Reisen

Wednesday night I shaved. Let's just get that out of the way. One of the girls in the program (won't say who, because that would be mean) actually took all of Thursday to figure out what was different about me. I kid you not. Simply put, I needed a change, and I've actually gotten a fair number of compliments as a result. Yes, Bennie, you were right all along.

The rest of the week was torture, having the break so close and yet still having to go to Grammar and Phonetics. But finally Friday night came.

Saturday I went out with Laureline and her friends. We took the Metro to Montmartre, saw how you could barely move for the tourists around Sacre-Coeur, and then went back to the Black Dog at Chatelet.

On Sunday I got up at 5:30 to get to Gare de l'Est to catch the train to Munich. I was worried because I hadn't known that I needed a reservation for the TGV train acrosss the border. When I asked at the counter I was told that all reservations in all classes for the next five days were booked, but the ticket agent said that I should still wait for the comptroller to show up and ask him if there had been any cancellations. When the train finally arrived, the comptroller's assistant informed me that I could sit in the space between cars for a fee of only €15.

I transferred in Stuttgart and got to Munich at about 5:30. You don't need any reservations to travel within Germany and Austria with a Eurail pass. Found a hostel and met some friends, Katie, Victor, and Aeshi who were touring all of Europe on their month-long break from their school in Leeds, England. Katie was American and the other two were Australians. We went out to a biergarten adn had a really good time.

On Monday I got to Wieselburg at 2:15 without any trouble. Marion showed me around the town and took me out for Chinese. The next day we went for a hike in the woods with our cameras. Felt really nice to be back in a natural setting. Wednesday passed quickly and now I'm back here in Munich, sitting in an Internet cafe, waiting for my friend Viktoria. The plan is for me to stay in Munich til Sunday, then go back to Paris before leaving for Madrid. Hope the same TGV option is available coming back from Stuttgart.