14 countries, 15 months and countless adventures/experiences later...

...it's time to head back to toronto! We are moving to Toronto on September 30th. The past few months have been busy doing moving stuff, taking stuffed suitcases back to Toronto, selling furniture, trying to get our phone, television etc contracts cancelled in German (which resulted in our phones getting cancelled on the 3rd instead of 30th, our TV guys bugging us to not leave them and that they'll give us a better deal - umm, we said we're leaving the country? Or maybe we said something else because it was a German conversation after all).

And also traveling. The first week of September, we took a family trip with Umair's parents down to the South of Spain (I want to blog about it, but that will probably happen after the move!). And just this week, Umair and I went for a 6 day road trip to Croatia (blogging about this too, someday!). In fact, I'm typing this as we drive back to Munich from Croatia through the lovely Slovenia. We've been to Slovenia before. Might stop around a lake for lunch today. (we did stop by the lovely Lake Bohinj that day...yes, I wrote this post a few days ago, and finishing it off today.)

How do I feel about moving back to Toronto? I'm not sure. It's a bittersweet feeling. Toronto is home and being close to family and friends will be awesome. In fact, it'll still be a new experience for me because we'll be living in downtown and I've always wanted to live in downtown, definitely looking forward to that. But Munich is where I started my married life, and that's how I've known my married life to be uptil now. Plus all the traveling. Oh, the traveling....I definitely will miss the spontaneity of getting up and going anywhere for a weekend or even a day trip.

I am absolutely grateful to have had this amazing experience of living in Europe. To be able to learn about different cultures, travel, broaden my horizon just a little bit more. Life has been good, and kind. And a bit surreal and even unreal at times. And I've had my fair share of surreal and unreal -ness! So maybe it's time to finally end my super long vacation and get back to reality. 

Just a few things running across my mind about what I will and will not miss about life in Europe...

I will miss:

• cobblestone streets! even after living in europe for 15 months, I love walking on cobblestones, it makes me feel like I'm in ancient times.
• side street cafes/outdoor cafes/just the European cafe culture in general. Loved living right by one of the main areas of Munich, which is filled with side street cafes and shops. 

• adorable, colourful buildings.

The bright blue! The yellow! Lime green! This is Burano Island, close to Venice. Which we visited again just 2 days ago. And I haven't even blogged about the first time have I? 

• catching a train and being in a different country in as little as couple hours. where the culture is different, the language is different. 
• drinking spezi (mix of coke fanta and sprite) 
• yummy wood oven pizzas because of the many Italians in Munich. I can never go back to Pizza Pizza or Pizza Hut.
• Umair getting ready for work early morning in Barcelona, and then heading straight to work in a couple hours in Munich. Or...having breakfast in Croatia, lunch in Slovenia and dinner in Germany! (which is what we're doing today). 
• randomly deciding on a saturday morning to take a train and be in a medieval little town. 
• seeing so many ahh-mazing sights that my mind boggles at the amount of beauty this world holds. And I have only seen a fraction of it. 
• the mango gelato 15min walk from our place! it's the best mango ice cream i've ever had, and i've tried many around europe. 
• adding to the above point, I'll miss our walks to the ice cream place before or after dinner. there better be a decent (I'm gonna be practical and not expect the awesome gelatos I'm used to here, so decent will do) ice cream place close to our downtown condo. 
• living in a place which is so rich in history. So rich that there are still historical bombs emerging from the city. They found a WW2 bomb like 5 mins from our place last September!! Crazy. 
• Hitting up castles after castles. and randomly finding a castle while driving through Austria.

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• conversing on google translate. did I tell you about the time I got our dish washer fixed by conversing with the German technician through google translate? fun times! 
• wearing my dirndl during oktoberfest and dragging Umair to my favourite ride ever - roller coaster with 5 of those 360degree loops! 
• running in the English Gardens. Which I didn't do as much as I would've liked to. 
• our favourite Mexican take out 5 minutes from our place which was our go-to place when neither of us was in the mood to cook. 
• Umair having a crazy total of 33 days of vacation.

