Post Germany - End of Easter Break

Okay, so you have probably noticed that we did not finish writing up our Germany trip. One of the reasons might be that the last day didn't contain anything particularly interesting but also Geo was *coughlazycough*.

Our second to last day we went to Wurzburg, the city I spent most of my time in Germany in. It was cool to be back and see what things changed and which ones stayed the same. We walked around city centre and then so enjoy the weather walked to my house which was further than I remembered it to be! We walked for over an hour and according to our phones walked more than 6 km! We also decided to finish the trip fancy and had some sushi, which was awesome too!

I've always thought that this building looks like the one from the movie "Back to the Future"

On the departure day we finished our trip with another round of buffet Chinese, and then headed to the airport. The flight was a bit delayed but it was all good, and we got to Manchester with even enough energy to grab some groceries on the way home. The weather in Germany was so good that we were in the mood for a BBQ. We bought some meat and we had brought a package of German sausages from Germany. Unfortunately, the weather was not as nice as in Germany, so with mere 10 degrees outside and a slight drizzle we made a public attraction out of ourselves, grilling in that weather. But it still went well and the meat was super tasty!

After that hilarious day in Manchester, we travelled back to Leeds and spent the last week of the break there. Partially studying, but mostly just resting and eating it was a wonderful conclusion to our holiday!

Now, it's back to uni again, and with loads of deadlines and exams quickly approaching we are quite busy.. But, we had an amazing break and it is sad that it is over. Still, as stressful and tiring uni is, it is still interesting and a good experience, so on to that.

-KK

2017 Germany Trip #8 - April 9th

Sunday is a special day in Germany. This might be foreign to many - and believe me, it's as inconvenient as it sounds - EVERYTHING IS CLOSED.
For that reason we have decided to take another day trip. My grandma suggested a bus trip to a tiny town which has the biggest collection of Christian Cribs. In addition with Easter coming up it had an exhibition of painted Easter Eggs. The day tour turned out to be very popular with the elderly, and Geo and I must have been the only ones under 50 XD
Both were really interesting, especially the displays in the Crib museum as all of the scenery, such as houses and walls, were made out of Styrofoam. I will add pictures below to show how artful and realistic these were. We both were more impressed by the scenery than the Cribs themselves, but seeing the massive collection of installations from many countries and centuries was pretty cool too.

The bus journey took us along a scenic road, it was beautiful.

It was crazy to believe all the 18 000 eggs used in all the displays were hand painted.

Some were even carved.

Others stitched.

Here one of the scenes from the crib museum. Look at the buildings.

Just look at them! It's styrofoam! not real brick! 

 The weather was wonderful today. Blue skies 22 degrees. So after we arrived back to Stuttgart in the evening, Geo and I decided to go on another stroll around the city center and just enjoy the weather in the park. I will let you judge how long we stayed from the following pictures.

And another wonderful day done.

-KK

2017 Germany Trip #6&7- April 7th & 8th

Ksenia's Ruined Nostalgia

Bright and early (my standards) we headed to the German Museum (ironically a science museum). 

One of us forgot our student card so couldn't get the full discount, but it shall be our secret.

The day basically consisted of us just looking through 7 floors of science, each floor with few different topics of which could be viewed. A sample image of what was going on:

Here you see Ksenia in her natural habitat *quiet voice*

But going into this, Ksen was like, "it's sooo interactive. It's the best science museum. So much to do. I loved it as a kid." Those of you who read my title, you can assume that this wasn't the case.

I liked it, she liked it, but she was also disappointed.

The day ended with a "traditional German" doner kebab. 

Another museum?!?!?

Apparently we're museum addicts....kinda.

A similar start to the day but a little bit more delayed so that was nice.

We headed to a toy museum cause we read about it online the day before. 

Long (not really) story short, it wasn't worth it. It was a 'personal' collection so there wasn't any discounts, not many toys to begin with, but also very very creepy. Not my favorite part of this trip. 

You would think for 4 euros there'd be more than 3 tiny rooms as big as my bathroom (prbly not but you get my point). This does not deserve images.

