Hungover in Hofbrau

Munich Madness

Today sadly enough is our last day in beautiful Munich. We decided that  since our vacation has been so incredibly stressful, we should go get a massage. We heard that an old german bathouse called the Volksbad was amazing for saunas, swimming, and massages. So you didn’t have to tell these two weary nomads twice we were there!  We woke up early, hailed a taxi to the PLATZ DE MASSAGE!! It’s very strange but in Munich there are only one service personale at each place. Ie a manicure shope has one lady doing nails! Psh nutz right. The Asians have that down pact. At any rate, we took turns with the crazy german massage lady. While carly was getting her “rub down” I took a stroll out for coffee and sightseeing. Nothing all too interesting but pretty none the less. That’s when I actually ran into the nail shop with the one nail tech- we clearly didn’t get our nails done yet. We both still have talons ;)

After carly was done it was my turn for massage madness! The lady was GREAT but she kept talking to me! I am thinking- perhaps I can pretend I don’t understand her? Perhaps I’ll fake sleep? Perhaps I’ll just ask her to shut up bitten? None of the above worked. She talked to me the entire time. She told me how she is a “Dot-Bot”. Apparently there is a famous massage woman. “Dr. Dot” and she’s one of her minions so to speak. She then proceded, between my shoulder rub and my back rub that she was going to give a massage for Lady Gaga while on tour because she has “dot bots”. I was going to give her a dot after I hit her to be quite, but I relaxed and enjoyed what I could in silence lol

After, I was hungery so we stopped for no other than SUBWAY! Yum-o it’s good even in Germany. Actually anything is better than a sausage!! Lol

Back to the house we went to get ready for our exciting Hofbrau Bier Garden Extravangza. It kinda took us two attempts to actually get there though. We left the house about 6pm. Took our free tram out to the Platz, but got “easily distracted” .

Round two we were much more successful! We arrive at the extremely packed Hofbrau Bier Garden to do circles around the resturant to try to find a seat, a cm, an inch to squeeze ourselves into to have some beer to warm our frozen bodies! No luck. Another round, no luck, another round-ah SCORE Carly grabs us a seat next to a couple, two Japaneese men and a germ- aka a German lol

We make nice- attempt to order a beer with no success getting the waiter. Our newest Japanesse friend literally FLAGGED him down in order for him to come to our table. We order our biers, LITERS, our sausages, PLATTERS, and SPATZEL (german mac and cheese) and continue our awe of the German culture and lifestyle.

Our liter beers come and before we know it we are lost in conversation with our new friends. Perhaps it was the gigantic beers but they were FUN and were teaching us about the german songs and rituals. We learned how to say Cheers in German. Bropbst-followed by a CLING when we all tap our mugs!

We had a slight bit of room left at our table and a cute little family joined in OUR FUN! There was a young girl with them, and I’m thinking- seriously why couldn’t the HOT German guy come sit with us.. really? We get the family! GREAT!! Lol

Well little did I know this family was GREAT!

I started conversation after I realized that this small young girl had a mug with what seemed to be filled with BIER!!

Being the prudent PICU nurse that I am this seemed extrememly weird to me even in Germany lol

We all got involved in a BROPBST and I promptly gave the little girl a cheers! *remind you I’m  almost a liter down at this point. Turns out they give the kids applejuice with sparkling water in it an d it looks exactly like BIER!! GO FIGURE!

Turns out this little girl, Mary, was amazing. We became best little friends. She was teaching me German and I was teaching her English. She was studying in school and was getting very good!

The time had come, we had finished our first liters and we go to order another bier. I asked for a ½ liter and he told me NO. hahaha I look at Carly with surprise and fright and go, “no?” and she goes “we’ll have two mas please”

Nope that’s not just two more, that’s two liters please! OYE DOWN WE GO

Ok here comes the best part, wait for it….. wait for it…. We finish our 2^nd liters and the German boy next to use orders us ½ liters (thank god)

Im not quite sure how much more I could take!

