Enthusiasm and anxiety. I’m not sure which I felt more of when I stepped off the Easy Jet plane for my first taste of German Air. I was thrilled to be in a new country for the first time, well sort of. Visiting when you’re two years old doesn’t count in my books! After all, this was me embarking on a brand new experience with four of my closest friends – all of whom had never been to Germany before either. The anxiety had set in as soon as I looked around the airport and only saw signs written in Deutsch, which, for a person whose extent of knowledge of the language is “hello” and “bless you”, can certainly be daunting.

I refused to let that stop me from being adventurous and making the most of my two day trip to Germany. My first task was finding an ATM, because without any Euros, I might as well have just camped out at the airport for 48 hours. Fortunately we found one rather effortlessly and then set off in search of a bathroom which luckily for us the German word for “Toilette” is similar enough to the English term in order for us foreigners to figure out. After taking care of business – and raving over how clean the bathrooms were – we headed off to find a taxi. We didn’t take long to find one that could seat all five of us, but unfortunately the driver’s knowledge of English was just as basic as my knowledge of German, which admittedly, is terrible. We wondered if our entire trip would be similar to this.

Somehow we still managed to reach our bed and breakfast in the southern part of Munich, however. From then on my initial feelings of emotion after getting off the plane were unchanged. The following morning I found myself extremely excited to go tour the city and get a taste of the country’s culture- as well as their famous schnitzel’s. At the same time, the anxiety of not knowing any of the language or where a single thing in the city was remained in the fore front of my mind. My first trip to London felt like a piece of cake compared to this. Fortunately for us, we had several maps of the city and bus and train routes to help guide all of us, even if they too were all in German.

If wasn’t for the friendliness of the people it could have turned out to be a difficult weekend for all five of us. Instead, almost everyone was willing to try and give us directions and offer us advice on where to go and what to see. I can’t count how many people, even with their broken English, made an effort to help us. It was their friendliness, along with the fascinating sights in Munich that made it a weekend to remember. We were even fortunate enough to be able to attend the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, which is another story for another day!

Prost! (Cheers)