I've got the Münchies!
My name is Sherise Alexis and this is my trave-umble-log for my trip to Munich.
I am an intn'l business/ad & pr major at RIT
I really like to travel
I've been to Brazil, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and the UK so far
I speak Portuguese
I do not speak German (...yet)
One thing I remember about my time in Munich was this lady.
She was middle aged and maybe 40. I didn’t know her and she didn’t know me. But everyday like clockwork I would see her get on the U-Bahn at Großhadern and get off at Goetheplatz.
I probably began to recognize her because she wore a dirndl. Unlike the rest of Germany, people in Bavaria seem to have no problem wearing their dirndl and lederhosen from time to time, so that isn’t remarkable in itself. But I began to notice that she wore one every day as she liked to sit in the first car every morning like me. I usually caught the U6 a few minutes after 9:30 from Klinikum Großhadern, so I could get to LMU in time for class at 10:00.
She was by herself, and usually sat by the wall, patiently waiting there as calm and still as a portrait.
And really don’t know why she was of such interest to me or why I’m even remembering he now. We never spoke or anything.
I guess I’m just a curious about her story.
Social-Media-Germany (by SocialKonnekt)
Social media habits seemed a bit different in Germany. I’m not sure if it was a result of the demographic of the Germans I knew (fellow students), but it seemed to be more of a networking tool. So, much like we have Linkedin stateside, they make heavy use of Xing.
Another alternative site is StudiVZ which was made as a substitute for Facebook during the time that Facebook was exclusively certain universities. But nowadays I see most of my German friends on Facebook anyways. However, it is interesting the way they use it. None of this over-sharing! Relatively less pictures, limited status updates, privacy settings are very much utilized, and they usually have aliases to make them harder to find, also I found quite a few use profile pictures that are not actually of them but of some nature scene or picture they like. Also, most were less active than their American Facebooking counterparts.
Oh and I missed Yelping, but while there is a German counterpart to the review site, I found a lotttt more reviews on Qype.
My company included a lot of tech-savvy students and professors so Google+ was met with a lot of curiosity as it was being launched while we were there, so I have a few Germans on there as well. But like my other friends, they were not too active after the novelty wore off.
Twitter, I did not hear much of, actually. I’m sure there was a scene, but it certainly rarely came up in conversation while I was there.
Sunday Morning (by Café Santai)
Hey guys! I’ve been back for quite some time, and I got lazy on posting on this, but now I have to write a reflection essay for my school and so I just wanted to note things that I remember from time to time.
One of these things is the fact that everything is closed on Sundays.
When we got to Munich, we quickly discovered much to our horror that everything closes on Sundays. Okay, well not EVERYTHING, later on we found that there were a few exceptions: some restaurants, bakeries (with reduced hours) and a sprinkling of places in Hauptbanhof—the main train station.
It’s a nice time to reflect, sight-see, and have picnics but that wears out a bit. And coming from the land of 24/7 Walmart it was one of the biggest bits of culture shock. Especially, when you’re out of food, low on cash, and faced with a train/bus running on reduced hours. (And of course, McDonalds doesn’t have the Dollar Menu here!)
It was a pain in the a…neck.
This is another reason why I can’t live alone.
Geez, you just can’t sit in the middle of a grassy area at midnight with a friend and drink wine without getting hassled, can you?
“Your English is good! Do you have EC-STA-CYYY?”
Anyways, my birthday was fantabulous. First we went to Marienplatz and got doners. Then we went to the Augustiner am Platzl. Then from there we went to Olympiapark and there were carnival rides and fireworks and live music, then we went to Marienplatz to go hang out in a dive bar but everything was closed. So, my Croatian friend and I decided to chill in some random grassy area. It was pretty chill and it was mostly students hanging out. But that’s when those tourists showed up.
LMU (by Richard Cawood)
Wo bist du, Sherise?
Where are all my wonderful posts about Germany?
Well….this is a study abroad, so I actually had to study at some point. And that rather blunt and dull “point” consisted of the whole of July.
In any case, I’m done with the classes block, and on the internship block, so I have a bit more time. yay! :)
Another day on Munich public transpo
(Yes, I haven’t posted in forever, I’ll catch up eventually. This is from July 31.)
I was in a train the other day chatting with Marko on our way to the central station (meeting our group to head to the Alps), and then this dude comes up to us and is like “Excuse me, but you have FUCKING AWESOME HAIR!”
I said “thank you”, then he left.
Guess he likes fluffy curly hair.
Alps were sehr schön, in case you were wondering.
Get sympathy from the bouncer early. Just in case.
Make sure your phone actually works if you expect people to contact you.
That hilarious dancing girl—you know the one who seems to be on 5 different drugs—keep her far away from drinks, tables, yourself…
When you can’t find your friends at a party make new ones immediately.
Entschulpe-me (Entschuldigung + Excuse Me + Desculpe) is not a word.
It’s always BYOD with a super bag and sympathetic bouncer.
Don’t dance with douchebags.
Don’t follow said douchebag anywhere.
When the taxi home costs more than your shoes, make sure to memorize the public transit system.
When the morning narcolepsy sets in don’t be surprised if some stranger decides they want to cuddle on the u-bahn.
Understanding the Night Bus lines puts you ahead of most locals.
There’s no subtle way to get rid of a determined ugly guy.
Lake Ammersee
Definitely worth a day trip from Munich.
About 50 minutes using the S-Bahn train S8 until the last stop. We left about 10 in the evening and my friends rolled right into class all sunburned the next day.
S-Bahn is evil though. Coming back, a couple of us exited wrong, and then when I tried to run through the the otherside I was trapped inside the train as it left, while one of the Großhaderners just waved.
Hope it will be fun. Please don’t rain.
You know how I know?
A lot of the escalators in the U-Bahn (subways) in Munich go both ways. The way you make it go is to step on the platform at the bottom/top.
Also, it was late evening at the Großhadern stop. That’s a pretty suburby area, so most people are only going really be exiting the subway to get home at that point.
So, they’re a bunch of us approaching the escalator and this girl is just standing there at the top of the escalator watching it go down. None of us can trigger it to go the other way with her just standing there. And after we all fight our way up the stairs. She steps off and walks away. She wasn’t even entering the subway!
Sounds lulzy.
Just sayin.
I’m back from Grocery Shopping. It was exhausting.
I went to Aldi. I had to use my reusable shopping bags.