This followed with something I enjoyed. I hope Ksen did too XD

We went the pride(according to me) of Munich, the BMW museum.

Pretty self explanatory to what it was about and was in there but and interesting event happened.

Ksen banged her head on the corner  of a locker that she opened while standing up. 

Sooo technically she hurt herself...poor child. Pat pat. The aftermath:

She has a dumpling on her head

Back to BMW: Here are some of my favorites

The lights aren't actually on! Just a reflection from the flash

Random Ksen Moment #1

Twas a nice day.

- GK

2017 Germany Trip #5 - April 6th

Today we have set out on our way to Munich. Easier said that done.While the morning packing and leaving the house went very smoothly, our plans were interrupted by a major mistake on the way to the Main Train Station. We took the tram and had to stamp our tickets on the way in. Forgetting to do that before sitting down, we had no chance to act before suddenly ticket control people went in right behind us. And BAM no excuses or explanations were listened to and we were written a 60 Euro fine EACH! Well that throws our budget out the window…Oh well, after that behind us, we bought ourselves some breakfast and boarded our ICE (German Speed Train) to Munich. Two and a half hours later we arrived at the Munich Main Station. While we were super lucky with the weather all the days even to the point of walking around in just T-Shirts outside, it was freezing today. Wearing 3 layers my hands were still getting numb – so our city centre touring consisted of regular shop visits to warm up.
Munich is visibly a very different city from Stuttgart, for some reason Geo and I had a feeling that it felt greyer. However, there are loads of pretty amazing sights that we have captured in our photographs. We also enjoyed a traditional German meal of half a pork knuckle and a hunter’s schnitzel.The day was nice and relaxing, just taking in the city with its sights and shops and getting the feel for the surroundings.

-KK

2017 Germany Trip #4- April 5th

Porsche Porsche Porsche!!! (among other inferior things)

But first...

After the pain of waking up early on the third day today started with a nice late(ish) morning.

In other words, how human should live.

This lead to a couple of hours of watching youtube just waiting for lunch time. 

Ksen has been excited for this particular lunch for ages now.

Strangely this menu was....*drum roll*.... German Chinese, also known as take out central. 

In buffet format 'The New Shanghai Restaurant' had pretty much all take out chinese food in actual tasty format. Not bad indeed. 

After filling our stomachs more than they were humanly designed to, we headed to the hospital to visit Ksen's grandma. She was released today, I'm not doctor but I think it's a good thing. Yay!

This followed with the most anticipated event of the day, (at least for me) we headed to the PORSCHE MUSEUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HUMAN....but why you stand there..

We looked around EVERYWHERE. More like I looked around for cars and Ksen looked for chairs.

Really nice building, 2 floors, and took us 2 hours. Everything was beautiful. 

But there was a singular, sinful Audi. Disgrace.

I took photos like a crazy person, and I'm guessing Ksen wasn't as enthusiastic XD

There was everything from hyper-cars to tractors. Take a look humans:

After a couple hours of fan-boying over the Porsches we went down to the museum shop. 

I bought a gift for my dad....but guess who didn't?  (the answer can be identified by looking at the writer of yesterday's blog post)

We decided to end the day with a chill activity (as it seems to have been the unofficial theme of the day). We headed to the mineral water park/spa. Naturally there aren't any pictures here cause you know, other people would probably freak. But bottom line, it was chill.

So that's it for today. Tomorrow we're heading to Munich so hoping there's wifi there. 

- GK

2017 Germany trip #3 - April 4th

So you are probably wondering why there wasn't a blog post last night. Well - we were tired XD Yesterday we went to the theme park "Europa Park". It is a huge park with loads of regions based on European countries. Of course there was no way to go on all the attractions in one day, but to be fair most we have grown out of (even though some looked VERY tempting).

But let's rewind to the beginning of the day.