Not gonna miss:

• being away from family and friends.
• fumbling on my phone to translate what I need while standing in the grocery store. 
• trying to figure out what kind of flour to use to make crepes. Because Germans don't do all-purpose flour. Each kind of flour has a different purpose. Duh, you silly North Americans.  
• staying at home while Umair worked away long hours, because I couldn't work/didn't have a work permit. 
• having someone speak to me in a language I don't understand and in return giving them blank stares. I promise I'm otherwise not an unfriendly person! 
• being the only ones to be asked by cops for passport checks on a train filled with people. Train filled with Germans. Minus the one brown couple. Don't tell me those cops weren't racist punks. 
• lack of multiculturalism here.
• Not being able to find a proper salon and spa. Seriously, I had to go through 5 different ones to find about getting eyebrows done because they all had no clue what I was talking about and instead suggested permanent makeup. Um no thanks! Also, have been told by few different girls here that manis and pedis are weird here. So, hello lots and lots of manis and pedis in tdot!
• asking for something at a store in germany and when words would fail me, using my hands to explain what I want, feeling like a 3 year old. 

There might be more....but I think this is it for now. I started writing this post like 5 days ago, and just getting around to posting it. Moving is no fun at all! And for some very strange reason, we have a lot of stuff. Like... A LOT OF STUFF. It's never ending. I'm not sure how or why. 

I blame it on Umair's eccentric shoe collection. 

PS- I will still continue writing here, about the travels I haven't written about, life in downtown Toronto, and what the future is looking out to be. 

Day Trippin' to Adorable Little Bamburg

Are we talking about ANOTHER cute German city?! I know, I know the list is never ending! Germany really is the land of adorableness! 

Couple weekends ago we took a day trip to Bamburg.

It's a small city - we walked from the train station into the city and around, and were done in less than 4 hours. There were flower markets all around as we entered the old town.

It was a lovely Saturday with gorgeous weather - tons of little markets around and streets filled with people.

Canals running through the city, walking along the main bridge with lovely architecture...

The view from the bridge below of the alte rathaus (old city hall) is lovely! And the area is called klein Venedig (mini Venice). As someone who's been to Venice, no, it's nothing like mini Venice, but it's still very charming! And we did get a little lost around the city - much like you do in Venice. We took a complete detour to get to mini Venedig when it was really just 5 minutes from where we were. So maybe it is a klein Venedig after all. 

Here is the view of alte rathaus from the above bridge:

There was a cute little shop around the corner....I waited a good 5 minutes for the lady to walk away so I could get a picture but she wouldn't stop staring at whatever she was staring so hard...I wonder if she was trying to eye-steal something. Should've gone up to tell her it never works. Tried a million times. 

As if Bamburg isn't already adorable enough, there's also a Rose Garden! 

Eating out around the wonderful roses!

But we ate right in the middle of old town...by a little pond, where a little ducky was swimming away all shy because some German boys were flirting with it. After lunch we chilled around the water, video taping myself! No, we're not weird. I mean, yes we are....but this was not one of our weird moments. This was for my best friend's wedding. Umair had to video tape me for a little presentation us bridesmaids put together for her! 

I've seen too many of these burgs in Germany. Rothenburg is definitely my nummer eins! Bamburg might be the 2nd? Or maybe it's Nuremburg. I'm not sure. Too many options! But one thing I know for certain is that I like them burgers burgs! 

Back to the Middle Ages!

Remember when I talked about how I want to go back in time to the Middle Ages? My wish was granted on my birthday a couple weekends ago. That day, I found myself in a place so magical that made me want to say, 'move over Disney, Rothenburg is boss!'.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a very small medieval town and one of the very few ones that has its walls still remain intact all around the town. It is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Germany and has an amazing old world feel to it. It is situated along the Romantic Road in Southern Germany. Romantic Road is the name given to a 350km stretch of highway which links a series of picturesque Bavarian towns and cities. It ends at Fussen, where the popular Neuschwanstein Castle is located. 

Sometimes I think Germany and I are meant to be. If I could go back in time, before going to the 13th century, I would make a quick stop into the mid 90s and tell little Naima the following:

Present Naima: Hello little Naima, you adorable but ignorant little girl who has no clue what this world is like.
Little Naima: My mama says I shouldn't speak to strangers.
Present Naima: Well, you don't really follow through that advice later on anyway, so it's okay.
Little Naima: I'm going to go look for my mama.
Present Naima: No wait. I am here to tell you something. Something about princesses and castles and fairy tales!
Little Naima: I like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. 
Present Naima: I know honey, which is why I'm here. You know when people tell you that fairy tales only exist in cartoons and movies? Well, don't believe it! 
Little Naima: *confused puppy eyes*
Present Naima: Yeah, people don't know. When you grow up, you'll see. There's a place called Germany. It will make your dreams come true. It will have magic and castles and maybe toads... 
Little Naima: When I grow up? I want to see it NOW!
Present Naima: I forgot what an impatient little thing you were. It's okay kid, patience.
Little Naima: NO... NOW!
Present Naima: And stubborn. I wonder how my parents dealt with you. Jeez. Anyway kiddo, hang in there...someday you will! I promise! 

