Category Archives: Travel

Guess who is going on a trip?

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Yup, that’s right! I am. On my birthday my mom mentioned to me that she would like to go on a trip with me after graduation, before I enter the working world. The cities from my to-travel list from this post immediately came to mind.

Unfortunately my mom refused to spend a day at Disneyland were we to go to Paris, so Paris was off the list. I absolutely want to visit Paris, but when I do, I want to go to Disneyland. I have never been to Disney-anything (can you believe it?), and I know that once I have been to Paris, it is a lot less likely that I will go there again any time soon just to go to Disneyland. However, this has made me want to go to Paris all the more. I want to go next year, provided that I find a decently-paying job.

So which city did we finally settle on you ask? A beautiful one. A city that is roughly 230 miles from Munich. Outside Germany.  To the east. Got it?

Prague Photo by Trent Strohm.

Prague.

I absolutely cannot wait for this trip. We will be going for five days in the first week of September, just a few days after I move back to Munich. I already did all the planning last week & booked a nice 4* hotel and the train & bus to get to Prague from Munich for us. That’s right, this girl will be staying at a 4* hotel! Definitely an upgrade from the hostels I usually stay in when I travel by myself.

I have already bought the Lonely Planet guide for Prague and will be reading up on Prague and its sights in the next few weeks to make sure I won’t be missing out on anything. I cannot wait to visit this gorgeous city and take pictures of it.

And it is so amazing that I will get to go on a vacation this year after all, something I had already given up on. My last one was to New York City last year in March (and that was technically an excursion with the English Department). It has been way too long since the last time I left the country.

Are you going on vacation this year? Or did you already? Where to?

Moving

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Moving boxes

This post is inspired by Stefanie’s recent post which made me think of all of the moves I have done since starting college. I have a move coming up in just a little over two months, and I just know that time will be flying by and the day (sometime in late August) will be here before I know it.

Not all moves required moving all of my possessions (and I own very little furniture as it is, as I have always lived in furnished apartments), so saying that I have moved seven times in the past 7.5 years makes it sound worse than it is, though whenever I send an email to my friends saying that my address has changed once again, I feel like this may just be the time they grow tired of them. I have lived in seven different houses/apartments since the fall of 2002: one in Munich, three in Heidelberg, one in the US, and two in Spain.

When I moved to Oklahoma, my parents moved most of my stuff to Munich for me. What an ordeal that was for them! I started packing way too late, and ended up having to leave some of the packing and pretty much all of the cleaning to them. Definitely a rookie mistake I learned from. When I moved to Spain, I was able to leave a lot of stuff in the basement of my old house in Heidelberg, though I had to move everything from the old house to the new one in 2008 which my brother and a friend helped me with.

All the moves abroad involved taking very few of my possessions due to the baggage limitations on airlines. When I moved to the States, I had thought that being limited to two suitcases was tough, and that was in the times when you were still allowed two suitcases of 70 pounds each on transatlantic flights. Coming back to Germany I had those two suitcases, a carry-on bag, a purse, a laptop bag, and a bag with a pillow in it. And no, no one said anything about it. I also had to ship a few packages back to Germany containing my books and a few clothes.

After an awful run around Gatwick Airport at 7am after two equally awful flights, I decided I would never buy another carry-on bag without wheels (another rookie mistake!). My route was OKC – DFW – LGW – MUC (two layovers, never again if I can avoid it). The first flight was three hours delayed, making me miss my next flight. That got me a very unlucky middle middle seat instead of a window seat on the previous flight – like OO OOXOO OO – where the X would be me, for a 9 hour flight, I know, don’t be jealous! And that flight two hours after the one I was originally booked on, in turn, left me with 30 minutes to make my flight to MUC instead of the 2.5 hours I was supposed to have. I barely made the flight, but I made it. The alternative was a six-hour wait, which? I don’t think so. My parents were told by BA that there was no way I was going to make it, as the flight from DFW was delayed and I was still waiting to get off the plane 10 minutes after boarding had started for the flight to MUC, so they decided to go to the grocery store. Luckily my best friend managed to get to the airport just in time to pick me up, and my mom baked a strawberry cake for me in the meantime, so something good did come of it. Needless to say, my checked-in baggage did not make it on that flight, but you know what? That was a good thing. That way I got it delivered to my house on the next flight instead of having to deal with it myself. I have since learned to appreciate temporarily lost baggage, because why carry it yourself, if you can have someone else carry it for you to your very doorstep (I’ll even accept a delay of a few hours for that). Worst travel experience ever, but it does make for a good story.

Little did I know how spoiled I was with those two suitcases of 70 pounds each until I moved to Spain. Turns out it is possible to move abroad for a year with one suitcase weighing a maximum of 50 pounds. I limited myself to the very basics and abused the coat rule shamelessly, packing all of my jackets in a bag. When the airline employee said I had three carry-on items instead of two (carry-on bag and laptop), I said all the third bag contained was my jacket (which it did, well, three of them, but she didn’t know that), and I could put it on if she wanted me to. Luckily she said that was not necessary, because I would have hated having to wear a pink spring coat, a black winter coat and a green summer jacket (or was it the blue rain jacket?) all at once. In August.

My moves from and to Munich were not quite as exciting, and I certainly hope the one coming up in just a little over two months will happen without any major issues. I have already canceled my landline and my gym membership here, and it is odd for me to think about leaving this city that has been my home (off and on) for so many years. Just a few months later I am hoping to move again. It is no secret that my parents and I get along better if I don’t live with them, so I am hoping that I won’t have to live in their house for very long and that I will be able to find a job within a few months that will allow me to move out (and maybe away from Munich).

