This place might be better than Rimini. When checking into my hostel I met erin and she lives in Keller! We hung out the whole time and it was such a blast. The first night we were going to go on the pub crawl but we met these people while playing beer pong that were going to an absinthe bar and then Europe's largest club. The guy had a horrible sense of direction so we were lost and walking for a long time. We finally found it and freaking absinthe is lighter fluid. It's gotta be the worst thing I've ever had. We didn't make it to the club because Lana the girl from Florida disappeared and her friend hunter wasn't even worried. So we were being drunk jerks to hunter about it so he went to the club and we just went home. I was starving so I bought some chips and they were the best thing I think I've had ever at least at that point I still think the best drunk food I've ever had is a salad with ranch that I made one night after downtown at ecu. When I woke up the next day the chips were like all over my bag and my bed. So that was fun.
We had all made plans to go to the zoo so Erin came and found me and woke me up or else I probably would have slept through the whole day. I think it was like 6 of us that went including one of the guys from the hostel and since we needed breakfast we started our day off with a shot of absinthe a shot of kahlua and a beer. It had to be the most epic day of my whole life. On the way to the zoo we stopped and got more beer and some random liquor that also turned out to be disgusting. Seriously best zoo day ever. Hunter and Ashley (the guy from the hostel) had a game going on where at any point that we wanted we had to see who had more of their drink left and the other person got to slap them. It was like slaps giving from how I met your mother. They started off not too hard but after more drinks they were leaving welts on each other. Awesomely ridiculous.
We went out again that night to some random club. The boys tried to get in fights and it was just really sketchy. We finally left when hunter and Ashley tried to fight each other.
Yesterday on the 24th Erin and I just went sightseeing. We walked all over the place and just kept drinking all day long. The city is gorgeous and so nice to walk around. The Charles bridge was really cool I love all of the street performers!! There was one guy that was playing on a bunch of like pots. He was soooo awesome I wish I was half that good at anything. We found the John Lennon wall which was really cool. A tour group got there right after us so we heard the history of it. The czech people had no freedom of speech and so the petitioned the government of Malta and asked to be able to write on this wall. It was Malta bc the is part of the Malta embassy. So they got it and used the wall to express themselves. Now everyone just writes whatever they want on it! I even found something that a KD had written!!
Last night at the bar in our hostel we met so many interesting people. There were some guys there that worked at a freaking circus!!! They were awesome. There was also a guy there that was doing a documentary, I would pay lots of money to be able to see that sometime! He was just filming everything going on in the bar.
So it's really weird going into a country where the money is so inflated that dinner was like a couple hundred kroner. I found a ring that I wanted that was over 3000 kroner which I think in dollars is about $150.
I'm sitting on the train on the way to Berlin where I'm meeting up with Colette. I have got to get some actual sleep tonight (maybe) and drink lots of water.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Vienna
Vienna has the best zoo ever! Also I've decided that I seriously need a castle or a palace. It rained just about the whole time I was in Vienna which kinda sucked but it was really pretty. When I walked into my room I immediately knew it was full of guys. Why do they have to smell so bad?? I met two guys from England and we had some beer at the hostel bc none of us wanted to go out in the rain.
On Friday I found the hop on hop off bus and took that all over the place. They have a huge palace that I did an audio tour through which was cool. The Hapsburgs which I think we're the last royal family also have a heart vault in the city by the opera house. Creepy. I wanted to go but didn't have time. Also I think that's the family that Marie Antoinette is from. There is a maze by the palace but I didn't have time/money to go. I did however go to the zoo!! It was awesome. I've never seen a panda before and they had three! And they had rhinos and hippos!! The palace has this huge garden behind it and al these tree lined pathways. Gorgeous! I need one. I took the bus across town and went to the ferris wheel they have! It is really old and the cars you ride in look like a barn. Some of them have a table and fancy place settings so I guess you can have dinner or something in it. I don't really understand how that would work.
Back at the hostel there was a new guy and he was wearing wake forest shorts! He's the tennis coach at wake forest and he's out recruiting people to play there. All four of us went out last night and it was a bit of a disaster. The English guys had heard of another hostel that had a good bar so we took a taxi there. It was ok but the people there were weird. We had some drinks and did some shots and then went to some other bar. It had like rock music I think and so they vetoed that idea and I asked the bouncer where some good bars were and he told me some names but I wasn't paying any attention but I remembered the name of the square! They guys kept picking on me bc who asks a question and the doesn't listen. We got to the square and didn't see anything that looked like a bar! So I asked some guy walking by and he pointed in a direction and said some names but I still wasn't paying attention. The boys yelled at me again for that. We ended up at the sky bar which I remembered the guy had said! We had a Heineken for like 6 euro and it was just not a fun atmosphere. We had our expensive beer and left and tried to find another bar but we just decided to go back to our hostel and have a beer there. It was a fun night just not quite what we were all wanting!