While I am at it, might as well go back further in time to maybe the 13th century. 

Oh look! That's the present me standing by the entrance gates of Rothenburg, back in the 13th century of course.

Peak-a-boo! Little kids must have so much fun in this town....maybe I should've brought Little Naima with me. Would that even be possible?!

It's a different world out here. A world like in the storybooks.  Every corner is like a cut out of a story book or a fairy tale.

The arcs, the architecture, everything has the perfect old world charm to it. 

There's so many towers all around!

This has to be my favourite one...

But I'm not sure why people are dressed as if they're from the 21st century. Maybe there's others who're back in time?!! Or maybe history just has it wrong and these guys were well ahead of their times. 

Even the stuff hanging by shops and walls are so cute!

Walking the wall...and peeping through the little windows that open up to the outside world to make sure we are not being attacked!

Below is the main centre of the town - Marktplatz, where the rich patricians, senators and the nobles live. Or lived. Excuse my tenses because I'm not sure myself which tense I belong to at the moment. 

The town is absolutely magical and so cosy.

And there's a well!

Oh look who I spotted, now he fits right into this world. 

image found off google. i didn't take a picture of him from my cam.

It's Rothenburg's Night Watchman! While the people sleep in deep and safe slumber, the watchman guards the town, walking around to make sure no enemy enters. However, even though he is the main security guy of the town with the main job being to protect the Rothenburg citizens, his status is not an honourable one and general public is not a fan. But I like him. He is somewhat funny and tells some interesting stories about Rothenburg. And he's one guy in this town who got his dressing right! 

The night watchman also tells me that back in the day, Rothenburg wasn't so 'romantic and charming'. It usually smelled of filth from thousands of farm animals such as goats, cows, pigs, and geese that roamed the streets. Imagine the contrast from then and now! Let's ignore the absurdity of me talking about then and now when I am currently back in time. 

I can now hear the countdown going on in the back - it's my time machine. I suppose it's time....Goodbye, you wonderful world of magic! And farm animal poop, I suppose. 

End note: I would like to thank Mr. John J. Mcloy, assistant secretary of the War, because it was due to his love for this town, that the U.S. military were banned from bombing Rothenburg during WW2! Because of him, I can now say I have found my favourite place in Germany! 

Germans Know How To Party After Game Wins!

I've been quite inactive here lately, but I've been busy with...well, traveling mostly, among other things. The first three weekends in May were spent traveling. But this past weekend we just had to stay in Munich.

Why?

Because it was the Champions League Final and Bayern Munich was playing. I am not a sports nerd, but I do watch soccer...or well, football as the Europeans call it, from time to time. My favourite team is Spain. And boy have I been lucky in the sports department with Spain being the current World Cup and Euro Cup champions?! Among these club football teams, I root for Real Madrid mainly, and then Barcelona. I followed their games and it was very heart breaking to see both my Spanish teams lose in the semi-finals to German teams. 

But heartbreaks aside, Saturday was quite festive in Munich. The entire city was going nuts all day. We were in Marienplatz for some shopping, and there were hordes of people singing and walking around, cheering for the game tonight. I have never seen the city so packed and buzzing with such excitement.

Needless to say, all restaurants with TVs were booked, so we decided to watch the game at our place with a couple of our friends. It was an exciting game, more so made by Umair and his conversations with the Bayern players. 

In the end, we won. And the reason why I was rooting for Bayern Munich is to experience this: 

Just 10 minutes walking from where we live is the street where these guys party after every win. The cops close off the roads to the cars and the long stretch of a road becomes a pedestrian only party area. The above video gives you an idea of how packed the street gets. There's singing, there's music, there's honking...tons and tons of honking, and a lot of smoke and fire. Yep, just like at new year's, they lit up fireworks on their own. But this time wasn't scary! Just smokey. 

And they also do weird things:

It was a lot of fun actually, just seeing these Germans go crazy happy. Also fun to finally experience what it's like to win in Germany. And the best part was - there was zero violence during the celebrations. No one smashed car windows or shop windows. They just sang and danced and jumped and lit fireworks. Till the early hours of morning. 

And when Umair and I were walking home, while crossing the street, a group of very drunk Germans stopped and waited for the green walking man, even though the road was made pedestrians only. Gotta love how these Germans follow rules to the tee, regardless of the situation. 

I have to say I absolutely love living in the city, we have access to everything so easily. I'm not sure if I can ever go back to the suburban life. Maybe in the far future. 

All in all, an entertaining night. 

Smoke! And there's a Cup!