This weird German man came to talk to me from the other table. He was very distraught at two things. 1-I hadnt’ finished my sausages haha and 2- That I didn’t speak German, or French, or anything else really other than English! Lol

Finally he rejoined his mildly creepy german counteparts and I continued my English lesion via stoonad drunkness with Mary and her family.

Carly was getting a little woozy so we quickly headed home.

Never have we ever craved American delivery every before! We called 100 to the frount desk at our amazing hotel and they were kind enoguht to give us the number for the ONLY delivery place in Munich. In our drunken diasterous state we were able to order German Pizza.

It finally arrived at about 230 am. Carly was passed out, I nibbled it and fell asleep.

We awoke early to the smell of pizza on the bed and our hungover selves scrambling to get packed and ready for our next departure.

Again, we were bright enough to drink heavily the night before we had to get up at 6am in the morning and have an 8 hour day of travel! JOY

<---the German Massage Envy

<---Me and Mary

Let the traveling begin- AGAIN!!!

off to the land of our people again via taxi bus, plain but no TRAIN!!

CIAO

Spicy in Salzberg

Today, being that me and Carly vowed to NEVER get on another european train we GOT ON ANOTHER EUROPEAN TRAIN!! lol
we had herd alot about Salzberg, Austria- so off we go again. Apparently we were worried that if we did in fact get get enough sleep in one night we might not actually be such vacation zombies and look and feel like HELL! lol
So "all aboard". We take the 2 hour trip to Salzberg- secretely ride in 1st class, under small signs saying "R reservido" we both held our breath as the conductor comes up and asks for our tickets. They were truly the perfect seats. Wicked leg room, tons of space- it was GREAT. Somehow the man ignored our 2nd class status and let us ride on our way!! We have been traveling with someone other than just Carly and I. We have the travel Gods with us! seriously our trip has been truly guided by awesome forces!
Everything always just seems to work out. We miraculously make our 5min window to catch our plane, meet the most fabulous people, it's truly amazing!!
We arrive in Salzberg to the train station and quickly learn Austrians are UGLY! woah Arnold your people are not attractive. They all look like rough eastern Europeans or UFC fighters- no bene for sure!
We take the 20min walk to the "city center" towards sights
On our way we pass a tiny little Austrian market. Super cute. We order these two little hand held foods that were well, along the same lines as the people in Austria. NO BENE! Barf it was this weird orange meat and cold- we went with it and tried it but NEVER AGAIN!!
We also notice that Salzberg has a smell. it's SPICY!! they have these fall spices in everything-perhaps that was the orange meet?

We walked around the city like living zombies- dead tired we attempt to find food. We run into Austrian mexican food and it's AMAZING. not quite sure if its our exhaustion or the actual food but we devour it, and head back to find the train. We didnt have a time set for our return so we head to the train station and of course our train was pulling up- just like we had ordered it. On time ready for our departure.

We had the luck of getting in the cabin with the PINK ladies of Germany!! OYE shoot us now! they gabbered from point A to point B in this high pitched German Blabber!!! it was like being held hostage in a chicken coup for 2 hours!!!

luckily they leave us one stop prior to our stop in Munich and we sat and enjoyed the peace!
back home for the night!
we were soo dead exhausted that we order Eurostar Room service. It came with beirs and it was AMAZING! truly it was the best burger and club me and carly had eaten in a while. Seriously I mean how many sausages can these Germans put in their mouth!! aweful!! I mean One or two is enough!!!

ciao

2 girls and a Rod!

<----Carly and a Munchen tree

<--Tina, a muchen building and ME!

<----- Bier

<----winter ale

<-----Carlita!!!

<------Me and a Bike

<----two girls and a Rod!!!

<----yup you can take the girl out of Ft laud, but not the starbucks out of the girl!!

<----Two girls and a ROD part two- cute no?