I am on my way to Prague right now and depending on how long I stay there I am going to try and catch up with Colette in berlin! So that will be a ton of fun.
I was so hungry by the time I got to the train station that I felt sick so I just went to McDonalds. It was the most interesting mcdonalds I've ever been to I. This guy tried to fight someone riht outside and then like 15 min later he was trying to fight a girl. She tried to like roundhouse kick him but failed horribly I just could not stop laughing. It was like a real life MTV show. He was trying to fight someone else when I finally left. I felt absolutely terrible like I was going to pass out. I think it has been since initiation in our chapter room at ecu that I have felt like I wanted to pass out that badly. That was like 4 hours ago and now I finally feel like I'm not dying. I think I am just going to do laundry and drink lots of water and go to sleep early tonight! I thought my body was so dehydrated that it was just shutting down on me!
I'm not sure where we are right now but I am loving these train rides. Passing cows and lots of grassy hills and a river, it's just really pretty.
Seriously I need a castle.
On Friday I found the hop on hop off bus and took that all over the place. They have a huge palace that I did an audio tour through which was cool. The Hapsburgs which I think we're the last royal family also have a heart vault in the city by the opera house. Creepy. I wanted to go but didn't have time. Also I think that's the family that Marie Antoinette is from. There is a maze by the palace but I didn't have time/money to go. I did however go to the zoo!! It was awesome. I've never seen a panda before and they had three! And they had rhinos and hippos!! The palace has this huge garden behind it and al these tree lined pathways. Gorgeous! I need one. I took the bus across town and went to the ferris wheel they have! It is really old and the cars you ride in look like a barn. Some of them have a table and fancy place settings so I guess you can have dinner or something in it. I don't really understand how that would work.
Back at the hostel there was a new guy and he was wearing wake forest shorts! He's the tennis coach at wake forest and he's out recruiting people to play there. All four of us went out last night and it was a bit of a disaster. The English guys had heard of another hostel that had a good bar so we took a taxi there. It was ok but the people there were weird. We had some drinks and did some shots and then went to some other bar. It had like rock music I think and so they vetoed that idea and I asked the bouncer where some good bars were and he told me some names but I wasn't paying any attention but I remembered the name of the square! They guys kept picking on me bc who asks a question and the doesn't listen. We got to the square and didn't see anything that looked like a bar! So I asked some guy walking by and he pointed in a direction and said some names but I still wasn't paying attention. The boys yelled at me again for that. We ended up at the sky bar which I remembered the guy had said! We had a Heineken for like 6 euro and it was just not a fun atmosphere. We had our expensive beer and left and tried to find another bar but we just decided to go back to our hostel and have a beer there. It was a fun night just not quite what we were all wanting!
I am on my way to Prague right now and depending on how long I stay there I am going to try and catch up with Colette in berlin! So that will be a ton of fun.
I was so hungry by the time I got to the train station that I felt sick so I just went to McDonalds. It was the most interesting mcdonalds I've ever been to I. This guy tried to fight someone riht outside and then like 15 min later he was trying to fight a girl. She tried to like roundhouse kick him but failed horribly I just could not stop laughing. It was like a real life MTV show. He was trying to fight someone else when I finally left. I felt absolutely terrible like I was going to pass out. I think it has been since initiation in our chapter room at ecu that I have felt like I wanted to pass out that badly. That was like 4 hours ago and now I finally feel like I'm not dying. I think I am just going to do laundry and drink lots of water and go to sleep early tonight! I thought my body was so dehydrated that it was just shutting down on me!
I'm not sure where we are right now but I am loving these train rides. Passing cows and lots of grassy hills and a river, it's just really pretty.
Seriously I need a castle.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Niederau
This is definitely not what I was expecting. When I put in innsbruck on hostel world this hostel popped up so I thought it was pretty close. Nope not a bit. The hostel is an hour train ride and a 20 min bus ride away from there. It's a very tiny ski resort town. Since its summer they have lots of hiking and stuff like that. I checked into my hostel and went to go find the paragliding! There was no wait so this guy and I just went right up the lift to the top of the mountain. He was pretty cool, he grew up in this town and his job is to take people and jump off mountains. that's an awesome job! It was a lot like skydiving except you don't jump out of an airplane. I was strapped in in front of him. I was so worried I was going to make us trip and we would just roll down the mountain. He said to run and while we were running the parachute thing opened up and took us up in the air! I think we were up there for 7 or 8 minutes but it was so amazing being up in the air over this tiny town and all the mountains surrounding you. He even let me drive! He said all the American boys pull the handles that you use to steer with so hard so they don't get very long rides. All the fun stuff just makes you go faster. When we landed we pretty much just slid in on our butts I bought he pictures he had taken but instead of having to pay 115 he gave me a special price of 100. Wahoo. Such savings haha. I had dinner and went to the hostel and finished watching princess and the frog from the train ride earlier that day and passed out.
