Day Thirteen: FREEDOM

Today was our day off! We have been trying to figure out what to do today since before the trip even started! Some people in the past have apparently tried taking trips to Paris or somewhere, which would be fun for the 5 minutes you'd get to spend there... But we decided to just stay in Augsburg.

We met up with a bunch of the German students in the morning for a classic white sausage breakfast. We went to the same beer garden that we had gone to during the scavenger hunt, Riegele. It was my favorite sausage yet (which is really saying something because of the number of sausages I've tried)! They were really weird to eat at first, though, because you had to peel the outer layer off... I felt I was helping a snake shed its skin... Or it was like peeling a banana. It was just a very weird experience. But it tasted delicious! AND even though I said earlier that condiments aren't very common, the sweet mustard that came with these was bomb. The weirdest part of this whole breakfast, I think, is that it came with beer. I get that Germans are known for drinking beer a lot, but first thing in the morning? Really? I did it, but I struggled with it; my stomach was not ready.

 After breakfast was our first goodbye. Lucie was taking a train to visit her sister so we had to say bye to her then, which was really hard. I didn't expect to get as close with the Pitt students who I had never met and the German students as I did, but I'm so happy I made such great friends for such a wonderful adventure.

In Bavaria, every shop, closes at 8:00 pm. Since most of our program has ended past 8:00, we haven't had a lot of time to shop in Augsburg, so we spent some time shopping. That 8:00 thing was really inconvenient. Except for restaurants, everything closed at 8:00, including grocery stores! It made it hard to do late night snacking... The only other time we had any time to shop was on Sunday, but everything is closed on Sundays! They really make it hard to shop around here... So today was a very shop-y day.

There were a lot more department stores than I thought there would be. Big chains. I expected it to be filled with little boutiques, but we didn't find any of those in mid Augsburg. Fun fact: TJ Maxx in Germany is TK Maxx. Basically all the same kind of stuff, though. We also got gelato, but don't worry it was only the first time today; there's more.

It wasn't until Alex, Sophia and I went to visit Sophia's flat that we saw he little boutiques we had been looking for. There was an adorable chocolatier that was decorated like Minnie Mouse's house. They sold every type of chocolate in every form you could imagine. Sophia lives in the back streets of Augsburg that truly felt like a movie set. Everything was covered in ivy and the streets were perfectly laid bricks.

Is this not the cutest thing ever?

The view from the bench with pink pillows

We went back to the hotel for a few hours to nap and pack, then everyone met back up at the park across the street from the hotel. At first, we got lost going there. It was easy to find the park, but once inside the park, everything seemed like a maze. Eventually, Dennis had to come save us on his bike and bring us to the spot that everyone was meeting.

One of the girls brought her grill, and everyone pitched in with meat, fruit, bread, and help. Once the fire got going, everyone put their meats on the grill, most of which were sausages, as if we didn't have enough already these past 2 weeks.  Someone brought speakers, so we had great music and even better company! Funniest part of the whole barbecue: Christian and Patrick had a tree climbing competition and there was a very clear winner. OH! And the butter! Sophia brought this herb butter to dip the bread in, and it was so so good. I started dipping everything in it--carrots, cucumbers, strawberries (the last one was a bad idea).

Someone brought dough that you would put on a stick and hold over a fire to make it bread; almost like Pillsbury but most of them ended up getting burned...

We covered a whole bench with food

All the meats

Lindsey did a "one bite" challenge with these... It's marshmallow fluff covered in hard chocolate with a wafer cookie at the bottom. It's about the size of my fist, so eating it in one bite is an impressive thing. She couldn't do it...

Way in the distance, there was a swing set, which some of us went and hung out on for a little bit. Sydney hadn't worked out at all in the last two weeks, and she's a thrower on the Pitt track team, so she wanted to get a bit of a work out. This meant a piggy back ride for me, to and from the swing set! It was a work out for me too, which I did not want... but I accepted it. I thought that the barbecue was the perfect way to wrap up a truly amazing two weeks.

Christian in a tree

If you look very closely, you can see Patrick in the tree, almost at the top. He was surprisingly swift at climbing up and back

Then Sydney and I had to get our last gelato, so Sophia drove Syd, Alex, Katie and me to the gelato place. I had to go big for my last one, so I got 3 scoops; delicious. After hanging out for a little, Sophia drove us back to the hotel to say our goodbyes. She was going to her friend's house that night, so we had to say goodbye to her early... It was just as hard as saying goodbye to Lucie.

Stracciatella, Nutella, and Mint chocolate chip

Tried to get a photo with the case but my best friend bombed it-- SEE "VERONICA'S STRUGGLE OF THE DAY"

We went to the same roof restaurant/bar that we went to a few nights ago. We just sat around and talked, pretending that we wouldn't have to really say goodbye in an hour. The German students who were left walked us all back to the hotel, where we stood in front saying goodbye for a really long time. It was just an emotional day of goodbyes...

Veronica's Struggle of the Day:
The woman working at the gelato place was quite rude, despite us giving her very good business. Something happened that I don't really know how to explain... While we were eating our gelato in front of the shop, she looked straight at me and said something odd, and I replied saying "huh?". She then grunted back at me, and I was very confused, so I just said "huh?" again. This went back and forth for about 20 seconds. There's no other way to describe this exchange than to say that we spent 20 seconds making noises at eat other. Very weird experience. Funny. But weird.