Travel Tuesday-A brief German tour

Sorry, I've been slightly MIA. I've been consumed with thoughts of Haiti and consumed with thoughts of Pitbulls. My brain has been full.

Anyway! I've been meaning to put up some pretty pictures for a while, and now seems like an opportune time as I don't have a travel narrative in me today. So today I present to you, a photo tour of a very pretty part of my favourite country in the world-Germany.

My ancestors were from Germany, and I've felt a pull towards the country for a while, so I finally got my butt over there this spring. I had been before, on a Contiki tour, but that was filled with Jagermeister and beer and to be perfectly honest that is all I remember from the German portion of the trip. That and buying new Birkenstocks and watching the Glockenspeil like, "this is it??? Really???". Anyway, this spring I went back, alone, and I fell deeply, deeply in love. My travels went through the Bavarian part of Germany, and I didn't even cover it all by any means.


When I arrived at the Munich airport, I was so very proud of myself because I found the train to get into the city, and I got off at the correct stop. When I walked up from the subway stop, this was my view. Directly after this, I proceeded to walk through the streets of Munich for about two hours, pulling behind me the heaviest luggage known to man. Around and around I wandering, stopping in several stores and being like, "ummm where the feck do I go??? Danke, danke!!". I asked cabs, I asked in other hotels, and after several hours I was running on no sleep, and on the complete verge of tears. I opted to stop dead in the middle of the pedestrian area on a random street and kind of spin in bewilderment. Shortly after this, a kindly German man came up to me and pointed me in the right direction.


That giant billboard of a green hand was basically the saving grace of my day. I thought I had arrived at the correct hotel (note-hotel names are kind of similar in Munich), so I walked in, plopped down my stuff, and was like, "phewww, it took me forever to find you!", then the guy was like, "you are at the wrong hotel". Never have I wanted to cry like a small child having a tantrum more than at that moment. But he took me outside, pointed to the hand billboard, and was like, "walk towards that". Which I did, and I eventually found my hotel. All was well.



I am a huge history nerd, so the fact that Hitler used to rally his troops in this very square got me very excited. I spend a good while hanging out on those steps.



Hansel and Gretlish, right?



Another history nerd moment. This is a memorial to the White Rose Movement, which was a group of young adults who tried to organize an uprising against Hitler. Eventually they were caught and executed. But holy crap, if you interested in Germany history at all, check out the movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. These kids are my absolute heros. I can't imagine being that brave.







Have you ever gotten that email with all the pictures of the most beautiful places on earth, and you are kind of like, oh my god, if I could only go there, and then one day you find yourself up on a mountain top all by yourself, taking in just the most beautiful view, wondering how you got so lucky? Yeah.



This is my hotel room in the teeny tiny town of Berchtesgaden. I LOVED this little place. When I saw my hotel room, I may have jumped up and down a bit, for there was a window seat and a balcony, two of my absolute favourite things. I was in Berchtesgaden for about 4 days, and believe me, I spent incountable hours on that seat, reading and just looking at the mountains.



When I finally got brave enough to go to an actual restaurant by myself, this is what I got. Story for another day.





How quaint!



Is anybody obsessed with the Amazing Race like I am? Then you might recognize this!!



This is in Berchtesgaden National Park. It was at approximentaly at this point in the hike that I was up on a high path with no guardrail and had to change my batteries in the camera. A German lady came up behind me and started getting positively mad that I was going to fall off the cliff. I pretending I didn't understand because I sure wasn't hiking down without getting a picture of this. Just...wow.





This is a battery operated boat, it moves very slow and makes no noise. You just glid peacefully through the water. The coolest thing was when the boat stopped and the driver got out and played the trumpet. The lake is surrounded by mountains, and the sound just bounced off and echoed.







Eagles Nest! More history nerd moments!



WWII Bunkers with D-Day graffiti.





This was my last day in Berchtesgaden. I was chilling on my balcony when this random parade went by.

Sorry this wasn't more detailed, I have to keep minimizing the window to ensure no one notices what I'm doing. I'm a good employee.

And that's the German portion of my trip! I have about 1 billion pictures, but I tried to par it down for you. Hope you liked it!

Thanksgiving Adventures

Do you ever have one of those moments where you absolutely must go somewhere, anywhere, or else you might burst? I don't know if it is just my city or what, but sometimes I just really need to get out of here. It doesn't matter where to, as long as it isn't here. The city feels cagey sometimes, everything repeats itself, everything is the same, and I must get out. I mean, I live in a city where a crazy wild turkey routinely makes the newspaper.

I felt like that this week, thus this weekend was spent up in beautiful Western New York where luckily my aunt has a place. Ellicotville is more well known for it's amazing skiing, but in the Fall, it is equally as great. Nestled right in the mountains, Ellicotville, Great Valley, and surrounding areas, can literally take your breath away in autumn.

Fall Festival was happening, which meant the streets were full of vendors, every possible kind of food imaginable was for sale and apple cider was of ample supply. They also were having chair rides up one of the ski lifts which was pretty cool. They had a bbq and a band on top of one of the hills. We decided to walk down the hill after riding up, which in theory was great, but in reality was actually kind of painful. My knees were confused. And I almost wiped out approx. 8 times.

Another day we spent some time in a state park at a place called "Little Rock City". After driving for a good while far, far into the woods we finally came across it. It was basically giant rocks that you could walk on top of, walk in between and in general just marvel at. They were all covered in moss, and it felt a little bit like a different world. So cool. My aunt at some point decided it would be fun to mention the bears that live in the woods, which made me entirely unnerved. Getting mauled by a bear is not how I want to leave this world! In any event, we saw nary a bear, or any other kind of animal for that matter and it was a lovely hike.

I love fall, it is without a doubt my favourite season. The colours, the crispness in the air, the smell, Halloween!! I could live in fall year round. I love walking down the sidewalk and hearing the crunch of leaves, and I love bundling up and just being outside.

Photos don't quite do it justice...

Small Town Ontario

This past weekend, I took a little trip with the fam up to visit more fam members up in Southwestern Ontario. Picture a town that has the bare minimum of necessities and add twelve fish processing factories, and that's where we were. It was fun, despite the rain (is anybody suprised? My feet are going to become webbed soon). It poured rain the one day, and was humid as hell the next day. We passed the time playing cards, drinking, eating and walking. I find people in small towns take life much slower, and everything moves at quite...a......halting......pace. Everybody knows each other, everybody's friendly, everybody's waves...it's lovely is what it is. There was quite a nice little community there, and if there's anything I love, it's a sense of community. Big cities tend to have people moving from place to place, constantly, quickly, but never connecting. It's not like that in small town Ontario. Refreshing to say the least.

So without further adieu, I present to you some fairly unremarkable pictures of a small Ontario town:






I've never seen this many seagulls in my life...it was like out of a horror movie. It was self induced horror too, because how could I not run, with my arms flailing directly towards them?


mmmmhmmm, turtle crossing! How long would that take?



Poor Docky was NOT having the humidity.




Not much makes me happier than NICE graffiti. Seriously, I mean, it's encouraging! It's not sexist, or racist, or just plain mean! I love it!





This pop machine reminds me of going on road trips as child. The first thing we would always scope out at the motel/hotel (we being, me and my cousin who usually accompanied us on vacation) was the pop machine. They were always in the most random places, and it was like a treasure hunt to find them. Ahh, I miss road trips.