On the 18th, I got up early because I wanted to go canyoning which is when they take you up a mountain and you get down it by ziplines and jumping off cliffs and waterfalls and stuff. There wasn't a tour going that day but he told me to come back later bc maybe one would go the next day. I went back to the hostel and had a missed call from bubba. He saw that I had put on fb that I had jumped off a mountain and I think he was worried about me!! It was nice to talk to him. He had just gotten off work so it was like 2 or 3 in tx. after I talked to him a took a little mini nap before going hiking. I had this awesome plan that I would go to the grocery store and get some fruit and cheese and have a little picnic on the mountain. This is where the language barrier sucks. I got a perfectly normal looking thing of cheese and a apple and some bananas. When I opened up the cheese I thought that I could smell my feet. Nope it was worse than smelly feet I almost threw up from how bad the cheese smelled so I threw it away lol. I hiked for an hour or so and stopped at a restaurant on the mountain. I got sausages and chips which turned out to be a hot dog minus the bun and French fries so that worked. When I got back to the hostel there were two more Americans there from Alaska. The guy that runs the hostel is from London and he said the town was having a big thing with a band and that they were going to go. I went and had dinner and then went to the band thing. It was not what I was expecting bc it was like a traditional band with the clarinets and flutes and stuff but they were all dressed up in their lederhosen so it was cool. There was a guy selling things made from honey so I bought a candle for some reason. He also gave me two shots of like honey liquor. The first shot of it was good but the second not so much!! I went back to the hostel bc the had never come from the hostel like they said they were going too! When I was almost back I saw the Alaskans and stopped to talk with them for a while. They have been in Europe about a week or two longer than me and were going the opposite way I am going. Back in my room, I got online and talked to some friends which was really nice!! I miss everyone a whole lot!
I'm just sitting at the train station in worgl waiting on a train to Vienna. I should probably figure out what I'm going to do while there. Colette is in Dresden and then Berlin for a week so I am trying to make it to Berlin while she's still there. She's so much fun and I think she will be back in Paris by the time I get there so we get to hang out again! Also I think my parents are coming to visit for a week or so and will be here around the 1st or 2nd!! We are going to meet in Switzerland. There is a place in interlaken that you can also go canyoning so I think I will try and talk daddy into doing that with me!
On the 18th, I got up early because I wanted to go canyoning which is when they take you up a mountain and you get down it by ziplines and jumping off cliffs and waterfalls and stuff. There wasn't a tour going that day but he told me to come back later bc maybe one would go the next day. I went back to the hostel and had a missed call from bubba. He saw that I had put on fb that I had jumped off a mountain and I think he was worried about me!! It was nice to talk to him. He had just gotten off work so it was like 2 or 3 in tx. after I talked to him a took a little mini nap before going hiking. I had this awesome plan that I would go to the grocery store and get some fruit and cheese and have a little picnic on the mountain. This is where the language barrier sucks. I got a perfectly normal looking thing of cheese and a apple and some bananas. When I opened up the cheese I thought that I could smell my feet. Nope it was worse than smelly feet I almost threw up from how bad the cheese smelled so I threw it away lol. I hiked for an hour or so and stopped at a restaurant on the mountain. I got sausages and chips which turned out to be a hot dog minus the bun and French fries so that worked. When I got back to the hostel there were two more Americans there from Alaska. The guy that runs the hostel is from London and he said the town was having a big thing with a band and that they were going to go. I went and had dinner and then went to the band thing. It was not what I was expecting bc it was like a traditional band with the clarinets and flutes and stuff but they were all dressed up in their lederhosen so it was cool. There was a guy selling things made from honey so I bought a candle for some reason. He also gave me two shots of like honey liquor. The first shot of it was good but the second not so much!! I went back to the hostel bc the had never come from the hostel like they said they were going too! When I was almost back I saw the Alaskans and stopped to talk with them for a while. They have been in Europe about a week or two longer than me and were going the opposite way I am going. Back in my room, I got online and talked to some friends which was really nice!! I miss everyone a whole lot!