Today we woke up late-must have been the bier and headed out to Mike's Bike Tour of Munich. We stopped on the way at the Northface store. And of course getting there was no easy task. Apparently a Tor is different than a Straube even though they have the same damn name!! duh I know seems simple but in Germany when you see the street name you're looking for in 30degree weather in the daytime when your clearly dressed for the warmest of Miami days anything similar looks good!
We both bought beautiful north face jackets, to the Bavarian tune of 180Euros! OUCH I woudn't have made it through this leg of the trip without it! it was worth it-plus our jackets were CUTE!

On our way we stopped for some grub-duh with four hours of biking coming up we needed to nosh! Carly grabbed an apple that would make Snow White jealous! it was FANTASTIC!! seriously i'm not quite sure what they put in their veggies but we need to bring it back to America. Perhaps its what they DONT put in their fruits and veggies that's more of the issue hahaha needless to say YUM-O

We meet up under the Marinplatz at noon. Its delightful lil platz, it plays a little play at 12, 3, and 6 every day. We learned all about it before the start of our tour! ROD- yes thats where the 2 girls and a ROD comes into play. ROD was our tour guide!! he was fabulous. From Australia he was hilarious and made the 4hour bike ride well worth it!

We met a bunch of other people on the tour and many examples of our newest theory. The hot guy and bustado girl couple theory. It's RIDICULOUS!! we've seen 9848734 exhibits of this theory in Germany alone- not even talking about the states! The hilarious part is the men always migrate towards US- go figure ;) sigh oh well, off into the frozen north we ride!

ciao

a veiter-zein

From Piazza to Platz

AFter our dreadfully sleepy transport day we arrived at about 4pm to Munich. We had gotten up at 4am after hiking to heaven and back the day before we needless to say we were beat and we look it!
We had to take a 3 hour train from Cinque Terre to Milan, had 30mintues to get the 1hr shuttle from the Milan train station to the Milan Airport to take a plane from Milan to Zurich and then another plane from Zurich to Munich!! OYE! Im tired just re-typing it!
ps warning, the internation american flight weight rules do NOT apply to inter-Europe flights! We got brutally beat up financially at the Milan airport just in order to get our stuff there. I guess that was better then a blog titled "naked in munich" right???

Anyways, we made it to Munich and it's beautiful! we got into our Benz taxi that took us to our amazing, slightly American-ized hotel! seriously when me and carly realized that they HAD AN ELEVATOR we could have honestly cried!!! our previous hotels were great, beatuiful, quaint, and simply lovely. However, there is something great to be said about a new hotel with big fluffy beds with elevators to lug our GIGANTIC massive American bags into! it was awesome! hotel eurostar grand central munich we LOVE you!

It was late in the day, I was dead and needed to work on some homework so carly ventured out to the bar the hotel staff reccomeneded as authentic munich drinks and eats. She  went to the Augistiner- only about 50meters from the hotel (moms stop freaking out it was a sneeze away from our hotel).
She discovers quickly that German people arent exactly the warm and friendly type like our fellow Italians, but she soon meets THE Connecticut couple! They make nice, buy her her drinks and share many Munich tips. She learned about the Saver pass for the train, the bike lane, crosswalks and much much more, Thanks CN :)
She came back, we got dressed and headed out for a drink and sights!

We realized there is this overground tram right outside our hotel. We arent quite sure how to pay for it, so we simply ride for free!! Germany is GREAT!!!

At the bar, the other Augistiner we notice a very strange thing.  In Germany they sit you next to other couples, family, groups, etc if there is room at the end of their table. It's like dinner crashing!! STRANGE
None the less we add ourselves to this table with an older german couple. We stumble through ordering our light and dark beers and various sausages and pretzles! the mustard is to DIE for!
We attempt to speak with our "Table-mates" but with no luck!

Then since were were finished our beer, we tried to ask our dining companions how to order another beer. We try in english no luck, we try in Italian-no luck, being from Miami we instinctively try "mas beer" and all they do is laugh. Me and Carly cont to go "mas bier" "Mas bier"
little did our 1/2 drunk asses know till later that that means a LITER of beer!!!
No wonder they were laughing at us!!! YIKES

We finish most of our sausages and sauerkraut, but all of our beers, only to be laughed at by the old german lady with Pitosis (drooping eye lids) and went off on our way!

