The Hawkins: September 2009

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

So again I have put the pictures and posts on backwards put I think you can get the gist! We woke Jack up from his nap after canyoning at his hostel. Not sure his friends were too happy but I had to deliver the bags of pretzels and chips I brought for him. Luckily his hostel was having happy hour with 2 for 1 beers in the bar outside. So Zann and I hung out there for a while listening to some Snoop Dog and Creed (totally what you would expect in Switzerland right?)until Jack and his friends got up. Then we headed to a hamburger place Jack's friends went to the night before and loved! The burgers were great especially the hot sauce. Jack, Zann, and I have all been craving a Five Guys burger since any kind of beef is hard to come up in Spain and Switzerland. It was a great treat and we headed to the casino. It was all great until I was sick an hour into our time at the casino and the rest of the night. I was up all night and a shared all bathroom is not the best when you are getting sick all night. So we woke up at 7:00 and took the first train back to Zurich. So not too many pictures since we were planning on Sunday being out sight seeing day. We will be back soon though!

Interlaken casino. The casino was great until the CHFs weren't coming in as fast as they were being spent and there are no free drinks at the casinos in Switzerland. Writing this I have got to thinking Zann and I have been to quite a few casinos together. Starting off at Quincy's in Aubrun, the horse tracks in Kentucky, about 7 casinos in Vegas, Lucerne, Interlaken, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few but it seems we see as many casinos as sights!

Miami gang at Balmers hostel in Interlaken

Living the high life

Jack getting close with his friends. Jack is bed # 5 out of 8

From the view out of our hostel you would think we were in a 5 star hotel.

Beautiful art work....

Our second hostel which ended up working out great!

The Happy Inn. Our first hostel.

Saturday morning we even slept in and were in Interlaken by 12:00. The scenery on the train ride was beautiful. The water in the lake was so blue and clear we thought we were in the Bahamas, minus the mountains. We were meeting up with Jack but he was on a canyoning trip with his friends so we headed to our hostel to check in. Yes, a hostel not a hotel. Our first hostel experience. Well we went to the bar to check in and realized we had booked it for Friday night....oppps. Well they were nice enough to send us down to their sister hostel who had a room for us. It was a "nice" private room but not a private bathroom. That was down the hall. But it looked clean and the sheets and blankets were all white which is very high on my list! But just in case I had packed tshirts for pillow cases and an extra blanket, but no need.

Here is the link to the canyoning trip that Jack went on. A little to crazy for me but he had a blast!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7jDxUk1g7k&feature=player_embedded

Sissor Happy

So Friday night we went to our friends house for dinner and after a couple glasses of wine I thought it would be a good idea for Zann to get a hair cut (since he had not had one since before the wedding).Yes that's over two months with out a hair cut! Milene bought clippers and has cut Mike's hair a couple times, so why not? I have to say it turned out pretty well!

The final product! The pictures are backwards, still learning how to work the blog.

Well Milene gets most of the credit. My pictures are just for show. Zann threatened to shave his head if I messed up. So I let Milene take charge.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

OKTOBERFEST!!!!

Our much anticipated trip to Munich started on the train Friday night. We packed sandwiches, pretzels, and wine (gotta love my mom for teaching me how to pack a picnic when going on a trip to save money). We got to Munich late Friday night so we just went to bed to make sure we were well rested to the big day. We were up at 5:30 Saturday morning to walk to the Oktoberfest fair grounds and wait in line to get into the tent. We meet Jack and his friends at the Haufbrauhaus tent which know to be a tourist tent. We were slammed packed with people waiting in line from 6:30 until 9:00 when the pushing to get inside started. Getting up that early definitely paid off! We had 3 tables to fit our large group (it is often hard to get one table). We were very happy to all be sitting because you are only served beer if you are sitting at a table.

Then the beer was not served until 12:00. So we stocked up on energy drink, pretzels (Jack was very happy to be eating the Sullivan family staple food again), cheese bread. It was so entertaining to walk around, people watch, and we had a great time meeting Jack's friends and catching up with him.

I loved getting to see Jack in Germany. I miss my famil so much and this put off my home sickness for a couple weeks. We kept saying how neat and how lucky we were to both be living in Europe and meet each other in a different country. We are going to meet up hopefully again this week in Interlaken.

This post is a little long but we had such a great time and want to share our first Oktoberfest experience!

Fair grounds at 6:30 AM

Yes, Zann is the only person wearing khakis. Next time we will buy the appropriate attire.

shoulder to shoulder for 2 and 1/2 hours. It got much more packed than this. Jack put his arms up to take a drink and couldn't put them down it was so crowded.

Yes! We made it

Nice healthy breakfast. Pretzel bigger than my head and an energy drink.

5,000 beer mugs ready to go

Haufbrauhaus tent

Cookie stand with many inappropriate comments

The Sullivan's favorite food.

The new brothers waiting out the time until the beer is served.

Its about that time. The parade has started. Our tables were perfect. The parade walked right by.

The opening ceremony

What we came for! First round of beers served!

How that lady carried 10 beers we still don't know. Lift one took two hand!

Finally the first beer has been served!

Cheers to 6 hours of patience!!

First Beer! So good after 6 hours of waiting!!

Sullivan's do Munich

Jack doing the German Squat (what we named his position for the day) He says the more fun he is having the more he sweats. I think he was having a pretty good time!

Having a great time!!

Walking the fairgrounds of Oktoberfest after the tent.

On Sunday we had some time for sight seeing around Munich before we left. We walked around the tourist areas. We were able to meet up with our friend Will from Auburn who is living in Munich for 3 weeks giving bike tours. It was great to see another familiar face in Germany! We got in a great American lunch at The Hard Rock Cafe for some nachos and cheese buggers before we left. The camera battery died so we don't have too many pictures of Munich.

Just pulling our suitcase while sight seeing

Bavarian Parliament

Auburn boys reunited in Munich

Here are some videos that show what was really going on.

The crowd signing "Hey Baby, I want to know if you'll be my girl" You wouldn't think it was our first beer from me singing the totally wrong words to the song and my little dance with my beer. So I'm taking the embarrassment to show off the atmosphere!

Hearing Country Roads made us very excited to be in the tent known for tourists. It reminded me of being back at Auburn.

The owner of the Hofbrauhaus leading the welcome toast which was then played through out the day about every 10 minutes. Translation is " I cheers you, I cheers you, I drink because I am happy. One Two Three Super!!"

Boxes from Home!!

Lufthansa Cargo Department with our boxes loaded up on our little dolly. Luckily I have a strong man to take care of me!!

From the day we arrived in Zurich there have been little things we haven't been able to find here and missed from home. For about a month we added things to our list of things that we wanted. Everything from winter coats, a paper towel holder, new quilt for the bed, corn bread mix, my jewelry box, soup, and many other things we missed. My parents and sister were so sweet and collected and packed everything up for us. Zann gets a good shipping rate through Lufthansa so my dad took the boxes to the airport and they traveled from DC to NY to Frankfurt on Lufthansa Cargo and were at the Zurich airport waiting for us two days after my dad sent them! We were very excited to say the least. Luckily we have our trusty little dolly from IKEA that we lugg stuff around Zurich on. And there was a surprise birthday party in the box including a funfetti cake from Susie. We are very happy to have some of the things we love again and are very excited to know we can get things sent to Zurich cheap and quickly!