I'm just sitting at the train station in worgl waiting on a train to Vienna. I should probably figure out what I'm going to do while there. Colette is in Dresden and then Berlin for a week so I am trying to make it to Berlin while she's still there. She's so much fun and I think she will be back in Paris by the time I get there so we get to hang out again! Also I think my parents are coming to visit for a week or so and will be here around the 1st or 2nd!! We are going to meet in Switzerland. There is a place in interlaken that you can also go canyoning so I think I will try and talk daddy into doing that with me!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Salzburg
The train ride to Salzburg was gorgeous! I love being in the mountains especially when they are all foggy and you can't see the tops! It's such a quaint town and the first thing you see when getting into Salzburg is a giant fortress on top of a hill. I didn't do much on the first day. I tried to go find some Austrian food but it started pouring down rain and since it was Sunday nothing was open except a McDonald's so that was sad. I went back to the hostel to just hang out and the hostel plays sound of music every Sunday and wed night so I watched that. I booked a sound of music tour for Monday and it was a lot of fun. Our guide was so hilarious. We saw the two houses they used for the Von trapp family house which neither of them is their actual house. They used the backyard for the scenes when they fall in the lake and the other house for the shots of the back of the house. I think one of my favorite parts in the movie is when lesil is climbing in Julie Andrews window but you see her run up to the window to act Iike she's climbing in. The movie is nothing like the actual story and the guide told us he was going to ruin our hopes and dreams with the real story! At the end of the movie when it shows them climbing a mountain is ridiculous bc Switzerland is 400 km away and at the time Maria was actually pregnant. Also the mountain they would have had to climb had the eagles nest sitting right on top of it therefore they would just be walking right back into nazi arms. We saw the abbey where Maria was a novice but since there are still nuns there you can't go in and we only saw it from the road which was kinda sad. Then we went out to the lakes and saw the church where they get married in the movie. In real life they got married at the abbey where she was a novice. I met this Australian guy and after the tour was over we hung out and went up to the fortress and saw the old city. We stopped for a beer but he doesn't like beer so it took him forever to finish it! Of course I picked on him for it. We went back to the hostel bc he was staying there also. I got to talk to my fabulous sister in law who just had back surgery and she's doing so well I'm so happy!! He had gone to take a nap so when he woke up we went and got dinner. We found an Italian place and I made him try lambrusco which is my new fav wine and he loved it! we made friends with the lady who owned the restaurant and when we ordered desert she made it extra big and awesome!!! I got this caramel ice cream thing and it was delicious. But I think most ice cream is pretty delicious when caramel and chocolate are added! We were both exhausted from all the walking and then the ice cream and wine so we both went to bed. It was like 9 and everyone in my room was so loud so I just played on my iPad for an hour or two. I woke up so early this morning bc I had booked a tour to the eagles nest! The girl told me the shuttle would pick me up at 830 so I had breakfast while I waited. A little after 830 the shuttle still hadn't come to get. Me so I asked the girl at the desk and she said no it was here at 815. So I missed the shuttle bc the girl told me the wrong time. I am pretty bummed about it but that just means I'm getting to Innsbruck a few hours early. The hostel I'm staying at has hang gliding !! So I think that will be the first thing I do when I get there! I'm so excited!!
Oh did I mention that at the church that they got married at in the movie, there is a thing an d it says please take a holy water and donate some money you know whatever. So I got one. The holy water is in an airplane bottle of jäger!! How crazy is that.
Oh did I mention that at the church that they got married at in the movie, there is a thing an d it says please take a holy water and donate some money you know whatever. So I got one. The holy water is in an airplane bottle of jäger!! How crazy is that.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Munich 7/11-12
Munich is awesome! When I got here I found my hostel right across the street from the train station. It was so easy to get to. I went exploring for some food and I think I walked for like half an hour. Its nice that they have menus in English otherwise I'd have even less of an idea of what I ordered. I went back to the hostel because I wanted to find the hofbrauhous and met a guy from Ohio. He's been living here teaching English and he took me around the city to show me some cool places. We got some beer for the walk because you can drink in the streets here! I think I'm always a huge fan of a city where you can do that, like Memphis. I also learned how to open a beer with a lighter!! I was pretty proud of myself.
Yesterday, I did a free walking tour of the city. I guess they have them in a lot of cities. You don't get to really go into anything but it was a three hour tour and the guide was awesome. He had a ton of good stories and history about Germany and Munich. They have these may pole things that people always try to steal. The one in Munich is really large and no one had ever stolen it until 1996. Stealing the may pole is like a big game between cities. Once you steal it the city or whoever has to pay a ransom which is usually like free beer and a party for whoever stole it. The guys that stole the Munich one didn't want the regular ransom, they wanted a permanent table with free beer and food for the rest of their lives at Oktoberfest!! So freakin smart! The airport also has a may pole and one day it went missing. The security guys were really worried bc if you can take a tree out of the airport and no one notices what else are they missing. So they called the cops to get them to help. Come to find out it was the cops that took it!!
A long time ago when a guy wanted to ask a girl out, he would cut down a tree and carve and paint it. Then he had to take it over night and put it up in front of her house. If she wanted to go on a date with him she went outside and danced around it. If she didn't, she went and got a case of beer and put it outside. So I guess it's a win win for guys!!
