Germany is beautiful!

Hallo!

Hello from Germany! I arrived safely yesterday morning at about 10 AM local time and have been busy ever since. We bussed from Raleigh to Washington, D.C. to Dulles Airport early on Monday morning in order to fly over to Germany. The bus ride was good... I slept... the entire time almost. So, all-in-all, bus ride = good.

We were delayed just a little bit for some computer issues that Munich had but we were able to lift off by about 9 PM and the flight was about 7 and a half hours to Munich. The flight was good, I guess. I watched the new Star Trek - hated the show but the movie is incredible! - and slept. Pretty uneventful trip up to that point, haha.

Alright, to the good stuff. Germany is beautiful! No joke. It's incredible! I have never felt more at home and comfortable in a foreign country - I'll explain in a minute. So, when you get off the plane in a different country, it really looks nothing like nothing more than an American airport and there is no difference in Germany. However, we had to bus to Regensburg from Munich and I was able to see all of the countryside of Germany.

The countryside is gorgeous. It's completely green and everything is kept up extremely well and the skies are Carolina Blue! It really made me feel like I was driving through Illinois but with hills! So, what does that make it? Iowa? ;-) There are farms everywhere. We passed by a ton of corn fields and I really felt like I was home. The whole look and feel of it was incredible. It's also like Illinois that there are a bunch of little towns. You'd drive for a bit and then you'd see a little village and then 20 minutes down the road it's another little village. Each village has group of small houses that are generally a cream in color and a copper roof and they're nestled into the hills. They had a ton of barns (not red!) and they had tractors and all kinds of farm equipment. It was all rustic and was awesome. Oh, and each town has a church tower in it that has a clock on the top and it's just so nice. The scenery was literally breathtaking and I can't even begin to tell you how it looked. Sadly I can't show you either because they put all of our luggage on a truck so that we didn't have to carry it on the bus and my camera was inside my bag. I didn't have a chance to take it out of the bag either because I was loading team equipment and someone loaded it before I got a chance. However I make sure I have my camera on me when we leave Germany so I can get pictures on the way back.

Anyway, we passed a TON of hops farms (Hops is the main ingredient in beer). They say that this area is the largest for Hops in all of Bavaria. So we had a ton of corn fields and a ton of hops farms! A beer drinkers heaven! We got to Regensburg in just about an hour and got to our hotel - we're staying at the Courtyard Marriott and it is right beside of the Danube River. The first thing we see is a giant Ferris Wheel across the river - it's a little precursor to Oktoberfest here apparently! So everyone immediately wanted to go to the festival! But instead we all checked in and moved into our rooms and had lunch (steak and potatoes - yes, please!). After that most people went out to explore the city but the staff had a dinner at the Town Hall to go to, so I wasn't able to venture yet.

We drove to downtown Regensburg (I didn't have my camera again, I am awful, I know... I really regret it) and it is maybe the cleanest and one of the most beautiful cities in the world! Once you get into the downtown area, you get to a lot of cobble stone roads and tons of alley ways that have little cafes and tons of shops. The buildings are incredible and old and in amazing shape. Fun little tidbit I learned: apparently, Regensburg was supposed to be bombed during WWII but the coordinates were misinterpreted so only the south part of the city was hit. Because of this mixup, the downtown area was completely untouched and it is the reason why the city has all of its (nearly) original infrastructure. Anyway, we got to the town hall and the mayor of Regensburg gave a speech and that was all. The inside of the buildings were like traveling in a castle! There are arch ways and tons of old paintings and it's awesome.

Once that was over, me and some of the staff went walking through the city (this is where I came to really regret not having a camera handy) and went to a restaurant called L'Osteria. First off, I had to have some beer since I was in Germany and it was alright. You can really taste how fresh the beer here is. There is a differently kind of texture and you can REALLY taste the hops! I had the Bughrest Pils and it wasn't bad! This coming from a beer-hater! We had some pizza and kept it really simple. The cafe was awesome. It was packed and they had outdoor seating so you'd sit pretty much on the cobble stone roads and it was an awesome environment! The greatest part of my night, though, was walking back to the hotel. It was about a 4 mile walk, but it was amazing. Walking down all of the alleys and through all of the different buildings at night was just awesome. Again, regretting I didn't have my camera with me, we walked through a lot of town markets and residential areas and it was one of the coolest experiences. We had to walk over about 3 bridges as well to get back, but since I love bridges, it was alright with me! We ended up walking through part of the festival but didn't go through the main part yet since we were all pretty beat.

So, my first night in Regensburg was amazing! I passed out on my computer as I was doing work, but it was totally worth it!

Today has been good so far. We got up and had a practice at the field we are playing at and now I'm back at the hotel. We have lunch at 2 and then opening ceremonies so I won't be able to venture out too much today but I will DEFINITELY be going back out with my camera in the next couple of days! Especially since we are only here through Saturday - we leave for Amsterdam on Sunday.

Anyway, this was a long post, as per usual, but I hope you enjoyed it. I can't wait to go back out and get some pictures to show you all how amazing this city is. But for now you'll just have to use your imagination!

Send my love back to everyone at home! I'll write again probably tomorrow!

Auf Wiedersehen (think of Heidi Klum saying it :-p)


THE PICTURES: 1 & 2 - The view from my hotel window; 3 - The American Troops in Germany have been very proactive with us being here. We are trying to arrange some stuff for the troops to come to our games and all kinds of stuff. Today, they sent some staff seargeants to do some interviews for the military base. 4 - Left field... nothing amazing, just another picture.