My grandma was so nice to actually write us a schedule of trams and trains we needed to get, so that we would arrived to the long distance bus we needed to take with some time to spare. This would mean that we would have to leave the house at 6.20 in the morning (super early already), but if you know me, you'll guess that I would not go with this plan. I get super panicky about being on time, and as we only had this one chance to take this bus to the theme park, I wanted to leave earlier. However that meant waking up at 6.... even I, who usually wakes up quite early, was not happy when the alarm clock rang. My sleepy head boyfriend (who by the way is asleep as I'm writing this) was not amused indeed. But even in his sleepy and grumpy state he was still excited for all the roller coasters so away we went in the cold and dark eagerly awaiting sunrise.

With the travel plan written out we had no trouble finding the trains we needed to take. And instead of arriving 20 minutes before the needed bus like my grandma planned we arrived 40 mins too early. Well, this gave us time to buy some German pastries for breakfast and eat them before the bus arrived.

Then the most exciting part of the bus ride: the Autobahn. This is a German highway which is famous for not having any speed limits. You should have seen the excitement and sparkle in Geo' s eyes as the cars raced by the window. After the initial excitement we faced the disappointment of dense traffic and also sleepiness. For the rest of the 2 and a half hour bus ride we slept.

And then there it was: the entrance of the park. The day before in preparation for all the rides, I had bought some medical chewing gum containing medicine to prevent motion sickness. Eagerly chewing on my gum, I joined Geo in the line to the park. But then I say line, there was no line! While there were still many people considering that it was a non holiday Tuesday the park visitor numbers we very manageable!!!

Geo and I like roller coasters the most so we right away headed in the direction of the biggest one. On the way there we popped into a ghost house, which started off with a terrifying walking section and a non scary ride section. A little underwhelmed by the second part of the horror house we continued to the Silver Star, this Mercedes-Benz themes roller coaster is the tallest of them all. With a height of 73 metres and a maximum speed of 130 km/h it was truly terrifying. They also had the cool option to line up for the first row of the roller coaster only, and while the wait is longer we still decided to join that line, as sitting at the very front gives you the full experience. Even in the longer line our wait was not quite half an hour, which is nothing for a good ride. Geo had the best seat (and I wouldn't have wanted it, I was scared enough) which was the left edge of th3 front row. This seat seemed to be free floating as the rails ended at my seat. Of course that helped the adrenaline and made the ride even better. It's hard to describe how scary and at the same time amazing the feeling is, but just know that at the first huge drop I held my breath because it was so steep and fast! It was one of the most exciting rides, so Geo and I revisited it at the end of the day for round 2 before we left the park. On the second go we sat in the middle to feel the difference. Of course we were a lot more chill as we already knew what was coming and sitting in the middle and seeing seats in front of you rather than the drop made it less scary too. However, it also added an element of surprise as we couldn't see the drops coming and we're suddenly falling with no preparation.

We went on all the other existent roller coasters in the park which if I am not wrong are an additional 7 of them. The highlights were the Russian Space ship themed one, as it consisted of turning wagons, which meant going half the way backwards and the in the Island section Gazprom one, as it accelerates from 0 to 100 in 2.5 second and has loads of twists and turns (with a loop too).

We also went to a few twisty rides like teacups and Viking to test how good my anti sickness chewing gum was and I must say - it worked surprisingly well!

Another memorable experience was the VR roller coaster. This is basically a rollercoaster ride while wearing the gear over your eyes. While at first being sceptical about the cartoon drawing style of the surroundings the ride turned out to be super fun! As the glasses show you a completely different reality you have a totally different perception of the ride. For example at the beginning it looked like we were going perfectly straight, but when a witch arrived and broke the rails we suddenly started falling, which coincided with the fall of the roller coaster. It was really fun. 

We spend most money on food (of course we did XD)  eating loads of different foods from all over Europe - Gyros in Greece, Raclette in Switzerland and so on. We also spent some money on an arcade which was super fun and scarily addicting XD

All in all it was a great day. We arrived home at 10 pm and were just too tired for the blog. I hope that now you see why.

-KK

2017 Germany Trip #2 - April 3rd

Today we went to the Zoo *sparkly eyes* Geo is not as excited about Zoos as I am, but I think he still enjoyed the day. We did A LOT of walking and spent like 6 hours in the Zoo and then some more in the city centre. Of course we visited grandma and had our usual rest in the evening.