We saw a lot of important places and churches. I think the creepiest ones were the places where hitler had given speeches or seeing the building he was in when he decided to have his people go out and destroy Jewish property. I don't know how to spell it in German but it's crystal night. Munich has a lot of memorials that are really subtle. Near the end of the tour, we went down a street that had a gold walkway down the middle. When the nazis were taking over, they had signs put up on the building and had two guards by them and if you walked by it you had to salut it. The Germans that hated the nazis would stop before they got there and turn and go down a different street to avoid it. The nazis started putting an as officer down that street and he would take names and if you lived on that street you were ok but if you were just avoiding it you got sent to dachau and you died. So the walkway is a memorial to those people that resisted the nazis. The guide while telling us this story had to stop in the middle and tell us to not even think about doing the salut bc it's a 2500 euro fine and if you are a foreigner you can't come back to Germany for 8 yrs.
Do you know why Oktoberfest started? I forget the name of the guy but he got married and the party after the wedding was so awesome that everyone talked about it every year and then just started having a party that evolved into Oktoberfest. I want my wedding to be so awesome that the party after it is world famous forever!!
The tour was awesome and at night they also have a beer tour. There weren't enough people for us to actually do the tour which was sad so I went back to the hostel to figure out what I wanted to do. I got a message from Colette saying she got to Munich so I went and met her and we went to a beer garden!! Holy cow those places are so cool. I want to open one just do I can have all the beer I want! It was huge I think they have a capacity for 5000 people. It's outside of a brewery so you get to drink all of their beer and the guide from earlier had talked about how Augustine had the best beer. They also serve food so hey have chicken and wings and chicken nuggets and fries and just good drunk food. Colette said she wanted to have chicken but the guy thought she said half a chicken. So she literally got half of a chicken. It was huge! So we had our dinner and some beer and these guys at a table near us had a guy who was just hammered and falling all over the place. They saw us laughing and invited us over. Of course the hammered guy decided to talk to me and ask me ridiculous questions all night. They were really nice and asked us to go have drinks with them at one guys apartment. We said sure but first we had to go to my hostel to get something. So the guy that had a thing for colette made her give him her number just in case. I guess he had an idea that we were lying and weren't going to show up. We went back to the hostel just laughing. We got a beer and her stuff she had left at my hostel and I walked with her half way back to her hostel. She said the guy called her all night. Right now we are on a train going to the neuschwanstein castle. It's going to be so pretty! The only thing is that stinks is that it takes two hours to get there and so it's kind of an all day thing. I'm supposed to leave tomorrow but I think I might stay an extra day bc I still really want to go to Dachau so I might do that tomorrow.
Also, both of us are pretty sure that our bodies are just running off of beer now and that there might be some blood in our alcohol stream.
Did you know that the fridge was invented in Germany just so they could have their favorite beer cold in the summer??
Yesterday, I did a free walking tour of the city. I guess they have them in a lot of cities. You don't get to really go into anything but it was a three hour tour and the guide was awesome. He had a ton of good stories and history about Germany and Munich. They have these may pole things that people always try to steal. The one in Munich is really large and no one had ever stolen it until 1996. Stealing the may pole is like a big game between cities. Once you steal it the city or whoever has to pay a ransom which is usually like free beer and a party for whoever stole it. The guys that stole the Munich one didn't want the regular ransom, they wanted a permanent table with free beer and food for the rest of their lives at Oktoberfest!! So freakin smart! The airport also has a may pole and one day it went missing. The security guys were really worried bc if you can take a tree out of the airport and no one notices what else are they missing. So they called the cops to get them to help. Come to find out it was the cops that took it!!
A long time ago when a guy wanted to ask a girl out, he would cut down a tree and carve and paint it. Then he had to take it over night and put it up in front of her house. If she wanted to go on a date with him she went outside and danced around it. If she didn't, she went and got a case of beer and put it outside. So I guess it's a win win for guys!!
We saw a lot of important places and churches. I think the creepiest ones were the places where hitler had given speeches or seeing the building he was in when he decided to have his people go out and destroy Jewish property. I don't know how to spell it in German but it's crystal night. Munich has a lot of memorials that are really subtle. Near the end of the tour, we went down a street that had a gold walkway down the middle. When the nazis were taking over, they had signs put up on the building and had two guards by them and if you walked by it you had to salut it. The Germans that hated the nazis would stop before they got there and turn and go down a different street to avoid it. The nazis started putting an as officer down that street and he would take names and if you lived on that street you were ok but if you were just avoiding it you got sent to dachau and you died. So the walkway is a memorial to those people that resisted the nazis. The guide while telling us this story had to stop in the middle and tell us to not even think about doing the salut bc it's a 2500 euro fine and if you are a foreigner you can't come back to Germany for 8 yrs.
Do you know why Oktoberfest started? I forget the name of the guy but he got married and the party after the wedding was so awesome that everyone talked about it every year and then just started having a party that evolved into Oktoberfest. I want my wedding to be so awesome that the party after it is world famous forever!!
