So our last day of planned activities…wow. This trip flew by. Today was a pretty early day because we were going to get a traditional Bavarian breakfast. Traditional Bavarian breakfast consists of Weißwurst (white sausage), pretzels and wheat beer. Obviously we didn’t have the beer but we tried everything else. It was really funny because when we got there, the bus driver joined us for breakfast which is okay but no one knew who he was, so we were all confused as to who the old guy sitting next to us was. They brought out the Weißwurst in a metal bowl filled with hot water and sausages. It was odd but interesting. For some reason, that I don’t know, you have to cut the casing off of Weißwurst before you eat them, so I cut my casing off and tried it. My first impression was that it was weird. It had a lot of herbs and seasonings in it, but the most prominent thing that I tasted was lemon which I really didn’t like. However, I felt that I had to finish at least one sausage, just to say that I did. So I did. It was kinda gross but I felt accomplished afterwards. Some people liked it though.

Anyways, we finished up at the breakfast, we hopped on the bus and headed to a town called Oberammergau (aka Obama Home as some people have pronounced it). Once we got there, there wasn’t really anything planned besides giving us free time to do whatever. Naturally, we got ice cream first. Then me, Lexi and Lara (one of the German students from my group) decided to walk down a bit to see if we could get a better picture of the Alps. We did, but on the way back, we took this road that we thought would bring us back to the meeting place. We kept walking and we ran into a horse, but then we realized that we didn’t actually know where we were, so we had to pull out google maps to get us back haha. It was definitely an interesting exploration of the town.

From Oberammergau, we were supposed to take a gondola ride up to the top of the Laber Mountain to look at the view. However, since it was super cloudy and there wasn’t much visibility, Dr. Feick and Arielle were talking about maybe not doing it. That was not gonna slide. We were going up that gondola whether we could see or not. Thankfully they agreed with us and we did get to go. Now, I was thinking it would be something like the inclines in Pittsburgh, but it was not. We get there and it’s more like an enclosed ski lift, but you don’t get to sit. So, like 8 of us get into the gondola and off we go. Up the mountain. It didn’t look that high from the bottom, but once we were on the gondola, you could truly see how high it was. The line just kept getting longer and longer, like there might never be an end. Finally, after stopping at a plateaued area with a sketchy sign, we could see the top.

We were over 5000 feet up. Since my group was the first ones to go up, we couldn’t see anything from up there, because the clouds hadn’t cleared up yet. It was interesting though because only one side of the overlook had a gate. Naturally, Gemma decided to walk down a bit on the side that wasn’t gated and after realizing how high up and dangerous it was, she tried climbing back up but tripped multiple times. Don’t worry, we recorded it of course. Oh yeah and she’s fine haha.

After about 20 minutes everyone was up the mountain, so we got a group picture and spent another 30 minutes (probably more) taking pictures of each other. I mean how could you not, the view was AMAZING! Then, when it was time to leave, we all headed back to the station to go back down the mountain. Almost everyone had left and all of the sudden, Liam walks through the doors. No one had any idea that he was missing and we almost left without him! Thankfully we didn’t but it was still pretty funny.

Coming down, my ears didn’t do so great with the pressure changes and they were refusing to pop. I tried everything, chewing gum, yawning, blowing while covering my nose, but nothing worked. It wasn’t until 12:45 tonight that they finally popped…

So, we get back to the hotel around 4:30, but the farewell dinner wasn’t until 6:30, so we had some time to waste. Me and Ally decided to go to the grocery store and buy a ton of candy to take home for our families. On the way back, we also stopped and got this really good iced coffee (it was literally the only place we could find, that wasn’t Dunkin Donuts, that had iced coffee). Then, we played some cards and it was time to go to the farewell dinner. As a way for the German students to commemorate this experience, all of the Pittsburgh students got them something small from Pittsburgh. My group got all of them t-shirts that we gave to them after the dinner. Unfortunately only 2 of the 3 German students from my group were able to make it to the dinner, so we decided to meet up with the other one later that night to say our final goodbyes 🙁 It was so sad saying goodbye to them because it’s unreal how close we got with them, but it was still fun getting to hang out with everyone outside of the program.

We spent the night hanging out with the German students and it was a great way to say goodbye! By the time we were done, though, it was past midnight and we have an early morning tomorrow, so we all headed back to the hotel and went to bed.  Only one more day in Germany. This is crazy. I’m not ready to leave, but it truly has been the experience of a lifetime. Tomorrow most of us (myself included) are using our free day to go to Salzburg, Austria, so stay tuned to see how that goes!! Ta ta for now!