Munich Photos

Here are a few photos from the Munich trip:

Schloss Neuschwanstein

mountains

coins on the table to ward off bees(waitress's suggestion)

mountains/water/glory

Dirndls!

giant pretzel, mashed potatoes, gross cheese/plate of onions

adorable real dog being fake walked by a statue

planning all the trips

Hello!

Munich was amazing, I will write about Neuschwanstein Castle, Dirndls, pretzels, stealing, monsters, and mashed potatoes later. This is just to prove that I am alive. 

Also, I have a ton of trips coming up! This weekend is Dresden with some friends from my German class. Next weekend Prague, weekend after that Vienna. Still need to plan Poland, Florence and possibly Portugal or Budapest.

Hope everyone is doing well, see you all in two months!

-Michelle

München

Hello!

I am going to Munich this weekend! Booked it all today. Rather spontaneous, but it should be great! I am packing my dirndl. I know Oktoberfest is over, but I really don't care.

Happy Thursday. I am planning on going to German class tonight, so hopefully I will learn some new things. Which will not help at all in Bavaria because their German is supposed to be essentially a whole different language.

Expect a Bavarian post in the near future!

-Michelle

Hey remember that time I almost got kicked out of Germany?(PART 2)

PART 2 check out part 1 here

Hi, I went to the immigration place last Tuesday at 8:00am. There were only a few people in front of me in line. I think the office was actually for work visas and work related things... I waited until the window opened and asked the guy there what I needed to do. Then I proceeded to pull out so many different papers and everytime he asked me anything I would pull out some other random document and look tragic and say 'does this help? I have this random government paper...' He told me that I would need to make an appointment and that the earliest I could schedule one was for November, and then it would be five weeks after that to receive the card that I need to re-enter Germany. I looked sad and he noticed that by then I would already be leaving. So he sent me to some lady and I got some stickers to put in my passport, I don't know why they wouldn't have just suggested that first... They needed a passport photo and I didn't have any so I used the photoshopped christmas card photo I have been using for other documents here and the lady looked at me like I was a freak and asked if I had any options where I wasn't showing my teeth. oh well. got the stickers and she said I would be able to come back to Germany through December 31.

This week I have been planning a bunch of trips because I just realized I only have 9 more weekends here. that is not enough time! Malia and I are going to Vienna in November. I also want to go to: Munich, Poland, Budapest, Istanbul, Belgium, Prague, Florence, Edinburgh. I might have time for them as I have 3 vacation days left. I am going to be soooo burnt out. Everytime I start to look into information about a place I find some other place that also looks amazing. I think I will have to move back to Europe after graduating. Though the current plan is an Australia/New Zealand trip. Which will lead to a South America trip, Eastern Europe trip, Africa Trip, possibly Asia trip. Sooooo busy busy. I really need to find a corporate life sponsor. If any corporations are reading this and would like someone to travel around and casually promote them/ embody their brand... let me know!

I am considering basing my capstone project on becoming a brand and securing a corporate life sponsor. I have no idea if that fits for capstone because for some reason, no one at the school will tell us what capstone is. Might need to find that corporate sponsor sooner than I thought because I will have to drop out of school. Trying to find something to do this weekend, might not be able to go very far because flights are expensive last minute. Does anyone have any suggestions? or know of a good website for discount last minute flights? It seems like some airlines might have cheap seats left if they are trying to fill the flight...

Sorry for the huge delay between posts, I have been watching internet television and planning my life.
Happy wednesday!

-Michelle

Hey remember that time I almost got kicked out of Germany?

okay, so I am allowed in the country: here is part one:

PART ONE:

Blegh,

So tomorrow I may be kicked out of Germany, so tonight I am drowning my sorrows in candy and internet television.Thursday as I was leaving Hamburg to go to London for Harry Potter(amazing by the way, I'll cover that in a different post, possibly from the US if the Germans kick me out) the border control man made some comment about only staying in Germany for 90 days, and that I might be over my limit... I was confused by this as my paperwork was processed through a German company and included a work visa waiver for six months and I registered with the city of Hamburg through December(remember all the struggles with becoming a Hamburger.) Well after than encounter, I half-joked that I wouldn't be allowed back in Germany on Sunday. I figured if he took the time to mention something about 90 days and that I wasn't allowed, there would probably be another issue soon. Tom thought that if there would be a problem, that guard would have mentioned it then. Sunday, arrived back in Hamburg around 10:30am and got in the line to go through the border control passport thing. The guy started counting and determined that I have in fact been in Germany too many days and told me to go wait in a corner. Germany is one of those Schengen countries so people from many other areas are allowed to visit for a total of 90 days without a visa. I was hoping it was 90 days in a row, and that every time I left the country they would start over... but unfortunately it is 90 total days every six months. The border man counted 100 days in Germany and then went to go look up some stuff in a secret room. Tom came back and started talking with the guy and the words I could understand turned in to something like: "back go london wait forbidden 100 too many no germany" NOT promising. After an hour or so the guy let me into the country after I promised to go to the Ausländerbehörde(Immigration Office) within the next week or so... I'm hoping that he could see my Meldebestätigung(becoming a Hamburger registration) and tax ID things and determined that I am not a sneaky criminal trying to live in Germany illegally for funsies. I hope whoever I meet with tomorrow is as nice. So I got back to my apartment and started gathering all of the paperwork things I had. I was under the impression that the forms from the German visa processing people were linked to my passport number and that I wouldn't need anything else. When I emailed the company today, my contact was on holiday, but another lady told me that "you´ve forgotte to go to the “Ausländerbehörde” to apply for your “Aufenthaltstitel” immediately afer you got your “Meldebestätigung”. These informatiosn were given to you and to the hostcompany…" soooooo no, actually that information was not given to me or my host company, or I would have done that the same day. Then she said that the information was given to me during my time in Cologne... if you remember I was in Cologne for a grand total of 4 hours with Morgen and we went to a chocolate museum and climbed a billion stairs to the top of the Dom, no one snuck me information about not getting kicked out of Germany. I think that they thought I was part of the engineering group who had a welcome week in Cologne and learned how to be German, but I came here by myself. I would have hoped for some instruction from their company with the paperwork, but all I was told in my email correspondence with them prior to arriving that it was a work visa waiver and that my employer would have the paperwork. Also, I am confused why Hamburg let me register to live here using the dates July 7-December 20, 2012 if I wasn't legally able to stay in Germany for that long... or why I was allowed to get a tax ID number to be paid by a German company if the work visa waiver was never filed with the residency people. Everything is difficult.So tomorrow I am going to the immigration place and hopefully they are nice. Otherwise, I guess I will see you all in the states soon.

____

more later

A few pictures from the best day ever

Here are a few pics from the Harry potter studio tour. Uploading from my phone, sorry if they look weird. This tour was EXCELLENT!!!!