The tour was awesome and at night they also have a beer tour. There weren't enough people for us to actually do the tour which was sad so I went back to the hostel to figure out what I wanted to do. I got a message from Colette saying she got to Munich so I went and met her and we went to a beer garden!! Holy cow those places are so cool. I want to open one just do I can have all the beer I want! It was huge I think they have a capacity for 5000 people. It's outside of a brewery so you get to drink all of their beer and the guide from earlier had talked about how Augustine had the best beer. They also serve food so hey have chicken and wings and chicken nuggets and fries and just good drunk food. Colette said she wanted to have chicken but the guy thought she said half a chicken. So she literally got half of a chicken. It was huge! So we had our dinner and some beer and these guys at a table near us had a guy who was just hammered and falling all over the place. They saw us laughing and invited us over. Of course the hammered guy decided to talk to me and ask me ridiculous questions all night. They were really nice and asked us to go have drinks with them at one guys apartment. We said sure but first we had to go to my hostel to get something. So the guy that had a thing for colette made her give him her number just in case. I guess he had an idea that we were lying and weren't going to show up. We went back to the hostel just laughing. We got a beer and her stuff she had left at my hostel and I walked with her half way back to her hostel. She said the guy called her all night. Right now we are on a train going to the neuschwanstein castle. It's going to be so pretty! The only thing is that stinks is that it takes two hours to get there and so it's kind of an all day thing. I'm supposed to leave tomorrow but I think I might stay an extra day bc I still really want to go to Dachau so I might do that tomorrow.
Also, both of us are pretty sure that our bodies are just running off of beer now and that there might be some blood in our alcohol stream.
Did you know that the fridge was invented in Germany just so they could have their favorite beer cold in the summer??
Munich
Munich wins. I don't think i have woken up once without a hangover. The beer is just too good. My liver thanks me for going to Salzburg I think. After dachau I met up with Colette and we went to the gay pride festival that was going on downtown. It was soooooo much fun!! We had beer and brats and they had a bunch of guys in drag singing and performing and stuff. They had some girls too and they were practically naked. The best part was the three or four songs from burlesque that they did! I told Colette she has to see the movie bc it was so amazing. We made lots of new friends. Some of the guys got really excited when I told them I was from Texas. My camera died so I'm really sad I didn't get to take any pictures of them. I think it ended around 10. It took us forever to make it back to the train station bc we kept stopping and talking to people. Colette found some people from France so she was really excited. We ran into some of the guys from our hostel and Colette and one of them went and got some food and when she got back I was starving so we went into the station to find something. This creepy guy from somewhere in America wouldn't leave us alone but thankfully there was a guy from holland that made him back off. I was going to walk Colette back halfway to her hostel again so he went with us. When I left her she sat down and didn't get up for a while so we went back to her and got a cab and took her the whole way back. I'm not sure why but when we got back to the station, we got two of the small bottles of prosecco and sat on one of the platforms and drank them. I don't remember much of the conversation but I do remember seeing a rat run down the tracks which freaked me out!! It was rough waking up this morning. I didn't even bother with actually packing I just threw everything in my bag and went. I did make it back from the festival with a whistle on a rainbow lanyard and a freaking cool beer mug!! So that's gonna last two days before I break it somehow I'm sure. I'm on my way to Salzburg right now and I am totally doing a sound of music tour! I want to go up into the alps and sing the doe a deer song.
Dachau
Today 7/14 I took a tour that went out to Dachau. It's like a thirty min train ride outside of Munich. The first building we went inside was a reconstruction of where the people were held. There were three phases of dachau that started with it just being a work camp to becoming a place where death was the only way to be free. There is a gate to go in the main camp and it says work makes you free the guide said this started off being true and at the end was a sick joke. The rooms where they slept in the first phase, they had their own beds and a shelf for their glasses and things. The second didn't have single person beds but multiple people on them. There is a piece of art in the middle of role call square and it's basically a bunch of bodies laying on barbed wire. The guide said obviously it stands for the horrible things that happened here but a second meaning was hope. There is a grassy area around the camp before you get to the ditch and barbed wire fences. If the people even stepped on the grass they were immediately shot. The meaning of hope comes from that they could end their lives when they wanted instead of being randomly picked to be killed or beaten to death. One of the messed up stories he told is that guards would take the prisoners hats from them and throw them in the grass and make them get it. If they refused they were shot, if they stepped in the grass they were shot for escaping. Another building we went to was basically the prison it had a bunch of small cells where people were put as punishment. They were too small to stand up in or sit down so they were just uncomfortable all the time. Another room was all dark and sometimes they would march them out blindfolded after having been in there a while and at role call square in front of everyone take the blindfold off which would blind the people bc they weren't used to the light. We saw both crematoriums that they had. The second one was built bc the smaller one wasn't capable of burning all the bodies they had. The second one "barrack x" was also where they had the "showers" that they put them all in and then stuck gas in to kill them all. I think the whole time I was there I just wanted to cry. It was just sickening to be in the buildings where horrible evil people did awful things to people. The guide said that Auschwitz worse bc it still has piles of glasses and shoes that were taken from people. I think I'd really like to try to go there. I think it's part of history that everyone should see at some point.
