10.26.10, Ingolstadt: Have Permit - Can Travel & Beats for Charity!

Finally got our residence permits!!!

Today is one glorious day!!!

Went to Sparkasse at around lunch time to get our bank statements and headed to the Rathaus to finally submit completely our necessary documents. They were gonna have their lunch break already though so we needed to wait for around an hour and a half or so. Went to Viktualienmarkt where I again got my favorite Doner mit Pommes!!! 

Back at the Rathaus, Steph and I were internally squealing and we were so giddy as our interviewers separately finalized our permits and stuck them on our passports!!! YAY! One of the happiest moments in our lives!!! This means we can now finally travel!!!

We went to school hurriedly right after since we had a 2 pm class. Sadly, out of the 11 people who signed up for the course, only 4 of us were there to attend the first session. Miscommunication definitely in terms of the schedule! I felt bad for the professor and his 2 other associates! But it's okay. We tried to make the most out of our first Global Corporate Involvement in Education class.

After this, we went to Granada and Butch and Steph ate. I was still full from my Doner and so I just had this glass of beer:

And then I had a mini photo shoot inside the restaurant cause I was bored! Thank you Butchy!!!

I took a picture of them also cause I got hiya that it was just all of me. HAHA!

We went home to plan our Belgium - Netherlands trip quick cause we wanted to buy our Eurails(unlimited-ish international train passes) immediately in Munich and leave either by tomorrow night or Thursday early morning! Wasn't sooo bad but it was kinda a rushed plan! HAHA! We were sooooo itching to get to other countries na talaga! 

Heidi, friend of Gia's also who's now our friend na rin, organized an event for her org called Beats for Charity. It was in Maki and course, since we're such good friends(haha) we went to support her. Hung out with Steph and Butch at first and then also with Laurin, Selim and Marcel and a bunch of their friends after a while. REALLY FUN NIGHT! Butch went home early though cause he was tired. Marcel and Selim brought Steph home while Laurin brought me. They're so nice talaga I die :)

Here're some pictures from that night!!!

 Pogi naman!

 :)

Steph & Heidi

 Laurin & Selim

Pimpin' Steph

 :)

 Super sungit bouncers:))

Selim(all my friends now have crushes on him) & Marcel(him too)

Congratulations Heidi!

 

Laurin and I

 The entrance thing

 Funny guy from France!

 :)

  

<3

Tschuss!!!

10.25.10, Ingolstadt: LONG, LONG, LONG SCHOOL DAY!!!

Today, most of our classes started already. For real this time. Stress of my life.

Had to wake up at about 7 for an 8 am Services Marketing class. We found out that the schedule on the website of the school was incorrect and that this class coincided with our Customer Management class and since I honestly like the Services Marketing professor more than I do the other one, I dropped it and opted to sign up for Global Corporate Involvement in Education instead. Steph and Butch wanted to keep Customer Management and so during the break, they informed the professor of this choice and left for the 10.30 am or 11 am Customer Management class. 

Services Marketing ended at around 11:45 and I had CSR in Latin America at 12. I met the other two at the lobby where they told me that they wanted to drop na lang Customer Management cause they think also now that the Services Marketing is the way better choice. CSR was kinda boring and I didn't get to recite cause I was dying with the lecturer's monotone. Eugh. He's a nice person. Just very boring. 

After that class we had a 30 minute break and then on to our Business Fiction class which was at 2. Professor Deidrich actually surprised us when he turned out to be a fun and less severe teacher(not like when we met him last Thursday!). We all really like Business Fiction now. Light yet very mentally stimulating nonetheless! :)

At 4 or 4.30 we had moved on to our Deutsch A1 class. See? Full day!!! Ms. Susanna Wagner, our instructor, is the nicest sweetest professor I've ever had to date! We learned the basics during the session and we really are happy we're improving our skillz:))

MY TEN HOUR DAY IN SCHOOL FINALLY ENDED AFTER DEUTSCH. THANK YOU JESUS.

We passed by Ganghofer(a bookstore) at around 6 for some required books. After which, Steph and Butch headed home while I went to Muller(some one-stop store that's like a mini-grocery) for a few more school supplies. Finally! I feel like a student na:))

I left my key inside my house so I had to have Butch open my door for me when I got home. You see, we exchanged one of our two keys to the house so just in case one of us forgets/loses it, we're covered. He told me he had a surprise for me and he brought out our signed, stamped and mailed rental contracts! YAY!!! This meant that we were allowed na to get residence permits! I was so happy I dropped to the floor in a happy kind of shock! Tomorrow we could finally get our residence permits and TRAVEL! WHAT. UP.

