"Travel is exhausting. Exhaustingly worthwhile."

This quote is from my cousin, Carlyle, from his wonderful closeout post about his European adventures this summer (like this one we did together!). I would highly recommend reading his post because he talks about a lot of worthwhile lessons learned from traveling and seeing the world. The reason that I bring up this quote, however, is because it is exceptionally descriptive of this past weekend.

Kate and her roommate Erin, who both have Fulbrights in Turkey, decided to hop over to Germany for a quick trip. It ended up being extremely quick. They were on the ground in Munich for a solid 25 hours, so we knew we had to make the most of the time! And that we did, christmas markets, shopping, international festivals, a borderline sketchy hostel, exploring Munich, a delicious brunch, more christmas markets...and plenty of hot spiced wine the whole time! It was so refreshing and fun to see Kate...and they were wonderful sports about all the traveling!

 

After saying goodbye to Kate and Erin midday on Sunday, I went to Regensburg, a cute little town where my mom spent a year abroad, and enjoyed a snowy afternoon exploring. 

When it came time to go, I got on my train like usual. And then we got stuck for five hours. That right, five hours had passed and we were hardly out of Regensburg. And then when I finally reached my next stop, the train I was supposed to take got "lost". How do you lose a train? Ask Deutsche Bahn, my new enemy. So, this left me in tears in the Frankfurt train station at 1am, with no trains leaving there til 5am. Finally, after several long lines and thanking God that I spoke as much German as I do (which is NOT much!), I was able to convince them to pay for a taxi for me. Its not as good as it seems, it was me and three random German men...and the ride home took over two hours. So, my travel time was tripled from what it should have been, and I finally got home at nearly 4 am. Like Carlyle said, travel is exhausting. But, at least I am safe and I can honestly say the weekend was worth it!

xoxo