Kiwi in Konstanz: Sommer ist hier!

Olympiapark

Hello! I'm getting pretty busy with uni work so this will just be a brief look at what I've been up to for the last 3 weeks. The biggest thing was going to Munich's ROCKAVARIA to see Metallica and Faith No More! Seeing Metallica was definitely a dream come true and they were so amazing live, it couldn't have been better! They played all the best songs for nearly 2 hours so it was such a great show. I went by myself as nobody else I know here is a rock fan. But whatever, I've been to many concerts by myself, so that doesn't bother me.
I made some friends anyway! At first a group of cool Germans adopted me just before Faith No More started playing and we hung out and had drinks together. We all went crazy during Metallica rocking out so it was nice to be with people doing that and not just be a crazy person doing that by myself! Towards the end of Metallica our group merged with another group that came from the UK and I made friends with one Scottish girl in particular and she happened to be staying in a hostel right next door to mine- so I made sure we stuck together the rest of the night so we could get safely back home eventually.
The concert was at the massive Olympiapark stadium and there were so many people, so I was quite grateful to have found someone and we helped each other navigate back to the city centre after the show. From there us and two other guys from England she was with got a typical 1 am kebab and then powered on for more drinks around Munich central. We all got along so well and were having such a good time that I accidentally stayed out until 5 am. And it wasn't until the bars then closed and we were walking home that I realised how late it was because the sky started getting lighter!

Crowd shot! (Not my pic)

By the time I got in bed and to sleep it was nearly 6 and I had to wake up less than 3 hours later as the check out time was at 10 am. So I woke up still intoxicated... let's just say that next day was not a fun one at all! (I got back home in one piece though so all was fine- a big mac meal sorted me out).

Apart from that random fun night in Munich, I've been super busy with uni work. One project in particular was something I have never worked so hard on anything before. It was a presentation for a psych masters seminar I'm taking and the standard here is so high. I was so nervous about presenting (45 min minimum) to a class full of people on a topic that I could hardly wrap my head around. And the previous presentations from class mates had been really good (I thought) yet the teacher had been very critical so my partner and I were quite afraid... I'm so grateful for my partner I was with though, she is one of the loveliest girls I have ever met and fortunately she understood the studies and took over that part of the presentation, and with my- I wouldn't say skills, but I'm a confident speaker, so together with me presenting the information and her taking over the explanations- we were a pretty strong team. We worked so hard and stayed up past midnight most nights working on it for over 2 weeks.
The results were very worth all the effort thank goodness! The feedback from the class and also the teacher was very positive and we got full marks so that's my second A+! So that was such a great feeling of achievement.

Gorgeous Rhein meeting the lake Bodensee

That was only my first presentation out of 4 though so there is a lot more work to be done. I also have another 4 written assignments and one big exam- and there's only 6 weeks left of the semester! The time is going crazy fast. Summer is definitely upon us. It's getting up to 33 degrees so far and it's still so warm at night, it feels like I'm on a tropical island! Its not getting dark until after 10pm. I've managed to get to the lake once for a swim and lying in the sun with friends, and I also went for a nice walk in the sunshine last week and captured a few photos around town now that its summer. I'm really obsessed with the buildings here- everywhere you look is so unique and captivating.

Sunset over the Flohmarkt

This weekend just gone was a big event in Konstanz and Kreuzlingen where a giant 24 hour flea market took over the streets for several kms from one side of town to the other (in Switzerland). It was so enormous- there were such amazing stalls filled with antiques, collectibles and so many random things. I went with some friends and we enjoyed the street food and beer stalls that were every few hundred metres. I am now the proud new owner of a dirndl! So now I am all ready for Oktoberfest. =D

I've recently decided that since I don't have exams in August as I initially was told, I will now leave here at the end of July and embark on an epic 2 month travel trip before heading home. It's a lot of fun planning (and great for procrastinating), and once everything is confirmed and booked I'll be more specific in the next post. So that's exciting but there's still so much work to be done before that! Despite the work load I do have 3 day trips coming up this second half of June to look forward to. This Friday I'm going to the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria (which Walt Disney based his castles off) and then next week I'm going to Strasbourg in France, and also a trip to Reutlingen in Germany.
So that's about all for now! Bis Bald.