I am currently waiting patiently (as patiently as one bouncing in her seat can wait) for the memory card reader that my parents are sending me to get here. I want to show you my pictures. I WANT WANT WANT to. I’m expecting to get the memory card reader this week. I cannot wait. CANNOT.
Did all my American loves have a fireworky fourth of July?
We (Hubs, me and Hub’s baby brother Chris) drove to Munich. I had my first hostel experience. I have been living in Europe for 3 years and have never stayed in or gone near or thought about a hostel. It just was never an option for Hubs and I because we both have jobs and B&B’s aren’t expensive and that scary movie came out and I didn’t have communal bathrooms in college.
First let me clarify the term “hostel experience.” I did not actually STAY in a hostel. I just went to happy hour in 2 of them and drank an undisclosed amount of 1 euro beers. Good German beers. I think I’m in love.
I am starting my deployment plans. Hubs is deploying again, but only for a year this time. Last time my goals were to get a job (got one) and pay off our student loans (did that) and survive. Making one of your goals to just survive is setting the bar pretty low. I don’t want to just SURVIVE the deployment I want to thrive this time. I want to take my childless self as many places as I can go and take pictures and journal and draw and hear other people’s stories.
Segue time: And you know who stays in hostels? Other people. People with stories. Stories I want to hear and that I can write down in my notebook.
Funny inexperienced traveler story at my baby-brother’s-in-law expense:
Hubs and I are sitting in our hotel room waiting for Chris meet us. We had just finished watching FISH TANK at the Munchin Film Festival. Christ wanted ice cream and said he’d be right up. He comes in eating a prepackaged ice cream bar and says: I think I just paid some random guy for my ice cream.
HUBS: What?
CHRIS: Yeah, there was this guy sitting at a table and he got up to take my money after I got the ice cream out of the freezer. So I gave him the euro fifty and he went back to his seat where everyone at the table started laughing.
We left the hotel and walked by the café that sold the ice cream. Everyone that worked there was wearing and all black uniform.
CHRIS: That guy definitely had a red t-shirt on. I got robbed.
Munich was my second German city. It was Germany, so it was nice of course, but it wasn't Dusseldorf. (You all know how I feel about Dusseldorf.)
On the first night we were there we went to the Hofbrauhaus. It's probably the most famous beer haus in Germany. Hitler met there pre-war with some of his compatriots to plan. It's also freakin' huge and had an umpah band playing. I got the schnitzel. I do not regret it.
Munich held the Olympics in 1972. From the Olympic park you can see the BMW museum, pictured here. It was probably the coolest thing about the Olympic park.
Dusseldorf is the first European city that I've been to thus far where I would love to live without military support. I know that sounds weird, but with Hubs being in the Army I have a safety net. Other Americans, translators if I need them, the commissary where I can buy peanut butter and other American things. I'd live here without any of that. But hopefully with a few years of German under my belt. 
There's a street in Dusseldorf known as "The World's Longest Bar." Yes, I'm serious. Yes, it's a fantastical place. All of the next to each other bars on this street have outdoor drinking areas. So when you stand at one end of the street and look down it, it looks like heaven. I mean, it looks like it's all one bar. Oh by the way, the beer in Germany is about half the price of the water. My liver hurts and I like it.
These houses probably cost 2 million euros easy. They are right on the river and I want one.
If you go up the stairs in the picture before this one then you'll be at this market. There were sausages and crepes and honey and jewelry all for sale on one side and the Rhine on the other.
The rivers are like your crazy rich aunt that put you through college. Even though you paid her back 5 years ago you just can't shake her. She keeps calling. Keeps showing up. And deep down, you hope she never stops. 
But you'd never tell her that.
I have pictures again! It's going to take me a bit to sort through them all, but I'll update as I do. Here's Hubs and baby brother-in-law Chris from Munich this weekend. We were in the Hofbrauhaus (sp?). It's fuzzy but I love it. Just like I love pictures.