That night, I was so tired and bored that I ended up making this video of me for my barkada:

Cover of Heartbeat by Enrique Iglesias ft. Nicole Scherzinger

 I'm sure my friends will get so irritated and that's exactly what I was going for :)) 

That's it for my day!

Tschuss!!!

10.24.10, Ingolstadt: My First non-boring Sunday night!!!

Sundays are usually bleh here in Ingolstadt and Germany in general and today was no exception. Went and heard mass with Steph. It was raining on our way there and we died with tiredness and the cold nighttime air. Steph and I went home after eating at McDonald's. See? Boring. 

Butch finally arrived from Munich today though! So that's good news! :) He stayed in Munich while Stephanie and I went home last night.

Laurin texted and invited me to go to Sausalitos to meet his other friends, talk and grab a beer and I happily obliged. Really boring talaga Sunday nights here. This was a glorious development to(grammar check!) my night! Swear! :)) 

He picked me up at around 20 or 25 past ten and we just chilled and talked in Sausalitos til about 1. I met his two friends Selim and Marcel and I found all three of them really funny and nice! Super happy I'm now kinda friends with them! We talked about Laurin's stay in the Philippines, Tagaytay, Boracay, Philippine MMDA and German Polizei, Gia and a bunch of other things. 

Outside, as we were about ready to leave, Selim and Laurin decided to have a short race. Selim won :)) I found that funny. I didn't know guys their age found boyish things fun anymore. HAHA!

Laurin brought me home and when I said I really like the songs he played in his car, he said I can give him an external hard drive and he'll copy one of his playlists for me(he's a dj). Noice!

Simple yet definitely not boring Sunday night in Ingolstadt!!! Good conversation with good people :)

Tschuss!!!

10.23.10, Munich: Munich... Again.

Woke up today to find that Butch had already left for Munich. Roxi, Cheskie and Marco who are studying now in France were visiting Germany and we were meeting up with them in Munich. Butch who is kinda close to Roxi, decided to go earlier. Steph and I followed at around 1 pm. We had a hell of a good laugh as we tried and failed to purchase a train and bus ticket from this machine right here:

We found this girl so cute cause she must've been around 8-10, riding the bus alone on the way home probably, but not without stopping first at H&M(see the green and red shopping bag beside her). Such a cutie!

When we got to the Hauptbahnhof, we met this 20s Chinese couple who offered to share a Bayern ticket with us! A Bayern ticket costs 28 Euros and is good for 5 people for 24hrs throughout all Bavarian cities. Sharing saved us some money course! We had to sit with them since the ticket was to be inspected at the train and so we ended up talking - about Ingolstadt, Germany, China, where the Asian Market was in Ingolstadt, where we could get good Chinese and Japanese food both in Munich and Ingolstadt and so on. It was the guy's birthday that day too! We took pictures but they're in Steph's cam. Will update this entry with the pictures soon! 

We got to Munich after around an hour and separated ways with the couple. Since we were buying our Eurail passes soon(provided we get our rental contracts and residence permits already), Steph and I decided to inquire at the Euraid office at the Munich Hbf about them. It took us 10-15 minutes and some unanswered 'where is...' questions to realize that this sign below actually had a map to the Reisezentrum where the counter was relocated to. We felt so stupid, we had to take a picture of the sign haha! 

Since Butch and the others were still busy going around Munich, Steph and I, who haven't had anything to eat, decided to stop by KFC for some chicken craving we needed to fulfill! 

 My huge ass meal!

 So yummy! I die!

Marienplatz that day was super super packed! I've been to Munich thrice and to Marienplatz way more times and have never seen it look so much like a busy town center. So Steph and I took a picture of the crowd. HAHA!

After some casual shopping/window shopping, we headed to Easy Palace: the hotel where the France people, including Butch, were staying. We hung around there for a while, waiting for them to get ready for dinner and some drinks. 

An hour passed and we finally headed to Hofbrauhaus which is a famous Brewery house in Munich. We passed by 'Tor' which was supposed to be a tower that used to be part of the wall surrounding Munich but was disappointed to see that it now literally is just a red brick tower. That's it. We passed by Marienplatz again on the way to Hofbrauhaus. A side street leading to the restaurant led us to this view of a paper bag-ged guy inside a Muller Bakery. We found it funny :)

Ever since my second Munich trip where I discovered their cheap gelato, whenever I'd crave for desert, I'd crave for Munich gelato. They sell it for 1 Euro a scoop and they serve it on a waffle cone. YUM!!! I had Tiramisu and so did Steph. It was around 8-10 degrees outside but I have this theory that eating something cold equalizes your body temperature with the environment's temperature and that makes it bearable to eat ice cream in this weather. Whatever. It's my theory. And in my blog, my theories are correct :)) 

We finally got to the Hofbrauhaus and I honestly feel that, for people who couldn't come to Oktoberfest, the restaurant was a good enough second alternative, a far second, but good enough :) Shared some fried pork dish with Steph. It tasted like Lechon Kawali. I MISS LECHON (KAWALI) haha! And I also got a Radler(again, beer mixed with Lemonade)! REALLY GOOD MEAL! We had a ton of fun also! It really is nice to see familiar faces in such a strange, faraway land!