Another  Sucessful German-European travel night complete. We ate, drank, laughed, and absorbed this culture so different yet so great that will all too soon be a distant memory!!

Auf Wiedersehen (I suprised Carly that I knew how to say goodbye in German- Im cultured what can I say) hahaha

Cinque Terre- it sounded like a great idea at the time

ok, it was the morning of our 2nd day in beautiful Cinque Terre. We awoke to the smell of cheap white wine, and ocean salt. I fumble out of bed, get slightly ready (aka put on sneakers and spandex) and head out to check the weather situation. The woman at the foccaria the night before told us that they expected rain and our hike would probably not occur as planned. I will not lie, my tired, exhausted, hungover body would't have been all that upset if I wasn't able to climb to the top of the earth and back down. However, Carly wanted to go so I plugged along- Yes I know I could quite possibly receive the Best Friend of the year award, I have my speech ready ;)
Back to the story- I got up, dressed, and headed out to the train station for info. The woman nicely sold my tickets, said that part of it was closed due to "mudd slides" (red flag) but I bought two tickets, picked up due cappichinos and a breakfast foccia and headed home to pick up Carlita and head back out, or UP should I say.
Let me also preface this story with the fact that over wine yesterday, we met crazy lady number 1 and divorcee number 2. She was a nut job. She graciously warned us that the hike was no joke, but we disregarded her overly tanned, wrinkled, aging 60yr old self and signed up!

Off we go into the hills. Cinque Terre is a connection of 5 villages on the coast of northern Italy. The villages are connected by thousands and thosands of unpaved steps going up and down into the Italian mountains. This trip was no joke! IT was TOUGH! We were winded! The elderly women with their nordic track sticks were passing us up as we huffed and puffed on the side lines of these wobbley, steap, dangerous, HIGH, scary steps.

It was PATHETIC!!! We got our asses kicked but the only thing that made it worth it was the view at the top!! GORGEOUS!! It was worth the huffing and puffing and sweating and nearly slipping off the edge time after time!

After the first village when we felt like we were in the Italian jungle, we met Morgan and Kayla from Colorado and boy did they spice up our trip hahaa they were two girls in their early 20’s that just graduated from school. They were a trip. They were in the midst of a three month best friend adventure before doing grad school and going into the real world. Kinda like the younger version of our trip minus the nice hotels and great clothes. These girls were HILARIOUS. We swapped stories of boys and learned about Carlo Morgan hahaha and a thing called a LELO and how we HAD to get one! They taught us about muscle testing. Yes Muscle testing. Apparently it's a homeopathic thing from colorado that you do to ask answers for things you do not know. As per Kayla you stand with your arms crossed at your chest, like a vampire, and close your eyes, relax and ask the question. If you naturally fall forward it means yes and backwards mean no. She showed us an example to see if Morgan was preggo with Carlo's baby, and thankfully she "is not" hahahaha (thank goodness for the muscle testing because we all just drank 2 liters of wine) wink wink

 We hiked the rest of the journey together and stopped and ate lunch and 2 liters later we were all great friends! 

on our adventure we also met this FSU man from Jupiter! He apparently thought we were the greatest thing to hit the cinque terre mountains because he blatentley ignored his girlfriend at this side and practically joined our table. GEEZE FSU men hahahaa  His mother, also with them, instructed us to do a boat tour to see the towns, and they eventually left. We enjoyed the rest of our wine and continued our HIKE! Bon appitito!!

on our way past the 4th village we met Chris from Canada. He was truly just the cutest lil man we've ever seen!! delightfully sweet- and kind- perhaps from all the universal healthcare- but who knows ; ) 

Suprisingly enough we made it through all the villages ALIVE well and uninjured. I think Carly was more suprised that I didnt fall off the cliff as i'm not the most study of individuals without a wobbley ass cliff adding to my balance defects.

