Germany, here I come!

By andreablythe On July 1, 2010 · 4 Comments

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I just finished buying my tickets to go to Germany in September. So, yeah, it’s official. ^_^

It’s a work gig (the only reason I get to do any traveling, really), so I’ll be attending a conference for three days. But after that I have a whole week to pretty much do what I want. I thought at first I might head over to Amsterdam, but I think now I’m just going to stay in Germany. I’m not sure what I really want to do, as I don’t really know that much about Germany. I think of beer, sausages, death metal, and Berlin, which seems a very limited perspective.

I like lots of different things, but I’m traveling solo, and I tend to get a wee shy when I’m on my own. I like the idea of going to bars or clubs (I’m very tempted to check out a death metal club), but they kind of freak me out when I’m alone. Museums, parks, small towns with history are excellent suggestions.

Anyone have any suggestions of places to see and things to do? I’ll be checking around Matador, too, of course, but just thought I’d ask.

In the meantime, I have some language assistance programs, so that I will be able to pick up a few German words between now and then. Right now all I know is: “Ich habe hunger” which means “I’m hungry” and is meant to be said while pounding your fists on the table (according to my brother who took German in high school).

4 responses to Germany, here I come!

andreablythe said on September 22, 2010

Hi, one and all, I just realized that I had comments on my blog. I thought I had my email activated to let me know when comments occurred, otherwise I would have responded sooner.

Thank you for all of your helpful comments. My trip in Germany is going well, and I’m thoroughly enjoying my trip despite some small hiccups here and there.
Sarah said on July 7, 2010

I lived in Germany for a while and it is pret-tay awesome. Vocabulary wise: Just remember that in German, that uppercase B-looking letter stands for a double “s”, so for example Sheiße is pronounced sheisse, and Straße is “strasse”. Speaking of these two words, when I lived in a tiny bucolic town I lived near a street where I bunch of cows live and it smelled like dung so we called in “Sheisse Strasse” . . . in fact, I don’t even know what the real name is. Sheisse is a multi-purpose word, just like its English equivalent . . .

If you go to a restaurant in a Bavarian town, expect to order not a brand of beer, but the type of beer. For example, a restaurant might only serve Augustiner beer, but within the brand, you can usually get four or five types (weiss, helles, dunkel, basically wheat, light, dark . . . also Radler is fun to drink and refreshing in summer; it is a combination of helles is mixed with lemonade).

Speaking of rock clubs . . . when I was in Berlin my friends and I met an Argentinian guy who lived there who we hung out with for a few days. We went to Lido, which plays mainly rock music (we heard System of a Down multiple times, taking me back to 2002) and there was plenty of moshing.

We also went to the Tacheles bar that (if I remember correctly) is in an old bombed-out shopping center in East Berlin. I would recommend stopping by.

Have fun; it’s an awesome country and I miss it !!
Hari Dasgupta said on July 3, 2010

Pl see my blog http://wanderer-hari.blogspot.com/. We were there recently. In Munich go to Dachau, Englishgarten. You can visit the castle also.Buy a German railpass on the net. It will be cheap. The Blackforest, Thuringia, Dresden, Leipzig apart from Berlin and Hamburg will be good. In Berlin saty at Circus Hostel. Wud suggest that u see Holland also for 2 days since u’ll be so near. Would be happy to address more queries.
Jeanette Rose said on July 2, 2010

I’ve been to Germany a bunch of times… lots to do!

If you have a chance (and want a day to relax and enjoy some beautiful scenery), I definitely recommend taking a train to Heidelberg! It’s absolutely gorgeous (11th century castle for starters), and there’s a lot to do since it’s a college town. A small town with history for you.

And if you can motivate yourself… Berlin is awesome for clubs. There’s an “alternative” pub crawl that’s a lot of fun, a great way to meet people and go to some really weird bars and clubs (super reasonably priced… don’t remember the name so you’ll have to look it up sorry). A lot of people on these things are alone- I wouldn’t feel too intimidated.

Also if you’re in Munich and you like technology, the world’s largest science and technology museum is there (Deutsches museum).

Hope this helped!