MELODY TIENYUN

Flying Ryan Air 

Since I didn’t go home over the break, my sister and our friend Jason flew from LA to London a few days before Christmas for our UK/Euro holiday trip. Our first stop: Munich, Germany.

If you didn’t already know, Ryan Air offers some of the cheapest, and I mean dirt cheap plane tickets throughout Europe, so expectations for the comfort level and space shouldn’t be too high. Sometimes I can hardly believe that there are £5 tickets out there. That’s cheaper than the ride to the airport! But our flights weren’t that cheap since it was the peak of the holiday season. Our flight was at 6:30 AM and we took the night bus before 4AM to catch the Stansted express to the airport.

That morning, it was catastrophic. Not only because hundreds of tourists crowded the place, but Ryanair’s computer systems had all crashed. Thinking we would miss our flight, we ran to what was essentially the last gate in the whole place, sweat dripping and out of breath, only to find that all their flights had been delayed. Queues were all over the place with panic stricken passengers trying to find which one was theirs.

They checked us in by scribbling an “OK Visa” on our boarding pass. What a hot mess. Nonetheless, we made it to Memmingen. It was a quiet, beautiful area in Bavaria, but we had to take an bus transfer to get us to the city centre. For convenience sake-I’d probably fly to FSJ next time.

München Freiheit

It was the first time any of us had been in Eastern Europe/Bavaria, and we really had no expectations and weren’t too sure what we were doing. The weeks leading up, we would see Instagram pictures of the Christmas markets and that’s really all we heard from others who talk about Germany during this time.

There were few tourists here, and this market had a very local vibe. Since none of us could read German, we used a Google translate app to read menus to figure out what the food items were called.

Our hosts emailed us and recommended 2 markets, they heard that this one was the best by local’s standards, München Freiheit, and the second most popular was located in Marienplatz.

At only 2 in the afternoon, we had been up and about with our backpacks for 11 hours already and our shoulders were feeling the strain. It was time to refuel and try all the local eats! 

Seeing all the fresh breads and smelling the meats made our mouth water as we walked past. We did try the traditional bratwursts, but this roast pork sandwich was the winner for us. I think it’s safe to say this was the best pork sandwich I had ever had in my life. 

At 6 PM we were already tired from the day’s traveling and walking, but we were meeting our hosts for dinner by the town hall. Having never seen a picture of our aunt’s friend, I told my sister, “We’ll just look for the Asian lady.” Sure enough, I spotted Ann and her German husband, Gus, for dinner.

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They spoiled us with plates of traditional German/ Bavarian foods. It was my first time having non-Chinese dumplings! 

Sauerkraut is basically like Korean kimchi.- Gus

 Marienplatz New Town Hall lit up for Christmas!

They weren’t kidding about that 1 PM closing time for the Christmas markets-the next day almost everything was torn down and packed up by 3-4 PM!