Do you have any fun moving stories to share? Any nightmare experiences? I’d love to hear them.

P.S. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in my upcoming vlog, drop me a comment on Wednesday’s post.

Let's go on a trip – U.S. edition

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A few months ago I wrote about which European cities I would love to travel to, and as I am currently having a phase of longing to travel (or move) to the States, this is the U.S. edition. I actually thought of doing this back in February, as my blogging ideas list suggests, probably during my last ‘I want to go back to the States’ phase, but then forgot about it over exams, until now.

As you may know, I lived in the States for a year, and while I did go on a few trips, there are so many more places that I have yet to see.

I did spend a week in San Francisco, a place I loved, as well as three weeks on the east coast (Boston, New York City, Philadelphia & Washington, D.C.), which I enjoyed as well. Though I’d pick the west coast or the South to live (better weather and friendlier people).

I also spent a few days in Dallas, where I spent two weekends at a friend’s house (and subsequently didn’t see anything of Dallas), and a week in Kansas City.

And a year ago, I finally got the chance to go back to the States and spent another week in NYC. While I loved that trip, I had been there before, and my list has yet to get any shorter.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas
Photo by Roadsidepictures.

Who wouldn’t want to go to Las Vegas? I’m not big on gambling but I’d love to see the city, all the lights, and buildings, and the atmosphere.

Colorado

Colorado
Photo by stevewhis.

I am not an outdoors type of person, and I’ve lived in the city all my life, but I think for Colorado I’d make an exception. Colorado and the …

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon
Photo by James Marvin Phelps.

The Grand Canyon looks absolutely breathtaking in pictures, I cannot imagine how amazing it would be to see it in person, with my own eyes.

San Diego

San Diego
Photo by slack12.

San Francisco

San Francisco
Photo by SF Brit.

I’ve been to San Francisco before but I’d love to go again, as I truly enjoyed my last trip there. I would also like to visit the surrounding area and maybe visit Yosemite on one day.

Dallas

Dallas
Photo by ragingwire.

While I didn’t see much of Dallas on my two visits there, the main reason for my wanting to go there is that essentially all the friends I made at OU now live there, and I would love to see them again. It’s five years in June that I left. I would also like to drive up to Norman to visit my old stomping grounds there and to see what has changed around the city and university.

New Orleans

New Orleans
Photo by ohad*.

I wish I had visited New Orleans when I lived in the States (pre-Katrina), but I didn’t. Back then, who would have thought that the city would be devastated by hurricane Katrina only three short months later? But I reckon that by the time I can afford a trip to NOLA, there will be little to remind a visitor of the damages caused by the flooding.

Florida

Florida
Photo by Express Monorail.

Not only do I want to visit Florida for the beaches and alligators Everglades, I also want to go to Disney World. I have never been to Disney World or Disneyland (in California or Paris, heck I’m not picky, though I’d prefer Mickey Mouse and Cinderella to speak English and not French), and even though I am 26 years old now, I’d still love to go and be a kid for one day.

Georgia

Georgia
Photo by ceejayoz.

I would really love doing a road trip, from Florida up to Georgia, to …

South Carolina

South Carolina
Photo by Kyle Kesselring.

… and from South Carolina to …

North Carolina

North Carolina
Photo by Martin LaBar.

I do not have any specific places or cities in mind, I’d just really like to see the southeastern US. And a road trip would be perfect for that. Not to mention fun.

Hawaii

Hawaii
Photo by David Winnie.

Do I really need to explain why I want to visit Hawaii? Hello, gorgeous beaches, landscape, weather. What’s not to like?

I know, that’s several weeks of vacation right there. Not to mention how much it would cost to see all these places. Maybe I should start playing the lottery.

But just looking at all these amazing places that you can find all in one country (granted, a big one) reminds me of one reason I love the US. How anyone could not be interested in traveling there (*cough*my parents*cough*) is beyond me.

How about you, which places in the US do you want to travel to? And which places you have traveled to did you enjoy most?

Let's go on a trip!

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Even though I am European and have lived in Europe my whole life, I am pretty sure that many non-Europeans have seen more of the cities to see in Europe than I have. I have done my fair share of traveling (though nowhere near as much as I would like), but somehow I never managed to go to those cities that would be on a must-see list for anyone visiting Europe. I don’t really have a good excuse for it either, except I am notoriously bad at saving up for anything, or really, with money in general.

I do hope that I will have the opportunity to do one or two of the trips on my list this year, and visit the others in the coming years. After all, all it takes is a few hundred bucks (if only those were easy to obtain) and an extended weekend. Flights within Europe are so cheap nowadays, and some of the cities are distances that would even be manageable by train.

While I have been to London, Dublin (though that was nearly ten years ago, and I definitely want to revisit, what with how little I remember except that I loved it), the Tuscany, a couple of towns in France, and many cities in Spain, I have yet to visit …

Paris

Paris, France Photo by Al Ianni.

Prague

Prague, Czech Republic Photo by szeke.

Stockholm

Stockholm, Sweden Photo by Hector Melo A..

Rome

Rome, Italy Photo by Giampaolo Macoriq.

Vienna

Vienna, Austria Photo by MorBCN.

Aren’t these stunning photos of beautiful places? If you gave me the option to travel to one of these cities tomorrow, all expenses paid, I wouldn’t hesitate to go. And soak up the impressions of foreign places. And take beautiful photos of my own.

I cannot wait for my next trip. I am missing traveling so much. I hope it will be soon.

If you had the opportunity to go on a trip somewhere, anywhere you want, tomorrow, which place would you pick?