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Hello!

Welcome to Often Away. I use this space to document my travels and hope you are inspired to get up and move!

Two Broke Girls in Germany

Two Broke Girls in Germany

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Growing up in a family with travel perks has definitely had a huge impact on me.  There would be mornings where my mom would wake up my sister and I are surprise us with drips to Disney and the Bahamas...not many of my friends had experiences like that.   When I was 16 I participated in an exchange program for airline employees' children.  I was able to spend two weeks in Nice, France with a girl my age.  (We're still good friends and I've seen her a few times since then!)  But one of the most recent perks was when my moms airline merged with Lufthansa. Lufthansa decided to experiment a new route on its employees and their friends/families.  The company gave away "x" amount of tickets to see how smooth everything went with a flight from JFK to Munich.

Working one day at the restaurant, I got a text from my mom asking if me and a friend wanted to go to Germany for the weekend.  (Now let's be real...how many people can say "Oh, I'm just going to Germany for the weekend", let alone a 22 year old.)  Of course, I immediately snuck into the bathroom to speed dial any friends I knew with a passport!

My trusty traveling partner in crime, Meredith, came through in the end and within an hour we had our free flight booked for Munich!

Back in 2010, I had studied abroad in Italy for four months and worked for an amazing company - Euroadventures!  While interning there, I have the opportunity to travel to Munich, Germany two weekends in a row for Fruhlingsfest (their spring beerfest).  By the time the third weekend of the trip had arrived I was asked to chaperone the trip, seeing as I was the only intern who had attended the past two weekends.  Clearly I accepted...free trip to Germany?  Beerfest?  Why not!  So at this point, I knew the tourist spots, hotels, and bars to hit up once we got there.

I booked one of my favorite hostels from my abroad experience - Wombats - and we were set for our weekend excursion to Deutschland.

We hit the ground running once we landed and wandered the city for any tourist related spots...and of course a stein of beer.  Over the weekend we met some amazing people (mostly bartenders) who had moved to Germany to work.  These ex-pats gave us great tips on where to eat, what to see, and where to stay the next time we came through.  It was also nearing Christmas on our journey so the Christkindlmarkt was set up with ice rinks, souvenir shops, and gluhwien (hot wine...fantastic).

After recovering from a 56 hour trip, I decided that I would nod to Euroadventures and make a video of our time there.  I had never played around with iMovie before, but it's definitely something I'll be looking to do in the future.  Scrap booking is fun, but watching your life replay is something else.

Check out our weekend of fun:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbfc37a9pqn8mx1/Germany%20Two%20Broke%20Girls%202.dv

A Week of Luxury (for less)

A Week of Luxury (for less)

Secret Festy Snacks

Secret Festy Snacks