This weekend, I decided to venture out of the UK and attend a 30th birthday party in Germany for my friend, Christoph and his twin brother. Since it was something I wouldn’t be able to do if I was living in New York, I figured I should go and take advantage of the situation. I first met Christoph and our other friend, Alex when our senior studio class at Parsons did an exchange program with their school in Erfurt, Germany. We’ve been able to visit each other a few times over the years and it’s always fun to hang out with them!

My flight was on Friday night from Edinburg to Munich and I took a bus from Glasgow to Munich after class. I discovered Pimm’s in the airport and I caught a rainbow while I was waiting to board the plane. It was a very pleasant journey.

Alex and his girlfriend Franzi picked me up at the Munich airport, even though they live just outside Nuremberg (about 90 mins away). They are such awesome friends!

The next morning, I got out of the shower and was pleasantly surprised by this beautiful German breakfast!

After breakfast, we went to Nuremberg city with Alex’s sister Johanna (who I haven’t seen since she visited us in New York 1 1/2 years ago!) and her boyfriend. We checked out all of the beautiful German markets and ate curry wurst for lunch, mandatory for any trip to Germany.

We then had to get ready for the big party, about an hour away.

This is Christoph’s apartment in Naila (with our slumber party mattresses and bedding setup) Can you tell he is an architect?

The party was a few minutes away, in an empty house owned by Christoph’s boss, who will be renovating it. There were 3 kinds of delicious soup (unusual party food from what I am used to but they were all so good..I am still thinking about them) and “traditional” American red cups which had to be specially ordered for the event. (I had no idea Europeans were so fascinated with the cups but I had to inform them they were unfortunately an imposter brand i.e. “Partycups.com” or something like that…and not actually “solo cups”)

The party was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time and a lot of great soup.

Me, Alex and Franzi

The next morning, after breakfast, we drove back to Nuremberg, enjoyed the sun and took a nice walk around the neighborhood. It was so much warmer than in Glasgow, about 70 degrees!

Pretty soon, it was time for me to begin the journey back to Glasgow, which included 3 trains, a flight, a bus and a taxi. What could go wrong?

The train connections were pretty easy, thanks to my prepaid ticket with track numbers listed. I was also able to get a sandwich and some snacks, another big plus.

Once I finally arrived at Munich airport, I discovered my flight was delayed an hour. I also then discovered that the buses from Edinburg airport to Glasgow do not, in fact, run 24 hours as previously thought. The last one was at 11:30pm and I was going to miss it.

The next one wasn’t until 5am.

Now, the Munich airport was pretty packed and I didn’t want to freak out but I also just wanted to cry because I couldn’t believe I read the schedule wrong and was going to be stranded at EDI overnight. Even so, I decided it was my best option and that a hotel didn’t make sense since I needed to leave at 5am. Our 9:50pm scheduled flight ended up leaving at 11:25pm and we landed at EDI at 12:30 am since the timezone is one hour behind Germany. I haven’t spent a lot of time in airports overnight but it was not very fun. It was cold because the doors were stuck open and I tried sleeping on a bench but then a janitor came by because he had to MOVE the benches to clean the floor.

I decided to go for a walk, found an open coffee shop and got a cup of tea but I couldn’t stay because they were BLASTING terrible music that would have made me go insane. When I walked up, they were playing “Manic Monday”. How ironic. I’m not sure how anyone else was able to sleep around there.

Eventually, I made my way back to my original bench and fell asleep for a little while. It was still cold (and my bag was not a very comfortable pillow) but at least it was quiet. I woke up around 4:30am and decided to try to find my bus, because I knew it was a bit of a hike from the terminal. It was about 40 degrees outside and rainy but the bus showed up around 4:50 and after a cigarette break, the driver let us on.

The bus was so nice and warm and I slept the whole hour back to Glasgow. It took me a little while to realize there was a taxi queue at the bus station (and that I wasn’t going to be able to hail a cab from anywhere else) but after a few minutes and £4.60 I was back at my flat, at 6:25am.

It was not the kind of adventure I was looking to have this weekend but in the end, it all worked out and I was totally fine. I was even able to sleep until 10:30 and make it to my noon lecture on time!

Lessons and thoughts for the next weekend trip:

– fly only out of Glasgow (OR arrive in Edinburg much earlier)

– good job with the snack supply

– good job with packing light

– read the schedules twice.

– soup at parties. Yes.

– German gingerbread generally maintains it’s shape after being slept on