Today we all got up early to pack our bags. We'd stayed out quite late the night before, and I probably managed to get about an hour's sleep. But there was no time to be tired... we were too excited at the prospect of INDEPENDENT TRAVEL!!!!! Independent travel is another wonderful invention of our exchange program... although probably not so much of an invention as an idea. It basically means that we get about a week to travel around Germany and go wherever we want, do whatever we want, usw... The only rules are that we have to stay in a group of three or four, and Lachie has to have a copy of our plans, which basically means we scribbled down a few Youth Hostel numbers on our last day of camp. Everyone was planning to go to München first, namely because you have to go to München to get to anywhere else in Germany from where we are, and also because München is one of the best cities in Germany. It was kind of bittersweet for me though, 'cause I live here, but it also meant that I got to go home this afternoon and swap some of my stuff over... which meant my bag for independent travel was lighter... yay! Anyway, Emma, Hannah, Kerstin, und ich got the train together back to München. Kerstin was still pissed off at me for her strange German reasons which I decided not to dwell on. But I think I figured out what was wrong. The whole of the time I've been staying with her, she's had the power. She's the one of understands the language we've been talking, she's the one who knows how to get to9 some place we're going to, she's the one who... usw... But at winter camp she got to see me how I'm like when I'm with Ozzies. She realised that I have just as much power as her, maybe more, that I'm older, and, what's more, we were speaking English. So I think that's the point where our relationship changed, and probably for the better. The tension of Winter Camp came to a head as we were walking towards our youth hostel, I think Kerstin was trying to get herself back into the role of knowing things I didn't, unfortunately for her I'm actually quite a logical person and so it didn't actually work 'cause I was saying some rather intelligent things. Anyway, we had a bit of a bitch fight which ended in me storming away from her, afterwhich she came and found me and apologised. So that was good, it felt like we actually resolved something.

Anyway, then I said goodbye to Hannah and Emma to go home for a bit, and on the S-Bahn on the way home we ran into some other people in our group (Caryn, Vic, Cam, David, James, Matt, usw...). They're staying in the same youth hostel as us, but as our group starts to travel around Germany, we're going to branch off a bit. That's the plan, anyway.

When I got home I quickly packed and changed (we were going out to dinner for Catherine's 18th) and got the S-Bahn back to Hbf so I could drop off my bag. But the problem was I had been running late for the bus from my house to Karlsfeld Station, so I practically sprinted to the Haltstelle wearing a VERY short dress, heels, and a massive backpacker's bag on my back. An interesting sight, I'm sure.

When I got to the youth hostel I met up with Lachie, Brittany, Tom, and Adrian, and we walked to meet the others in Marienplatz. Then we went to the Hofbräuhaus for Catherine's Geburtstag. It was really cool, I'd only ever been in the Hofbräuhaus to look at it, but I'd never eaten there. But it's such a good experience to have. They give you all these typical Bavarian foods, a women walks around selling giant pretzels, and most people are wearing lederhosen. The band is also really cool, they played Waltzing Matilda 'cause us and another group of Ozzies was there, and then we all chipped in to get them to play Happy Birthday to Catherine. That was cool. We explored the balcony and the locked-up beer steins, and then as our parting gift to the Hofbräuhaus we sang the GASS song right at the entrance... that was really embarrassing, I'm not sure why we did that, all I know is that when you're with Lachie, anything can happen. Anyway, at the end everybody cheered which was cool, and then we all got the hell out of there as fast as we could.

Lachie decided that we had to have the experience of drinking beer in McDonald's, so after that we went to a McDonald's and bought beer. 'Cause you know, we hadn't just been at the Hofbräuhaus or anything... But actually that WAS pretty cool. McDonald's beer isn't that bad and it's pretty cheap. Then on the way back to the youth hostel we decided to take lots of random photos (once again I'm sure this had something to do with Lachie) , like of ALL of us standing on a warthog, or us just gazing up at the Frauenkirche. Some people walked past and laughed at us, then a taxi driver pretended to steal our cameras. That was strange. Maybe he actually wanted to steal our cameras, I'm not sure.

Anyway, then we went back to the youth hostel and went to the bar there. Youth hostels are really cool places, the bars are cool, there's lounges and pool tables, the drinks are REALLY cheap (and good), and you stop feeling like you're in Germany 'cause everything's in English and you get to meet all these other travellers who speak ENGLISH to you. Anyway, we spent the rest of the night there, slowly peeling off to go to bed when we felt like it. We played pool and drinking games and cards and drinking games with cards. Then last drinks were called and James, Brittany, Adrian, und ich felt proud 'cause we'd lasted 'til last drinks. Which is a cool feeling. Then we started going upstairs but decided to sit down in the middle of the stairwell and finish our conversation first. Not sure why. Eventually James and I said goodnight to Brittany and Adrian and went off to our room.

I'd stopped being pissed off about 'wasting' free travel time in München 'cause it was a totally different experience doing it as a tourist with other Ozzies and living there as an exchange student.