Friday February 4th

On Friday we started the day at our favorite restaurant Garfunkles with a great American breakfast. After that we went to buy tickets for the musical Jersey Boys to see later that night. We spent the day seeing St. Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London. Then we saw a big castle that has been used by the Kings of England for ages. We had to hurry and get back on the tube to get to our hostel, where we grabbed our luggage, got back on the tube, and took it to our hotel where we would stay for our final two nights. Our hotel was nice and reasonably priced. We stayed in the Bloomsbury neighborhood. Our room was the "theater room" and was decorated with pictures of movie stars and such with a giant high ceiling and tall windows. Before seeing our show, we needed to find somewhere quick to eat... and like a miracle, Chipotle popped out of nowhere and we could satisfy yet another craving for American food. We headed to the theater and saw the production "Jersey Boys" which was great and a lot fun. Especially because we snuck in bags of peanut mm's and ate our weight in them while watching the show.

Thursday February 3rd

On Thursday, we bought a hop on/hop off bus tour pass for the London bus tours. This pass was good for 48 hours but don't mind us using it for 3 days because they never looked closely at the ticket. It included bus transportation to all the major sightseeing spots in London, as well as 3 walking tours and coupons for 2 traditional English meals. We took great advantage of the pass and started with the Changing of the Guard tour. We got to see the guards change at St. James' Palace first, before they headed off to Buckingham Palace. Then, we took a short cut so we should up in time to see them change at Buckingham. I thought it was weird that they still uphold all of the old traditions but still cool at the same time. The bus pass gave us discounted fish and chips at the Sherlock Holmes restaurant which was awesome. I definitely enjoyed that meal. After lunch we hopped on the bus again and saw the buildings of Parliament, Big Ben, The London Bridge, (even though the Tower Bridge was much cooler than the actual "London Bridge") and the Imperial War Museum. At first we were just going to stop in the museum to find a free bathroom but we ended up staying there for almost 2 hours. We really enjoyed seeing the "Children of War" and a holocaust exhibit. We would have stayed longer to finish looking through the extensive holocaust part but the museum announced it was closing for the night. We were so happy to conclude or day with dinner at TGI Fridays. My first of about 4 burgers during London because I missed them so much in Spain and wanted to be sick of them by the time I got back.

Wednesday February 2nd

Today was our first full day in London. After finding breakfast we headed to the free British Museum. Somehow I am always stuck going to museums when there is an annoying school trip there of elementary school kids but it wasn't too bad. The museum was pretty cool but always I get really distracted and bored quickly in most museums so we left. When found a great place to eat called Garfunkles which had American food that we were so excited about. After that we went back to our creepy hostel to plan our week. We had collected many brochures and ideas so it took a while and of course soon enough I was hungry again. But I had a food fail because we wanted to just eat something light. Maggie bought a banana at a random restaurant and I ended up dragging the both of us around town DETERMINED to find this yogurt parfait I had seen in a window of some restaurant. But of course I couldn't find it and ended up walking into this super awkward arab food place because I just wanted to get some rice and an orange. So I went up and asked for an orange and some rice and had some language struggles because the woman barely spoke any english. And apparantly saying I want an orange meant she needed to take 15 minutes to squeeze an orange to make orange juice for me while I waited in line by this creepy drunk guy. And since we had like a 20 minute walk back I wanted a lid for my cup. When I asked her for a lid this is how the conversation went. "Can I have a lid please?" "A lid?" "yes a lid" "Lid?" (really confused look on the girl's face) so I said "No it's fine." And she said "No it's fine." So I left without a lid. We were glad to get back to the hostel to rest up for our next busy day in London.

Tuesday February 1st (aka national strug day)

