Munich Merriment and The Epitome of Laziness in Faro

After Berlin we took a train to Munich. It was kind of just a stop-over because my flight to Portugal left from the Munich airport. So, especially after having been traveling and sightseeing and running around four different countries in less than two weeks, we decided to just hang out in Munich and relax a little. HOWEVER, little did we know, the weekend we were there was the weekend of the League Championship Finals for soccer, Munich vs. Chelsea, which was a huge deal. We were going to treat ourselves to a hostel for our last stop together, but they were all booked. The only one we could find only had one of the nights available, and it was in a 12 bed dorm and was 75 euro. Noooo thank you. We had a really good couchsurfing host set up too, but he bailed on us at the last minute. The day before we got there, we still didn't have a place to stay and were getting worried. Luckily someone in Munich sent us a message offering to host us, which literally saved us.

So, like I said, we were basically just lazy the whole time we were in Munich. We just wandered around the city, which was actually really fun because there were so many soccer fans everywhere and everyone was excited and happy and loud and fun (there's some $5 adjectives for you). We did see the Glockenspiel, and we went to this really beautiful park called the English Gardens and hung out by the river there. We may or may not have made flower crowns out of tiny little daisies. Then on our way home, we passed a group of people on a bridge watching something in the river. We stopped to look, and we saw a bunch of people in wetsuits surfing on some rapids created by the river rushing over some big, smooth rocks. It was terribly random but SO cool. Who knew Germany had such great surfing?

So, when I said we may or may not have made flower crowns...yeah, we did.

The Glockenspiel

Glockenspiel close up.

Surfing on the river in Munich.

The next day was game day, but it was also the day we were set to leave Munich. I wish we could've stayed for the game but my flight had already been set. I had to take a train to the airport, and it was painful to be leaving at that time because there was a constant flow of people dressed in their team colors and carrying kegs through the airport (no open container laws in Germany, to our surprise) and yelling and cheering getting off trains from all over to see the game and celebrate in the streets. Oh well. At the station, my friends and I had to say goodbye as I had a flight to Portugal and they were going to continue traveling through Europe for a few weeks before going home.

So I flew into Faro, Portugal that afternoon. How did I choose Faro, exactly? Because RyanAir flies there and I got a good deal on a flight. Also because I had eight days to do anything but it had to be cheap, so I decided sitting on a beach would be quite enjoyable. I would have loved to use that extra week to travel around Europe some more, but to say that I'm low on funds is an understatement, and I was also a little nervous about traveling all around by myself. So I decided to stay put in Faro for the eight days I had to kill until I could go to Salamanca for my summer program. I got a private room in a cute little hostel. It was adorable and quaint and full of character, but NOT full of people. I think I saw one other person in passing once at night, but otherwise there was NO ONE else in the hostel. The reception desk was in a different building, so I slept all alone in a giant building full of empty rooms for the better part of a week. So that was a little creepy, it was an old and probably haunted building, but I survived. My schedule every day that week was as follows: sleep till noon (awkwardly wake up at 10 when the cleaning lady entered and then proceeded to apologize in Portuguese because she didn't expect me to be there), get up and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch (yes, they had peanut butter in Faro! Delightful.), walk 5 minutes to the bus station, take a bus to the beach, sit on the beach all day listening to music, reading, and getting a nice tan, go back, eat another PB&J for dinner, sleep, repeat. It was nice to have no responsibilities whatsoever, and obviously it was nice to sleep all day and sit on the beach for the rest. But, despite that, 8 days was by far the longest I've been alone in my life. By the second day I had skyped basically everyone I'd ever known because I was starved for human interaction. I had planned to meet some people in the hostel to hang out with, because that's how hostels usually work, but not this time. So it was a weird experience to be alone for so long, but refreshing and reenergizing at the same time. I got to do tons of reading and listened to lots of new music and got to think a lot. I do love to think, and it was nice to be able to contemplate everything with no interruptions. So my trip to Faro was very low-key, but a nice way to recuperate from all my travels before going back to school!

My cute little hostel room. Notice the bed is quite unmade, on account of how I was sleeping every time the cleaning lady came in, so she just quit coming. Also take note of how my computer is on top of the TV- it was the only place in the whole place I could get wifi, and even then it was only 2 bars. So it was awkward to have to stand there whilst Skyping..

The old church outside my window.

Faro

My view for eight days straight. No complaints.

After Portugal I flew to Madrid (the Salamanca airport is super tiny) and took a bus to Salamanca. I had to get a hostel for two nights because I wasn't allowed to move into my residencia yet. So I just stayed at a regular old hostel, but I basically slept and skyped for the whole day. Then I got up and went to my residencia...more on that in the next post!