Ps Wait till I tell Dr Desimone what I've done. He could quite possibly hit me with a crutch. Im not quite sure that 4months post op climbing to the ends of the earth and back were in my allowable activity descriptions. Eh you only live once and I and my knee are intact and safe :) 

We caught the ferry out of the last village home- thankful for our new ITALIA jackets because the temperature dropped about 20degrees during our hike and headed home

We packed 4am was coming bright and early for our departure to Munich via Zurich and Milan

<----View from Village numero 2

--------> View from Village 1

<------Breathtaking

<---- Our twin italia jackets, we had to buy at a shop because we were dying of cold! but we look cute no? 

<-----Weeble Wobbles

looking rought post climb, but with our new friend Morgan!

ciao!

Squished in La Spitizia

Ok, so we hit the road AGAIN. Thankfully leaving Firenze and headed to the lovely land and waters of Cinque Terre. We got to the station early, grabbed McDonalds, yes that’s right, the food in Firenze blew soo badly that we had to resort to McDonalds!! Actually, we think it was pretty good. It tasted like turkey sausage and the yolks are orange in the eggs. Werid right. Kristina told us a few days prior when she got one that it’s because they aren’t preserved etc like in the U.S YUMMY!!

We Hauled all our bags on the train, all by ourselves-yes all 80lbs of them while men watched without helping. Go figure, they call us the weaker sex! PSH!

We make the long haul out to La Spetizia and get ready to switch trains. We didn’t really realize that it was our stop so we were about a minute and a half late getting off the train and literally the train doors were shutting as I was leaving. I heaved our bags out the door, Carly was holding the doors open with both her arms and the bus started to move while the doors were shutting as I jumped out! PHEW! Landed safely on the ground in La Spetizia, glad to be anywhere but Florence. It turns out that we actually got off of the wrong La Spetizia-but it worked out to our advantage! We got to Cinque Terre 5minutes early! We called the owner of our apartment, Aquamarina, Coraddo. Imagine the Italian version of Lance Armstrong pulling up in his bike getting ready to haul our bags on his bike!!! Was he surprised when he saw our bags! HA! He got us a taxi, and we followed him by car, on his bike! He was the nicest man. We were dead tired and very hungry so we were very happy to have arrived to a wonderful apartment.

We dropped off our stuff, headed out for dinner. We met the nicest people at dinner again. I swear there is some attraction between everyone and US! THEY ALL LOVE US! HAHAHAHA First we met 4 Swiss couples. Darling really! We shared our wine with them and they gave us each 2 Swiss francs!! We thought about exchanging them because the franc is molto bene compared to the Obama buck but decided to keep them as good luck for our travels! It turns out that they own a Swiss resturant and invited us to visit! We got their contact info and we are planning our trip as we speak! SERIOUSLY though

We wined, we dined and headed back to the room. We had bought gift bottles of wine for our family/friends back home(3 bottles eatch)  BUT, our bags are soo heavy and we are soo tired of carrying them that we did the next most logical thing DRINK THEM. I mean I figured that makes the most sense right?? One bottle at dinner and three bottles later, we are giggling and histerically exhausted and pass out!

Up bright and early for HUNGOVER HIKEING OF THE HILLS OF CINQUE TERRE!

Italian 101 by Kristin & Carly

Today was spent relaxing, recovering, and rehabing- shopping that is!

we went to a few of our Favs :) We found this delightful store, just what we were looking for. Campo Marzio Designs. Go to that site. IT's awesome.

We are exhausted, so we picked up meat, and headed home. WE are enjoying pomorador potatoe chips or as called in Italian PIU Gusto pomodoro YUM!!

As you now can tell this is clearly why they think we are Italian! Parlare Italiano 

Going POSTAL in Florence!

Ok so today we learned alot about what we love, and more importantly what we dont love about Firenze!
ok, we, and by we it's the concensus of the traveling people of Miami via Florence, that we dont wanna come back to Firenze!!! Its crowded, overly filled with museums, has these really really really dark Africian people trying to sell us light up balls during our less than fabulous Florentine dinners, odd protests outside strange churches, restrtictions on photo-taking of century old statues, strange rules/ways to get a cab, one towel each for FOUR NIGHTS, roads that dont follow any course or plan with changing names, Sienna, THE PONTE VECHIO, and we'll stop there! Truly Firenze hasnt' been our favorite part of the tour de Eur, but we've truly had a GREAT time none the less.