The following pictures were taken at the Hofbrauhaus:

 Some Stammtisch(German for party/get-together) where the guys were all wearing overalls/pyjamas

YUUUMMM!

 Cheskie and Steph

 Butch, Roxi and I

 My Radler!

 Marco, Cheskie, Steph, Butch, Roxi and I

Roxi and I

 Ze beautiful ceiling!

At around 10:05 or so, Steph and I hurriedly said our goodbyes since we had to catch our 10:27(26?) train back to Ingolstadt. There was a freshman party at Maki that night and we were encouraged by the Welcome Team and also the International Office to go so catching the 10:27 train to arrive in Ingolstadt at around 11:30 was our best bet at making it to the event. We were definitely running late so Steph and I were running to the station. When the Germans say 27 they mean 27 and no time earlier or later than that! We were panicking while buying tickets since we got to the main train station and the ticket vending machine some time around 10:23/24 already!

Course we made our train and here are some 'mission accomplished' pictures of Steph and I!

Ze ticket

We arrived at half past 11 and Steph, who was feeling a bit tired and sick decided to not anymore go to the event. I, who have made it my mission to be a team player and really become friends with the exchange students as well as regular students at the university, still went to Maki. The music kinda sucked but at least I got to meet a ton of people and have some good conversation with them. 

 Mo and Daniel

 Marco and Leyre

 More people

And one more time with the same people

Max, our CSR in Latin America classmate, brought me home after a lengthy chat about a ton of things. 

Really long, eventful and tiring day but hey I only have 4 and a half months of JTA so I'm glad to make every day and night count! 

Tschuss!!! 

10.22.10, Ingolstadt: Last Friday Night(T.G.I.F.) - Katy Perry

"Pictures of last night
Ended up online
I'm screwed
Oh well
It's a blacked out blur
But I'm pretty sure it ruled
Damn

Last Friday night
Yeah we danced on tabletops
And we took too many shots 

But this Friday night,

Do it all again."

*My opportunity to quote a song :)) Love this song sorry!

Since I slept at around 5 or 6 am already last night, I woke up today at around 2 pm. Kinda lazy day since the weather was awful. 

Went out to buy myself a phone and to run some errands alone. Also I passed by H&M cause I was bored and got heels for 3 Euros(Php 180). Crazy. HAHA!

Kinda gulo our plan for that night cause everyone was just messaging me asking where I was and where I was going. I got so stressed. But the main plan was just that I was gonna meet Jini and Miki and that's what I stuck to!

I was chatting with Laurin(Gia's DJ friend) sometime in the evening and he was super nice and funny! Stephanie came over just because we were both bored. HAHA! She then went home to fix up and I kept on talking to Laurin lang. He even helped me pick an outfit out. It so happens that I went to his gig in a bar in Furth(near Nuremberg) during our first week here and he remembered liking my outfit and told me to wear the same thing. Now, I don't really repeat outfits so much but I kinda followed his advice. Mostly because he was so nice to have remembered my outfit that night :))

We first went to Gluck'n to chill and pre-game before going to Eiskeller. It was a good enough chill Biergarten and we liked that. At around 12.30 though, we moved to Eiskeller. Just in time cause Jini and Miki were on their way na also. 

We finally saw them and I introduced Butch and Steph and they now love the two girls as much as I do :) YAY!

My lovely friends Miki and Jini!

Friday nights at Eiskeller is ladies night so an entrance fee of 3 Euros buys you stubs worth 10 Euros and you use these for drinks. WE REALLY LIKED THAT. It was beyond sulit. HAHA!

This is Alex; All the pictures so far(before I steal from Steph and update this; my camera was dead)are from him

We had a lot of fun in Eiskeller but at around 3 am, we moved to Maki with the two girls. Steph and Butch left soon after that but I stayed with the girls.We had a bit more fun together but it didn't take too long before the brought me home na in a cab. Such nice ladies:) WE ALL REALLY LOVE THEM<3 Plus they say my name in the cutest accent ever! 

More pictures of us:

<3 you Miki

The Friday night group:)

My two best Germany buddies!!!

Tschuss!!!