I've got some catching up to do.

As usual, I'm backtracking a bit, but here goes.

In early October, Mariah and Josie and I decided "what good are tier 4 Visas [our visas] if you're not going to put them to use?" Now, the ways to put a tier 4 visa to use are 1) to get a job or 2) to travel outside of the country. (This is all as opposed to the visitor pass, which supposedly just allows you to be in Scotland.)

So, we spent a day filling out job applications... Just kidding. Being the responsible "adults" that we are we decided to find the cheapest flight out of the country.

That flight ended up being on Ryanair for Memmingen, Germany. Outside of Munich.

And there we went.

We set out for the Edinburgh airport on a Thursday night (having a 6 am flight), we stayed in a 7 ilbs hostel for four hours-- that was long enough-- and then we caught the early bus to the airport.

Now, I do not speak German. Nor does Josie. And Mariah had five years in high school. Prepared?

We land at the Memmingen airport and I'm frantically asking Mariah how to say "I want a coffee" (this is vital information).

Once we get into the city we decide to take a "Free Tour." The first twenty minutes was quite informative. The tour was three hours long. But, that said, we met a very nice tour guide from China, his name was Kai, and we learned a good bit about concentration camps in China.

The second day we went to the Alps to see the Neuschwenstein Castle. And it was crazy. But honestly, it was crazy. I can't even put the experience into written words. If you ever have the chance to go see it for yourself, you should. It's like the original tourist trap. I don't know if fluorescent colors and Jesus surrounded by rainbows gives a good image to anyone. There was also a mural that resembled Snow White/ Sleeping Beauty/ Enchanted. And the paint was so... so.. so well-preserved. Needless to say, Josie and I have conspiracy theories going about the castle.

That night we tried our hardest to find German sausage. At about 8:00 we finally succeeded. We also looked for a European bar/club to have the full European experience. We finally found one, they said any drink was 11 euros. We found our way back out.

The next morning, I so wisely decided to go before Mariah and Josie and try to grab some breakfast before our bus to the airport. The bus was at 7:20. At 7:19 I was running toward the bus. The driver was glaring at me (deja vu?) and Mariah and Josie were looking at me pleadingly. Breakfast in hand, bags falling to elbows, I broke into a sprint. The whole bus stared at me as I walked on. "Yep, that just happened," I thought to myself.

Crisis averted though. We got to the airport, got on the plane, it didn't crash. And we landed safely back in Scotland, raining, cold, beautiful Scotland.

Not Neuschwanstein. Nice though!

Neuschwanstein