Yesterday we went on our Tuscan tour!! AMAZING- well again parts of it! San Grimiano was beautiful. It was a super small little town and we only had about an hour to view it with our tour! There was a gigantic castle like thing with 11 towers of protection around it. See, I know everyone thinks I dont listen and talk alot, but I was paying attention to the tour, at least the first few minutes of it ;)

<-----San Gig

------>Isnt San Grimiagno pretty

here is San Gig as we called it for short !

Sienna blows, Its this stupid renninance town that's walled in and we coudln't get out! lol it was aweful! Again, aweful is a relative term here. We were still in the middle of Tuscany, it really can't be that bad. however the Exhaustion from the night before had kicked it and Sienna just wasnt compensating for us- and neither were the cappichino's for that matter.  Our bus ride to the Tuscan hills was interesting as well. Our guide had to say everything FOUR times, YES that's correct folks, FOUR, QUATRO, CUATRO, and VEIR! OYE lol everything about everything in four languages. I sure you can guess how happy that made us. We were offically those tourist we all hate. all walking together following a small Italian man holding a large colored object in the air for us to follow! JOY my travel dreams have come true! VOMIT!

Anways, back to the good stuff. After we toured Sienna, which truly took all of 25 minutes including food breaks the four of us stopped for some wine and food at the little resturant by our "meeting spot".
We truly had one of the best times of the trip. Laughs were abudent, jokes cracking, people drinking and smiles flying! It was awesome. Im not sure if it was Carly and I's honest lack of any sort of regular sleeping pattern or sleep of any sort for that matter or the fabulous Tuscan Air, but we had a blast.
We met MyOrka! yes folks that's right, MYORKA! that's my fat ass right foot! it's hugely swollen and hugely orka-ish, so it was termed MyOrka!!!

Next stop was the Winery! that was well worth the other BS that ensued the rest of the day! A-Freaking-mazing!  We picked a bunch of grapes, ate one! delicious!!! We were like kids in a candy store. Kinda a literal statement at this point with all the wine I drink, I was in heaven. Like "this is IT" this is where it ALL comes from! AMAZING!!

Ok so, we had the luckly fate of sitting behind this woman from kendall and this man whom I know know his entire life story. His divorce, that he lived in Orlando for 7 years, has a daughter named Kristin (go figure), that he quit his job, moved to colorado and loves to ski now. Yes i'm SERIOUS!! he was mad hitting on the Cuban girl from Kendall, this went on all the way to Tuscany and BACK! oye kill me now, or please let's just DRINK!
The kicker to the entire story is on the last few minutes of the ride back we kept waiting for him to ask for her number, so they could "get to know each other" if ya know what i mean. Nohting no number, no see ya later nothing. THEN we were on our way in the taxi home from dinner and guess who we saw!!!!  A showered and fresh man with the cuban from Kendall!!!! who ever would have thought!!!
Tuscan love I suppose- that or tuscan wine! hahaha

We had our last dinner with Eddy and Kristina, it was sad but each of us were moving onto bigger better less Florentine parts of our trip! We had our Last Supper so to speak and it was Delicious! We also celebrated with a liter of wine- but of course

<----me and Mr Gucci 

<---Miss Chanel

<------The Tuscan Hills

<-----Sienna's prettier side

<The sleeper creeper

 hahaha arent' these hill HIILL-arious!

Bob-ito the blister! OUCH

I love you Grape that makes me wine!

<---Thinner in the Tuscan Sun

<-------Barrels of Wine

<---CHEERS!

<-----Under the Tuscan Sun

<----Cheers to our last night as the Fab Four!

<----- Sipping as always ;) 

On a final note, everyone here thinks we are Italian, LOVE IT 

Ciao for now!