June was off to a rainy start in Berlin. The last two weeks of May were also a little rainy, but with intermittent days of sun. Luckily the weather is turning and we’ve had so much going on the past month there has been little time to be annoyed with the weather!

For those of you who don’t know we’ve decided to officially move back to the US at the end of August. We’ll be spending about two weeks in Maine and then heading out to California to prepare for the big wedding! We’re not sure where we’ll end up post-honeymoon, but are going to look for job opportunities in a couple of our favorite cities, probably staying with my parents for a month or two while we figure out our next move. Hopefully this doesn’t mean the end of our international adventures though, we’d both love to live abroad again in the future and we’re going to miss Berlin and all our wonderful friends here immensely!

Besides buying plane tickets home, figuring out some visa details, planning our departure and full-time work (for me at school and Dave on his thesis) we’ve been able to have a lot of fun since our return from Greece. We’ve taken advantage of sunny days by visiting Berlin’s many parks and outdoor cafes. I signed up for a Japanese cooking course (in German) with my friend Saskia and had a great time cooking and eating Japanese food the last fewTuesdays. Take a look at my homemade sushi plate presentation:)

I’ve also been able to spend a lot of time with my work-besties. Jon, Irene and I even had a “sleep over” the other week. Our sleep over included wine, martinis, dancing in our pjs and watching Priscilla Queen of the Desert. A few weekend ago they also persuaded me to finally visit a club in Berlin (something the city is known for). And though dancing past sunrise is not usually my cup of tea, I have to admit I had so much fun! Dave and I have also hit up a couple different bars, kept up our promise to try new restaurants and take advantage of all that the amazing city of Berlin has to offer.

This past weekend for my 28th birthday Dave surprised me with a weekend trip to Munich. We’d both visited the city when we’d studied abroad, but had solely seen the inside of the fair grounds at Oktoberfest. Turns out there is more to Munich than that! Though the beer and giant pretzels still rank pretty high on the list of “things we love about Munich”.

We left early Saturday morning and as soon as we got there we headed to the Augustiner Keller. Maß beers were the perfect welcome to the city and we even got to enjoy some traditional German music. After our time at Augustiner we headed to the English Gardens and enjoyed a great evening exploring everything. We even rented a row boat to see the gardens from a different perspective and then enjoyed dinner at another beer garden inside the English garden.

Sunday morning brought my birthday and luckily another sunny day! We started the day with some ice coffees (my faves) and then a guided tour of the city (I love history!). From what we saw Munich is a much more “traditional” German city than Berlin. When the city was destroyed (about 80%) in WWII they took pains to reconstruct everything exactly as it had stood prior to the bombings. Everywhere we went we saw locals and tourists wearing lederhosen and dirndl. Munich’s population is about 1.3 million, but it has a little bit of the small city feel. We learned a lot about the city and saw a good chunk of the Old Town.

After our tour we visited (what else) a biergarten for lunch and to rest our feet. We had a delicious lunch of Weißwurst, pretzels and beer- so German! Unfortunately it started to drizzle a little bit towards the end of our meal. We decided to head back to hotel for a nap and so I could skype with my family. After our rest we headed back out to see the old town at night and to find a spot for dinner. We found a bierhall with a good looking menu and had another delicious German meal (with some complimentary shots!) to celebrate my 28 years. It was a great birthday and I’m so grateful to Dave for planning everything!

Our last morning in Munich started with a big, traditional German breakfast…we kind of have a theme going here: lots of traditional German beer and food. There was a “Munich Breakfast” on the menu that included a 1/2 liter of beer, but we both opted for coffee instead. We then walked up to the top of St. Peter’s to view Munich’s famous Glockenspiel from above. The rest of the day was spent souvenir shopping, a little more touristing and some last minute beer drinking. Towards the end of the day we ran into the weirdest thing- 2 huge tributes to Michael Jackson and his monkey Bubbles. The pictures don’t quite capture the absurdness of the memorial, but we both thought it a bit creepy. Ahh….people of the world you make us laugh. On the way home we hit some major traffic due to all the flooding in Germany because of the rains and didn’t make it home until almost 3am, but it was worth it!

The next morning came a little too soon for my liking, but I had an awesome surprise from all my wonderful friends at work. They showered me with flowers, gifts and a delicious homemade cheese cake and made me feel so special! I am still enjoying the cheesecake Sandra made:) Such a wonderful birthday treat.

The first half of June has been action-packed and full of fun. Plus the fact that it doesn’t get dark until almost 10 makes it easy to be motivated and get out and do stuff after work! We can’t believe how fast time is flying, but we’re working hard to enjoy every minute left we have in Berlin and can’t wait to update everyone again soon!