After that super fun flight I landed in Memmingen airport and got through security to face many many German signs. Awesome. I eventually found Johannes and we began to head to his hometown of Kaufbeauren in Bavaria. Thankfully they drive on the correct side of the road in Germany, but the autobahn is pretty scary to drive on as no speed limits exist! Johannes gave me a tour of the city centre which is like a town from a story book! The big town hall, with the fountain the middle of the cobbled street, all the shops painted different colors of pastel shades. It was such a pretty little town! After this, we went to his house where I got to meet the rest of his family. His mom speaks English, and so does his dad and brother, but not quite as well as Johannes. His littlest brother is around 10 years old and speaks only German, and even though I could not understand anything he said to me, he was still the most entertaining kid I’ve ever met! I loved hanging out with him. I was shown many books, and all of his toys in his room…in German…and he loved every minute of showing me all of his stuff, which made it even more fun for me to see him so excited about showing me all of his things.
the centre of the town of Kaufbeauren
Later that night we went to a marching band festival. In Bavaria at least, most towns have their own marching band, made of members of all ages. Johannes is in his town’s marching band and they had a two different contests the weekend I was there. The one I went to Friday night was more a concert band style concert. They even had judges that held up numbers after they were done playing them, ranking them on different categories from 1-10. Well…since this was in Germany, everyone spoke in German, so I just clapped when everyone else clapped and pretended I could understand what was being said before each band came on. I think I got the numbers 6-9 down though, those were said a lot! It was still really neat to see!
On Saturday we got up and ate breakfast, which usually consists of lots of different breads and cheese and meat if you want. I ate the different breads of course! They were so good! And…Johannes’ mom makes all of the jam that they use, so I definitely ate that up. It was amazing. She gave me her recipe…hopefully I can recreate it. My track record of cooking doesn’t provide a promising outcome though. We shall see! After breakfast I went with Johannes to his friends’ wedding. It was in an absolutely gorgeous Catholic church. They obviously didn’t need to spend any money on decorations, the church stood on it’s own. Johannes and his friend also wore traditional Bavarian outfits to the wedding. I was informed that this was not usual attire for weddings, but that they had just felt like wearing them and asked their friend getting married if it would be all right. Haha it was pretty entertaining. The entire wedding was also in German of course, but it was a catholic mass so I sort of kind of new a little bit where we were in the ceremony…but overall..I honestly had no clue haha. But none the less it was fun to witness!
After the wedding we went back to Johanne’s house where his mom made Schnitzel for dinner…it was sooo good! Then after we left to go see Neuschwanstein castle…the castle that Disney based their castle off of! It’s situated right near the start of the Alps, so it makes a for a pretty much breathtaking view, and tons of beautiful scenery around it. We went and looked around near the castle and also at some lakes nearby, one being “Swan Lake”. I still have no idea if the ballet was based off of that lake…I should google that. Anyways, it was a great day out as well, so it made for a perfect time to wander around some Germany forests and mountainous areas.
On Sunday we got up and had the glorious bread and jam breakfast again : ) I could live off of baguettes and jam…as you will also notice when I write my blog on my trip to Paris. Baguettes are the world’s greatest food. Hands down. After breakfast we went on a bike ride around Kaufbeauren up to this really old church...that was built around 1100. That is OLD. It was a gorgeous Sunday morning and the bike ride was through these fields that reminded me of Kansas. It was such a nice bike ride! Sunday afternoon I went to watch a Bavarian music festival parade that Johanne’s marching band was marching in. It was definitely a cultural experience! It was very German…of course…and definitely really interesting and fun to watch! I’ve never watched a German parade, just American ones…and this was pretty cool. Not only did they have these guys who played really long horn looking things, but they had girls doing flips down the street and girls playing volleyball…while walking forward. Impressive. The costumes were all very traditional as well. I also got to go in to a German beer tent. One German beer mug seriously must hold 8 beer cans…maybe more. I don’t even know.
After the music festival we drove to Munich where I got to explore the town for a while. Definitely a beautiful city with lots of great buildings and gorgeous churches…such as every city in Europe I’ve noticed, though! Also, the Munich soccer (football) team had just gotten back earlier in the day from winning a big game, and so all the fans were still around singing drunk German soccer songs…hahaha also very entertaining. That pretty much marks the end of my German adventure. The next day I just did some last minute souvenir shopping and was driven back to the airport by Johannes’ mom. It was a great trip and I’m really glad I could go visit! I definitely hope to make it back there some day : )
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