small village for three nights, eating pizza and croissants. Virtually everyone there spoke German. We explored a town called Klausen where all the buildings seemed old and were painted different colours, with a river coursing through it and a castle keeping watch. The weather was foggy and it rained a little but that just made it more magnificent. In Klausen there's a shoe/clothes shop every 10 metres.

The next day we went for a walk into the Dolomites (a mountain range in Italy) and through beautiful pine forests where we heard a deer. Lunch had the best view and we ate a share platter of traditional sausages, ham, bread and cheese.  The fields are very green even though their summer has not long ended and the cows all have bells around their necks which can be very loud when you walk past. In the forest here it's quite common to see hunters' lookouts. 

 When we got back to Nuβdorf we visited a group of scarecrows with pumpkin heads just behind Vinzenz’s house. On the first day back, Vinzenz had marching band practice, so I was able to play the big gong gong drum (don't know its real name). School is decent and everyone is friendly but at times it’s difficult to understand what the teacher is saying because they speak fast. I look forward to knowing what the heck is going on. In Germany it’s the middle of autumn but it feels almost like the middle of winter with days of only 10°C. On the whole I felt under-prepared. My eyes felt under-prepared for the magical scenery, my ears for the German/Bavarian language and my mouth for the cheese.