We started the day quite early by leaving the house at 9. We bought ourselves water, bread and sausages to eat in the park and the day began! Unfortunately it seems German busses are not as punctual as they pretend to be, but we got to the Zoo quite quickly and began our walk around. From here on I will leave you with a wonderful gallery of some of our favourite shots:

Spring is in full blast now, everything was blooming, the weather was amazing and the birds were building their nests.

Peacock was screaming his mating call all day. Surprisingly loud. Bright side - he opened his tail!

We found this cool bungalow to have our lunch in. 

Not sure what this animal is called but he had joined us for lunch

One of our dozens of meerkat pictures - yeah dozens no kidding. They were soooooo adorable! 

This ostrich must have been very bored because it kept putting its head through the fence XD

Yawning hippo

Sealion feeding with some tricks ^~^

Geo trying to be a friend with nature

BABY SLOTH *~*

Okay so Blogspot is giving up on me apparently so captions stopped working. This is a Bushdog. They were super cute and Geo managed to capture the cute look they had on their face while strolling around their home.

Lastly one of the many beautiful pictures Geo took of me:

The Magnolia trees are all blooming, so the park was gorgeous.

We walked around the city centre and then went to a German restaurant so eat some traditional food. Geo had Sauerbraten with Klossen, which is a type of roast beef with cooked bread dumplings. I had Kaesespaetzle which is a special kind of noodle with cheese.

It was a wonderful day and now we are really tired. It is time to sleep and get some rest before our day at Europa Park (a themepark) tomorrow!

-KK

2017 Germany Trip #1- April 2nd

Back-Story

It's been a while since I've written on this blog, and I had my reasons.

I was lazy unlike Ksenia who has occasionally posted every so often. So hi, I'm back.

We had been planning on going on a trip during this easter break for awhile and decided on Germany for many a reasons, but the biggest being......Ksenia wanted to. 

Consequently Ksenia plans everything cause she's so good at these things (and I have no skillz)

After weeks of dreadful examinations, tests, coursework, and lecturers blabbering on...

IT'S FINALLY EASTER and here we go~.....?

I got off a week earlier than Ksen so I stayed at her place for almost a week to wait till she was done (yay us). And NOW we go ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Off We Levitate(in a metal cylindar) to Stuttgart!

April 2nd 2017

We leave Ksen's accommodations in the (too early for me) morning to Manchester Airport

As a result we arrive 2 hours before our promised departure time (like the civilized people we are)

Both of us in a starving state, we walk through terminal 3 looking for breakfast, and we end up at this restaurant called 'trattoria milano'. It sounds Italian right? Well they sell English breakfast so you make the call. I think Ksen wanted a  before picture but....we were too hungry so here's the aftermath:

Now we just wait for RyanAir to announce the gate we should be at.....

Flight FR3246 RyanAir, Manchester to Stuttgart, Departing at 12:30....12:35.....12:37.....12:54...

Eventually, gate 46 is announced so we slowly make our way that way. There were SO many people. 

Ksen decided to sit down while I stood and waited till we could board our plane (traitor XD )

Boarded the plane, the flight was decent, then comes the landing....

This captain needs some revision classes on smooth landings because the second we touched the ground everyone pretty much jumped cause of the wheels smashing onto the ground XD

Moral of this anecdote, not all pilots are created equal...to say the least.

And like that HELLO GERMANY~~

Post-Flight Journey

The first thing we had to do was visit Ksen's grand to get the keys to her house.

This lead us to go on the S3 train from the airport to the main station, Hauptbahnhof

So that was nice, always interesting to see different hospitals...i guess?

After the short family reunion, Ksen gave her grandma the gift I got for her we slowly headed to her house to ditch our stuff for the day. 

We had ice-cream and sandwiches on the way, but since I do not have photos of either of these 2 things I'll act like it didn't happen in this blog. Cause it's not fun without photos is it? XD

Due to a classified(?) we weren't really hungry for dinner so we decided to go on a short walk in a close by park. By this point the sun had set so our cameras were pretty much useless, either way enjoy the somewhat creepy pictures: 

Always capturing the best...thanks Ksen.

And now we sleep cause we are boring.

- GK