This Unimagined Life

Tag: Germany

  • Neuschwanstein Castle for my 31st!

    A few weeks after Slovenia it was my 31st birthday. Alex made me a nice breakfast and said he had to go outside and would be back in a minute. I assumed he had to go down to our basement storage for something. He’d actually taken the train to go rent a car and returned home with a shiny black Mercedes convertible. It was really unexpected and I was all smiles even though I had no idea where we were headed.

    We drove out of the city and drove along the most scenic road into the Alps. At this point I just assumed we would be going to a lake or something but suddenly I saw that postcard castle up on the mountains. We were on our way to Neuschwanstein castle which I had been wanting to see since I arrived in Munich.

    We arrived a bit early before our scheduled tour and Alex had brought some picnic food so we walked down to this beautiful lake and had some fresh berries, cheese, and champagne.

    Then we did the tour of the castle which was really interesting and worth it even with all of the tourists there. Reservations for this tour are a must! The line of people who didn’t have a reservation was unending and I can’t imagine how many hours they must’ve stood there. You can also tour another castle of King Ludwig called Hohenschwangau. We decided to just take photos from the outside but maybe it’s worth another trip back sometime.

    It’s definitely a touristy place and a bit overrated but I think it’s definitely something to be done at least once if you’re in the Munich area. Just look at these views! I highly recommend it.

    We returned to the city and Alex asked if I would mind meeting his coworkers out for dinner. His boss had planned a birthday dinner for himself and had scheduled it for this evening. Honestly I wasn’t 100% happy to be having my birthday dinner at someone else’ birthday dinner but I had just had such a wonderful day and what he had already planned was more than enough. Well I am certainly glad that was the attitude I took because we ended up having one of the best meals of my life and after everyone toasted his boss and presented their present to him they also toasted me and gave me a bottle of champagne. I was really surprised because I didn’t even know anyone knew it was my birthday. Plus I really enjoy Alex’s coworkers and it was nice to spend my birthday with a group of people out in Munich.

    A very memorable birthday for sure!

  • Life in Basel, Switzerland

    From Sunny San Diego
    to a Winter Wonderland

    I haven’t lived through a cold, snowy winter in quite awhile. No matter how much I remind myself that my roots are in NY and I’ve grown up through some of the coldest, snowiest winters its pretty easy to forget what its like after living in sunny San Diego for a few years. Point being that for me to leave such a beautiful place, with amazing friends and gorgeous weather…there must’ve been a pretty good reason. (wink wink) Of course, the fact that the place I was leaving it all for was Switzerland didn’t hurt either. 🙂

    I wasn’t very nervous about moving to Basel because I had such a great experience living in Ljubljana. I was well-versed in moving to a new country this time around. Plus, I would be with Alex and I was very excited to have someone to share all my experiences with. I thought I knew what to expect because I’d been through the transition when I moved to Ljubljana for three months. Basel ended up being an extremely different experience from Ljubljana.

    To start with I was unemployed during my time there and was working on building up some freelance work. This means my salary was unreliable and only a percentage of what I had been making. Switzerland is not the best place to live under these circumstance as the cost of living is extremely high. I found it much more difficult to explore the city and make friends because of A) the weather and B) the expense. Plus, I didn’t have an office full of lovely co-workers to socialize with every day.

    Not being used to the cold I was often unmotivated to wander around the city aimlessly to explore as I had in Ljubljana during the summer. Since I was working from home there were some days where I just felt completely cooped up in the house. I guess this is why people get cabin fever in the winter time. But eventually I got quite used to the public transportation system and got out of the house more and more. I think I would absolutely LOVE Basel in Spring, Summer and Fall. Winter of course is beautiful when it snows and is especially cozy during Nachtmarkt (the Christmas Market). It never got too cold to bear and the trains and buses were really great for getting around easily. Alex and I went on quite a few hikes on the weekends which was a really nice and inexpensive way to get to know the area.


    As I mentioned, the other challenge of getting out in Basel was cost. To meet friends out for a few drinks you could easily spend 12-15 CHF ($0.94 to the dollar) per drink, possibly more. Eating out was a lot less frequent than what I’m used to…which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for my health. Even a Burger King value meal was somewhere around 12 CHF! If you work in Switzerland then this isn’t usually a problem since Swiss salaries are generally much higher. But for me it definitely was an obstacle to getting to know Basel.

    All that being said, aside from the usual homesickness of missing my friends and family from time to time these were the only real challenges of my transition to Swiss life. And the pros far out-weighed the cons.

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