Today Maggie and I ate breakfast for the last time at the Carat hotel :( Of course the weird lady who didnt like us was there, and when we went to sit down, she asked if we could pick any table but that one because some sick man wants to sit there because he needs room to do his exercises. And then she acted out the exercises he had to do... he never showed up. So after breakfast we when to watch the glockenspiel where everyday at 11 and 12pm the characters in it move and act out historical events. Then we hauled all of our stuff to the underground for about 40 minutes to get to the airport to fly into London... if only it were that easy.
When we arrived at the airport we had about 1.5 hours until our luggage needed to be checked in. Since we couldnt find the ryan air booth we went and asked the information desk where it was. the woman said that ryan air didnt fly out of that airport and that the airport we needed to go to was in a different town that was over an hour away! Earlier we had been assured by multiple people that there was only one airport in munich and that we were headed to the right one. The lady said that our only chance that we..¨might make our flight¨ is if we took a taxi there. So Maggie and I ran to get in a taxi and got in the first car. The driver looked like santa claus and didnt speak any english. we showed him our boarding pass and pointed out the town. He started driving and then pulled over after 5 minutes and wanted to see that paper again. (he just made a gesture that looked like a piece of paper) he put the town in his GPS system and started driving again. After about an hour we saw the exit for the airport (it even had a plane on the sign) and were relieved that we might have time to catch our flight. The driver was driving too fast, and braked harshly but missed that exit!!! And then he conveniently drove past the next 3 exits that came up on the road while continuing to mumble probably German swear words randomly. So he kept driving for about another 20 minutes and turned around in another random town. Then Maggie had to practically tell him how to get into the airport parking lot by pointing. And we were the foreginers... By this point we were very stressed and frustrated with this Santa taxi driver. Especially when he just wrote a price he thought the ride should be. Atleast he had stopped the timer when he got lost but 200 euro was pretty ridiculous for a lost taxi driver and we didnt even have that much on us so we gave him what we had which was pretty close to the amount and jumped out of the car. Luckily we were able to make our flight and get to London.... But then the strug continued...
After that stress fest all we wanted to do was relax. When we arrived at our hostel we found another creepy hostel owner who was quick to tell us all about how everyone meets on the first floor at 10pm and will get free alcohol and transportation to clubs. Maggie and I pretended to be interested and were even more freaked out when the poster advertising one of the clubs looked like a girl on fire. I did not want to be that girl on fire...
We got up to our room only to find that the website had lied to us because there was only one twin bed.... with some creepy stains. We put our stuff down and started walking around town looking for hotels, but we eventually decided to stick it out and it wasn´t too bad. It was actually really nice and quiet at night but I was definitely ready to go after 3 nights of the creepy owner trying to dance with me and all the awkward moments that come with unisex bathrooms.

Monday, January 31st

Today we got up early to have more time for breakfast. Then we went to Marienplatz to meet with our tour group for the Hitler's 3rd Reich tour. We had a good tour guide who had a really high pitched laugh for a man, which always cracks me up. We walked all around town to see all the places Hitler had been at and learned a lot of history along the way. It was cold as fack again that day but I was happy to still be in Munich. We went to yet another sandwich and pastry shop for lunch (they're impossible to get tired of) and I splurged and got two donuts. We came back to the hotel for a short rest and then headed out to look at some churches that we could get into for free. We tried to go to one place for dinner but it turned out to be way too expensive so we had to awkwardly leave. We ended up just going to hafbrahaus again because it doesn't disappoint. Then we headed back to the hotel for an early night to get ready to travel again the next day.

Sunday, January 30th

Today Maggie and I went to breakfast at the Carat hotel. It was amazing and was worth the 13 euro. Especially because I may or may not have taken a bunch of their tea packets. But they were free. I had a huge breakfast which felt so great since we have barely any breakfast in Spain. There was a creepy lady who helped serve breakfast everyday who didn't like us. Maggie got in trouble for using a coffee cup to drink her juice. Then we walked to the Marienplatz which was the main meeting point for all the tours. We met our tour guide for the Dachau tour. We took the underground train to get on a bus to Dachau. It was extremely cold outside with completely white skies. Maggie and I were very cold the whole time, but at the same time it was a good environment to experience a concentration camp in as opposed to a nice summer day. It was very powerful and thought provoking to be on the actual sight. It was the first museum that I've been to and not been bored at all or fidgety. We got to see all the buildings, baraks, beds, monuments, chambers, and creamatoriums. As weird as it sounds, it was my favorite part of the trip.

When we got back to Marienplatz we went to a panini and pastry place for lunch then rested and went out to Hofbrauhas for a liter of beer! It was a great time and experience.

Friday January 28-Saturday 29

I'm skipping Thursday because nothing entertaining happened that day.

Friday I took my exam and did well on the random listening, reading, and speaking parts but I still have no idea how I did on the huge grammar part of the test. I don't know if I will know how I did because they didn't give us a way to check our grades, but I'm assuming I passed! Maggie and I came home and rested a little and then packed for our trip. We hauled ourselves to the train station and made our way to Malaga (a beach town 2 hours south of Granada) by bus. The bus got super hot and my ears kept popping afterward. We took a taxi to our hostel. It was pretty creepy and the owner really creeped us out, but that's expected of a hostel. The whole experience was pretty shady but luckily it was quiet. We got up at 3am to take the same taxi. Maggie forgot her glasses but luckily she remembered it while we were still in the taxi and we turned around to get them. She had to call the hostel to be let back it. Then back again to the airport. We flew safely into Munich and had to take an hour bus ride to our hotel. Then took another underground bus to get nearer to our hotel and then we finally made it. It was a rude awakening of snow and wind since we had been used to the Granada weather and had left our Illinois winter clothes in Illinois.

We found a nice pastry and sandwich shop and got something to eat, and then took a long nap in our great hotel. Then we got up and went to a nice Italian restaurant that turned out to be a slightly difficult experience due to the language barrier but we made it through. It was a candle lit restaurant with a nice atmosphere. Maggie and I joked about how it was our first romantic dinner of the trip. We were confused and though we were going to get charged extra for not making a reservation because the waiter wrote down a number on a piece of paper and set it on our table. But I just hid the paper and luckily it had meant nothing... I think. We had some good pasta and wine and left for an early night to get everything ready for the next day.