Neuschwanstein castle
We got the ticket for our tour and had like two hours to kill. Colette has a guidebook and it said that a good restaurant was 2 km away so we walked there. When we found it it was closed so we went to a place we has passed on the way to this town. I had some schnitzel which was pretty good. Then we realized that it was 4 and our tour started at 4:40. I wouldn't say we ran but it was in between that and a power walk. We found a bus that would take you to the castle but he saw our tour tickets and said that it was starting in 5 min and we wouldn't make it. He told us he would wait for us and to go get our tickets changed. It was so easy to just walk right in instead of. The hour long line we had getting the ticket the first time. So it got changed to 5:20 and we made it up there. It was such a fairy tale castle!! It was never fully completed bc the king was found dead (murdered) and all construction stopped but the rooms that are finished have an opera theme. One room was Tristan and Isolde and that was the only one I recognized. The tour only lasted thirty minutes and the girl didn't really tell much so I think that was kinda crappy but the castle was huge and beautiful so it was ok. Behind the castle is a waterfall with a bridge over it that you can take pictures from so we did that and there is a set of stairs that go down and you can be at the bottom of the waterfall. The water was so clear and cold and we saw some people drinking out of it! We stopped on the way up bc we were so exhausted from all of our walking and we didn't want to start again. Right now we are waiting for the train bc we missed all the ones that go straight to Munich so we will have to switch trains again. It's going to be like 1030 when we get back to Munich and I have to do laundry.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Nuremberg
I think I love Nuremberg. It was so easy to get to everything and it's really laid back and calm and pretty. My hostel was right near the train station and right down the street was like a pedestrian only street with all kinda of shops and restaurants. When I got there and put my stuff down I went out to see what all was around. They have this market area with flowers and fruit. A lady was standing out there trying to sell apple chips so I tried one and bought a huge bag! They are awesome. It's like when we went to Belize last year they had plantain chips and here it's apples. I found a Mexican food place and was so excited! They didn't have queso which made me sad but it was an awesome margarita and quesadilla!! I was going to just go to sleep early that night since I hadn't slept much in the past two weeks but this guy in my room from Switzerland and a guy from spain were going for beer soooo of course I had to go too! We went to an Irish pub right next to the hostel and after a beer the Spanish guy left. So Ivan and I went to a different bar and had a few pitchers and made some new friends.
The next day I went to the imperial castle and some of the museums. On my way to the castle I stopped for breakfast. I thought it was just a regular cafe place. Nope it was ice cream. So I had an awesome ice cream breakfast! The castle was cool but I wanted to see the inside but they only had a tour in German. So that was a weird one hour of my life. There is a building that covers a well and I have no idea how deep it was but he poured a pitcher of water out and it took a while to hit the well. So I guess it's pretty deep. Afte r that I went to the toy museum which was not worth it. It was literally just a bunch of old toys. There was a doll room that I took a picture of, my grandmother would have loved it and probably tried to buy the dolls at garage sale prices. I wanted to go to the courthouse where the nuremberg trials happened so I went back to the hostel to figure out how to get there and met a girl in my room from France. Colette had tried to go there earlier but it was closed so we were going to go today (wed) instead. We went to the new museum which was weird modern art design stuff. We didn't really get it so we went to the German national museum which is freaking huge! There's like 3 floors and so many different exhibits. They had an exhibit on albrect durer who is a really famous German artist. Colette and I got separated and since I was done looking at artsy stuff I went downstairs to wait. I waited for like 20 minutes and then just went back to the hostel. When she got back she said she had fallen asleep on a bench while trying to wait for me. We went and got dinner back by the castle and the pork I had was awesome. The only weird thing was this ball of potatoes that was like stuck together and tasted really weird. I just ordered some food here in Munich and got that stupid potato ball again. I still don't like it. We got ice cream again In the way back to the hostel and we both thought it felt like we were on a date. We saw the Spanish guy and a girl named verity from England at the hostel and we dragged the Spanish guy out for a beer. He is a bit strange but pretty nice and Colette and i might have laughed at him a few times bc he's was weird. Verity was really cool, she is studying German and Chinese for school so she is living in Nuremberg for 7 months and then moving to china for a few months. We went to this really big Irish pub called o Shea's and hung out for a while. They love south park and big bang theory and family guy so we had a lot to talk about for a while!!!!! We found out the Spanish guys name is Jon so we didn't have to call him Spanish guy anymore.
