I Have Not Fallen Off The Face Of The Earth

Hi everyone!
Sorry for the lateness of this post. It's been the holidays and so routine has gone thoroughly out the window, being replaced by sleeping in and staying up late. Anyway. Guess you're vaguely interested in what I've been up to? Here goes.

One of the first things we did after the end of my last post was go to the biggest swimming pool in Europe, Therme Erding. It was ridiculously large - changing room space for about 3000 people, 18 water slides, about 6 spa pools, a spa treatment area etc etc etc. Lea and I went with her cousins who I'd met for Christmas. It was heaps of fun, buying expensive mocktails from the swim-up bar and doing water aerobics (not at the same time). I got a bit faint that day, but I haven't had anything since so I'm pretty sure I'm totally recovered from my little incident. :)

Later that week we went to a jazz concert with Lea, her boyfriend and a couple of other friends. It was a band playing Glenn Miller and it was really good. Gramps would have enjoyed himself. So yeah, that was a lot of fun ;)

And then it was New Years! We spent the night in a group of about 15 of Lea's friends, starting off taking the train to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet restaurant, where you could try meat from kangaroos, crocodiles and zebras. I avoided it. The food was really nice, but as Lissi put it later - all-you-can-eat is really cheap for boys and killer expensive for girls. Hahaha. After that a few of us were supposed to get a limo and go cruising round town for a while, but much to our disappointment it broke down and so that didn't happen :( Instead we took the train back into town, to a friend's apartment, where we spent some time before walking down to the Theresenwiese, or the enormous park where the festival Tollwood was. It was packed with people letting off fireworks. The boys all ran into the middle to let off their own - Lea's not great with fireworks so we, plus a couple of other girls who were staying the night at ours - stood on the side and watched. And then all of a sudden it was midnight, and we hugged and stared at the fireworks some more before walking home. It was fab :) A few people came over later, much to Lea's annoyance as her room is quite small, but her boyfriend managed to kick them out by about 4.30am hahaha :) So yeah, that was my awesome New Years.

A few days later, Lea, Johnny and I went to the Deutsches Museum, an enormous museum of science and technology. It had exhibits on everything from mining to pharmacy, nano-technology to astronomy, photography to a model railroad. Don't forget aeroplanes and ships too. Oh, and... etc etc etc. You catch my drift. It was enormous and really interesting.

Sorry this isn't rotated. Anyway it's Lea and me with the heat sensor. I'm the one with the frozen eyes/glasses. 

Model railway

Also unrotated. Walls and wall of old, pretty cameras!

The 'technology in the 50s' exhibition. Very cool :)

Then the whole family went on a big day trip around Bavaria / Austria. We started off in Oberammergau, where the Passion Play takes place every ten years. We were allowed to go into the theatre, and it was so amazing! The town was pretty cute too.

Ice cream in the snow :) 

The Passionsspiel theatre

Photos of some of the previous casts

... aaaand we found someone who looks like me. 

 After that we drove to Schloss Linderhof, King Ludwig II's main castle. It was very small but so, so beautiful. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside so I bought a little guide book instead. I managed the tour all in German though! Outside was pretty amazing too, but heaps of things were closed because of winter :(

Finally my winter wonderland!

Then we drove into Austria (very little fanfare, minimal difference to Germany) and saw a very beautiful lake.

Time for Neuschwanstein aka the Disney castle! It was a wee bit disappointing because half of it was covered in scaffolding for renovations, and the bridge where you get the best views was closed because of ice. But it was still pretty darn beautiful.

Before getting home we popped into the most famous church in Bavaria.

The next day we got together with a few friends to film a scene or two for Lea's boyfriend's short film. I was a member of a devil cult. Teehee.

Then we caught up with some friends from school...

And then yesterday Lissi and I went to Regensburg, a city about the size of Dunedin I think. It's a university town too, and was really cool.

The oldest sausage kitchen in the world, apparently!

We did some quality shopping too. H+M is a very dangerous place.

Right, now you're all up to date! Since my last post, we've passed both the halfway point and the three-weeks-to-go point. So weird to think that I'm actually going to have to leave soon - I'm so happy here and I'm going to miss everyone and everything so much. I'm not ready to go yet! But I'll be happy to get home and see everyone there too, of course. And the sea. I miss the sea!

Back to school tomorrow, and back to routine I guess. Wow. It's gone so quickly... :( Until next time!

Liebe Grüsse,
Camille xx