Back again!

Well I’m back to Europe again after a short break in the United States. So far I have had no problems this time—knock on plastic—I don’t think there’s any wood on the airplane. I did have a small incident with my luggage in New Orleans. My bag weighed 77 lbs., and it’s not supposed to weigh over 50 lbs without an extra fee. I knew it was heavy, but I didn’t know it was that heavy. So I asked for a box to put stuff in. It was nice that they had one, and that it didn’t cost me anything, but it still will never make sense to me why you can’t put all the weight in one checked item. You would think it would be easier for them to handle.

At the Oslo airport, I met up with Espen before he flew back to where he’s working. The luggage took forever to come out, so we didn’t have too much time to talk. Then I took a train to Sandefjord, where I stayed one night at his mom’s house. That night, I went to visit Bjorn Simen who I also lived/traveled with in Argentina. He had invited some friends over to play poker. The buy in was about $30 USD or more, so I decided not to play. I got back home around midnight, and didn’t get to sleep for another hour. I set my alarm for 9 AM, but I didn’t get out of bed until 10. Then I checked my flight times, and I needed to be at the airport at 11—luckily the airport’s just 10 minutes away. I was really worried that I would be charged a lot for having two bags plus my snowboard bag, but they didn’t charge me anything.

Well I would have asked for my money back, because one of my bags didn’t arrive in Munich—the only one that I really needed, of course. But everything ended up alright because it probably wouldn’t have fit in the car anyway. It was nice because as soon as I left the baggage area, Joelle and Paul were waiting for me with a beer—warm, because my plane was late coming in. Once we got in the car, they said we were going to Oktoberfest in Munich, and then we were going to drive to Innsbruck.

Oktoberfest was pretty incredible. It’s like Mardi Gras except the official purpose is to drink beer. They have about 15 or more huge tents owned by the breweries that serve beer in one liter glasses, and then they have an amusement park about the size of a Six Flags—big roller coasters and all—that is just temporarily put up for the festival.

We didn’t stay too late, but vowed to come back next weekend by train and with more friends.
Oh yeah, and school. On Monday we started the paperwork for residency visas and such, but classes don’t start until next week. I’ll get some pictures up soon!

Tchuss!