Skating Through Life

so to offset the fact that i dont want to go back to the states, im trying to think of things im excited for:
1. not having to worry about buying a carbonated drink on accident. seriously, i ask for an orange juice and sometimes i'll get some carbonated orange drink that makes me want to throw up.
2. my chi working again. it doesn't work in mainland europe :/
3. mexican food.
4. not having to stay up super late to talk to people in the states.
5. washer & dryer in my apartment

To be honest, I love everything about living in Munich. I really cannot complain. Lindsay and I were talking Monday night about how blessed we are. I was saying that my biggest complaint was that I was too tired to go rollerblading that night. If that's my biggest issue, life has to be pretty good.

it turns out stracciatella our ice cream of choice

So something that Lindsay and I have discovered is that people in Munich are dress super casual for work. As in, it's hard to tell if people are just hanging out or going to work. There are people who show up in just a t-shirt and jeans. Others have a nice button up shirt and jeans, but jeans are very much the norm. It's super nice. I love it. Everyday is "casual Friday". I'm a believer that you work better when you're comfortable. Anyways, I also love that Munich is so close to lots of lakes. After work on Friday, Petra and I went off to Lake Starnberger. It was beautiful. It was a cool day in the 70's, which made the water seem as cold as it really is. Nevertheless, we went into the water, and Petra thought my oh-man-it's-cold faces were funny. We stayed out for a few hours till it got too cold to stay out, and went back. Then I was too tired to go out that night, so I had a quiet night in and went to bed early.

Saturday, Jamie and I spend the day together exploring the town. We did a Third Reich tour with the coolest tour guide, Ian. We walked around the city as he showed us important monuments and told us stories. I'm not going to lie, history is pretty much my fav subject. I would have gotten a degree in it, if I believed in liberal arts degrees. So my nerdy love was well fed, after I escaped the preppy college kid who kept on wanting to talk to Jamie (who I was with). I then had to escape the conversation and walk by the British (love!!!) tour guide so he could answer all my questions, and I could listen to other people's questions too. There was also this older American couple, who were soooo American. It was embarrassing. Side note: the only problem with doing touristy things, is that you're surrounded by tourists. It sounds like I'm being a little hypocritical because I am a tourist, but I try my best not to act like one, especially an American tourist (the worst!). Friendships have ended over things like this. Back to the story: It was a great tour. We then walked back to the city centre after stopping off at the White Rose Memorial in front of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. We crossed the street and I saw a girl waving at me, so I waved back awkwardly. She kept waving, so I turned to Jamie to point it out, and Jamie knew the girl. It was Precious! (who is now one of my cool new friends). We were talking and we saw this cute little girl taking pics with an umbrella on a fountain. Of course, we had to copy her :) It was fun. Then we took a bike tour, which was soooo BORING until the last one hour. That means, 75% of the tour was lame, especially because I think the FREE walking tour was a lot better and more informative. That's a bad grade. It was overall a good day. Especially since we got some Eis from Jamie and my fav Eis shop. So good :)

Sunday was a good day. It was an exhausting day, because I woke up tired. We had an amazing talk on grace and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. My fav part was when he was talking about how the Lord strengthens us day by day through His love and grace. I loved it. yay! The best part had to be when our Relief Society teacher gave us chocolate & peanut butter cookies. Her husband just got back from a trip to the states, and she gave him a large list of things she wanted so she can bake American food. SOOOO GOOD!!!! Through a miracle, I managed to make it home safely without dying. I was SO TIRED! I fell asleep after forcing myself to eat some food (so I wouldnt wake up starving). I put my alarm on so I wouldn't sleep too long, but when my alarm went off 2 hours later, I wanted to break my phone because I was still tired. I forced myself awake, but I was super groggy the rest of the night anyways. But I managed to make it to the YSA dinner, which I was happy about. We had cafe rio food. The meat was totally worth the trip. I even found out the secret seasoning. Using a crock-pot and soaking the pork in dr. pepper with chili powder. I can't wait to try it! Also, Nathan had some visitors that he met through MormonExplorer.com, and they were crashing at his place. Not going to lie, I want to try it out. I've been wanting to try out Couch Surfing, but am just too nervous. Strangers are scary, but church members are like extended family you just haven't met yet. #truestory

 Monday was AWESOME! So my computer has a great translation option, which is helpful for all the German websites that I interact with. Munich does this awesome thing where every Monday night during the summer, you can go rollerblading through the city, and they shut down streets and have cops blocking things for you. We thought it started at 7. Turns out it was a bad translation. The location (right at the Deutsches Museum) opens up at 7. But we didn't know that so we got there at 6:20pm to rent some free rollerblades, only to find out we were super early because the rollerblading doesn't really start till 9pm. So we went and laid down in the grass to enjoy the beautiful weather and doze off till 7. I really didn't want to go because I was so tired. Lindsay convinced me to go, so I did so reluctantly. Little did I know, our views of this night were going to
completely flip. We got our blades, and I remember being good at rollerblading when I was little, but I was wobbling and Lindsay was freaking out that she was going to die. I got some knee pads, and Lindsay got some knee, elbow, and wrist pads. (she wanted to be prepared.) The event started about 9:15pm, and we were some of the first people. There were thousands of people and it was sooo cool! I lost Lindsay during a downhill slope in the street. I was making a video and then realized I kept going faster and other people were slowing down and I was going to die. Then I found her and she told me she fell (fall #1). The next downhill, one of the event helpers offered to help me with the slope, so I grabbed onto him and he controlled our speed down the hill. This hill became Lindsays fall #2. I had to consciously go slow so I wouldn't leave Lindsay behind. She was so tense and nervous after her two falls, being really scared that more slopes in the road would be ahead. Little did she know fall #3 was coming, not from a slope, but because someone ran into her. Her sock had came off her foot, so we paused so she could fix it. Then we realized, we were at the end of the group. Literally. There were people trying to get you to go faster; the problem being, Lindsay couldn't go any faster, she was at top speed. Luckily, someone offered her an arm and skated her faster so she wasn't the last person. Then I lost Lindsay again, and when I found her she was with a helper named, Peter. We called him Peter Pan, and Lindsay was his Wendy, because when he was helping her, she could fly! She told him she would be okay for the rest of the way because the end was in sight, like 50 feet away. Then came fall #4. LOLZ. I was in high spirits and really happy that we did it. Lindsay on the other hand vowed to never rollerblade again. It was a fun night, one of the best in Munich. I can't believe it's taken us this long to do it. Funny comment from Monday night about the spiders around out metro stop: "The spiders are having babies. They're like muppet babies but scary!"

Tuesday joke of the day: Lindsay and I were having dinner at the Augustiner. The problem with this is it's a total Mean Girls lunch room experience. You have your food and then you have to wander through the tables to find someone who who has a free seat and is willing to accept you to their table. it took us a while. But as we were talking, Lindsay was talking about a movie title, "the road to....the road to...something that starts with a 'D'". My response..."Damascus!" Lol. Bible jokes are the best :)