So, I realize I completely deserted my blog.. so much for my claims of using it whenever possible. But I'll try and improve, really! Its just that I've been really busy with school and my social life and whatnot, so blogging was just not an option at the time. But I'm back now and that's what really matters right?
Since I've been so horrible with updating, I'm going to reward you all with some stories from my vacation so hopefully you won't be too bored out of your mind.
Anyway, this summer, the fam and I went to Europe to visit our family. Now, I'm originally from Belarus, but I relocated to Canada a few days after I turned eight. My grandparents moved to Germany when I was four, so their place has always been like a home away from home for me. Even now, it's still more home-y than Canada and I've been here for almost ten years...
Back to topic. So pretty much, we went to visit my grandparents in Jena. Its pronounced Yena in German but they spell it Jena so.. I honestly have no idea what its called in English. We spent a night there I believe, then packed our bags and our grandparents, and drove off to see my uncle. He used to live with my grandparents, but his work took him to the opposite side of Germany so he moved out a few months prior to our visit. We were due to visit him for a night or two, meet his girlfriend, then move on so we did just that.
The drive there was roughly 5 hours, and it was a really bad car ride. Fortunately, we rented a big car, but still, six people cramped together for that amount of time is really stressful. My dad and grandpa were sitting in front since they were manly men; my mom, grandma and I in the middle, and my little brother in the back with all the stuff. Not even halfway through the ride, the little kid starts complaining about how he's car sick and doesn't have enough space despite being the smallest person in the car. So me, being the lovely, kindhearted person that I am, offered to switch seats with him. I then spent the next 4 hours in the most uncomfortable sitting position that a human body will ever have to endure.
Now, my uncle lives in a small city, which I totally forgot the name of. Its pleasant but its honestly really small... like the center is one street that's what.. 500 meters in length? The road in the center is paved with stones, and the ice cream there is absolutely amazing.
Aside from my grandparents, this was my family's first time meeting my uncle's girlfriend. Quite honestly.. I expected more. She's like seven years younger than him, which makes her only three years older than me. Personally, I find that really creepy since I consider my uncle to be an old man. Plus, while he works shifts from like 5am to 5pm, all she does is sit at home and wait for him to return. I'm sorry but what? She doesn't work or go to school. She can't cook and cleaning is not an option. So pretty much, she sits on her ass all day and waits for my uncle to come home, make food for them and entertain her. Unforgivable. My mom told me I should be nicer to her when I told her I hope they don't marry, since apparently she loves him a lot. I just told her that if she really loved him, she would try and make things easier for him or at least care for him in some way.
Moving on. My parents, my brother, grandparents, uncle, his girlfriend (although I could think of better words) and I all went to a restaurant in the center. The food was stunning, and the beer was actually so good even though I don't like beer. But then again, that's kind of expected of Bavaria, which has been making original beer for god knows how long.
After we parted ways with my uncle, we went to some other city about an hour and a half away. I don't really remember the name off of the top of my head, but its one of the places where you can get a ferry to Ludwig's Castle, so maybe someone knows it. For some godforsaken reason, my mom invited my uncle's ... girlfriend along. That just made my day full of rainbows and sunshine and prancing unicorns.
We had some food, which was really cheap and absolutely delightful, then jumped on the ferry to visit the castle. I've never really been one for history, so it was kind of boring, but I just shut up and ate my lemon ice cream while the family ran around like lunatics with their cameras. That day was pretty uneventful and it was over pretty fast, so needless to say, the girlfriend is still alive.
Once we got back, we spent a final afternoon with my uncle, who, being the irresponsible, immature adult that he was, gave my 10 year old brother his moped. Obviously, the kid was thrilled, and almost drove off into the sunset had my mother not yelled at my dad to accompany him. I just spent that evening following around a cat while the adults all chatted, so it was an evening well spent I guess. Soon after, we bid our farewells to our uncle and left.
The next city we went to was Salzburg. Now, I actually remember this because Salz means salt and Burg means a strong building, somewhat like a castle. The city was actually so pretty, it was kind of built into a mountain so the different levels of the streets looked amazing. Now, our major issue here was that our hotel had no roads leading to it, so we had to park inside the mountain, then somehow find our way up to the top. We were told there was an elevator that takes us straight up to the top of the mountain, where our hotel is, but our information source failed to mention that you had to pay every frigging time you used the elevator since it was a part of a museum. So pretty much, it was 10 euros per person to go up, and come back down. We all found this absolutely ridiculous since no way were we paying such crazy prices just to get to our damn room.
Anyway, we bought tickets up to at least see where we would be staying and hopefully find other means of getting there other than the overpriced elevator. As it turns out, the elevator is a part of museum, so the prices were actually museum entry tickets which just came along with the elevator. In order to get to our hotel, you had to exit the museum on the mountain, then walk upwards a kilometer or so until there was a small restaurant. We were all very confused as to where exactly we were supposed to sleep, until they told us the restaurant was also a lodge. So we went into the restaurant, and up the stairs where there were about six rooms or so. Unfortunately, ours wasn't one of them. At the far end of the hallway, there was a scary, suspicious looking winding staircase, which we were told to take. Following instructions, we all smushed onto the sketchy stairs, and at the top, found ourselves face to face with nothing but a door. Seriously. On the right of us was a wall, on the left was a space, which if you happened to fall from, you'd land on the beginning of the stairs, and there was literally just a door in front of us. So we opened it, and stupid architects decided to make the door open outwards, so we all nearly died on that staircase trying to get into the room. Simply put, we ended up sleeping in what would be considered an attic, but it was pleasant inside and the view was good so we managed.
The city itself was really nice and I liked exploring it. We bought a lot of ice cream, had some coffee (because my mom was complaining that if she didn't have a cappuccino in the near future she would surely die) and met up with my uncle and his girlfriend for dinner. My uncle was really pissed since he came from work tired, and my grandpa dragged him out here to spend some time with us, at it was a three hour drive away so he was really hungry and mad. In his fit of rage, he stormed away from us to look for food, and ended up picking the most expensive restaurant since it faced Mozart's house. Whatever, at least the waiters were ridiculously hot.
I was told the food was good, but I didn't eat anything since I really wasn't in the mood, not to mention it was late. My brother spent the whole time entertaining a little Japanese boy, who was sitting right behind us, of about three years of age. The two were really immature about it and the kid just kept giggling and smacking my brother on the head with a spoon, who just made weird faces in return. After dinner, we were all dead tired, but we still went for a walk around the city. Now, what really pissed me off, was that not only that my uncle showed up in a rage-fit and dragged everyone to a restaurant where pretty much only him and his girlfriend ate and we paid, but the whole evening he spent walking around with his girlfriend and ignoring us like it was some special date for just the two of them. Like come on, what the hell. Your relatives come from overseas to visit you, and you don't even care to spend a little more time with them, and instead just mack on your girlfriend for the night? Ridiculous.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. There really was another way to get to our hotel. It just required climbing about six large sets of stairs up a mountain. Lovely. So because of that, we couldn't drag our suitcases up there and had to be very limited with what we brought to our room.
The next morning, we had breakfast at the lodge thing. It was simple, just some juice or coffee with some self-serve stuff to make bagels with. The view was nice but like it was really foggy and hard to see, so not much of it could be enjoyed. Soon after, we packed up what stuff we brought with us to our room and headed back to our car so that we could continue onto Italy.
Stay turned for part two coming soon!
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