This morning Colette and I went to the nuremberg trial memorial which was so awesome. We got to go in the actual courtroom! They give you this thing that you type in what number you are at and it tells you all about it. Then upstairs is sort of like a museum telling all about the trial and showing clips from it and telling you which awful nazi guy got sentenced to what. I was really shocked that three of them got acquitted. And I think it was crappy that the top bad guy (after hitler) killed himself the night before he was supposed to be hung. It showed video clips of some of them being hung and some footage from one of the concentration camps with all of the dead bodies. It gave me goose bumps. I think tomorrow I am going to take a tour to Dachau which I think will be really freaky but I've always wanted to go there and to Auschwitz. I left her at the museum bc I was starving and wanted to go on to Munich. It was like a two hour train ride and since I hadn't eaten anything all day I ate my awesome apple chips and some chocolate that I had bought. She will be coming to Munich on Thursday so we are going to try and meet up and do a pub crawl on Friday night since I am leaving on sat. She's 20 and is traveling alone for a month and said she hasn't gone out drinking or anything cuz she's afraid. I totally understand that, I wouldn't go out by myself and drink a lot of beer and then have to figure out where I'm going. It has been nice the few times I have actually gone out out that I've met people from the hostel or the whole hostel goes out to something. Sometimes I think I'd like to go out and do the whole European club thing more, but I'm quite happy to drink lots of beer early and make it back to my hostel when it's still daylight! Plus there have only been a few places where I would have gone to the club and let myself drink bc I sort of trusted those people I went out with.
I sort of feel like I am ready to come home. I feel like a bum for not having a job even tho I worked my tail off to not have one and it's the first time since i was 16 that I haven't had a job. At the moment I think I'll be back in the middle of September instead of staying through oct. I think after outlook 2012 the music festival I will fly from Croatia to Scotland and then go to Ireland and come home. One of my sorority sisters is moving to Florence to teach English in sept and wants me to go to Oktoberfest with her which would be awesome but then it's like I'm just jumping all over the place again. I'd be going from Ireland back to Germany and then flying back to nc but maybe flights would be cheaper. I'll just have to look into it I guess!
I think I'm starting to get why my uncle drew comes to Germany every yr! It seems like such a different lifestyle and plus beer and the food is awesome! He was out here last week in Berlin but he left on the 8th, it would have been so awesome to see him!
Tomorrow will be fun because the hostel has a free walking tour of the city in the morning and then I will either go to Dachau or the neushwanstein castle that Disney sort of copied for I think it's auroras castle in Disneyland but I can't quite remember. I think after Munich I will be going to austria for a few days so ms Debbie tell josef that I am going to zell am ziller!
The next day I went to the imperial castle and some of the museums. On my way to the castle I stopped for breakfast. I thought it was just a regular cafe place. Nope it was ice cream. So I had an awesome ice cream breakfast! The castle was cool but I wanted to see the inside but they only had a tour in German. So that was a weird one hour of my life. There is a building that covers a well and I have no idea how deep it was but he poured a pitcher of water out and it took a while to hit the well. So I guess it's pretty deep. Afte r that I went to the toy museum which was not worth it. It was literally just a bunch of old toys. There was a doll room that I took a picture of, my grandmother would have loved it and probably tried to buy the dolls at garage sale prices. I wanted to go to the courthouse where the nuremberg trials happened so I went back to the hostel to figure out how to get there and met a girl in my room from France. Colette had tried to go there earlier but it was closed so we were going to go today (wed) instead. We went to the new museum which was weird modern art design stuff. We didn't really get it so we went to the German national museum which is freaking huge! There's like 3 floors and so many different exhibits. They had an exhibit on albrect durer who is a really famous German artist. Colette and I got separated and since I was done looking at artsy stuff I went downstairs to wait. I waited for like 20 minutes and then just went back to the hostel. When she got back she said she had fallen asleep on a bench while trying to wait for me. We went and got dinner back by the castle and the pork I had was awesome. The only weird thing was this ball of potatoes that was like stuck together and tasted really weird. I just ordered some food here in Munich and got that stupid potato ball again. I still don't like it. We got ice cream again In the way back to the hostel and we both thought it felt like we were on a date. We saw the Spanish guy and a girl named verity from England at the hostel and we dragged the Spanish guy out for a beer. He is a bit strange but pretty nice and Colette and i might have laughed at him a few times bc he's was weird. Verity was really cool, she is studying German and Chinese for school so she is living in Nuremberg for 7 months and then moving to china for a few months. We went to this really big Irish pub called o Shea's and hung out for a while. They love south park and big bang theory and family guy so we had a lot to talk about for a while!!!!! We found out the Spanish guys name is Jon so we didn't have to call him Spanish guy anymore.
This morning Colette and I went to the nuremberg trial memorial which was so awesome. We got to go in the actual courtroom! They give you this thing that you type in what number you are at and it tells you all about it. Then upstairs is sort of like a museum telling all about the trial and showing clips from it and telling you which awful nazi guy got sentenced to what. I was really shocked that three of them got acquitted. And I think it was crappy that the top bad guy (after hitler) killed himself the night before he was supposed to be hung. It showed video clips of some of them being hung and some footage from one of the concentration camps with all of the dead bodies. It gave me goose bumps. I think tomorrow I am going to take a tour to Dachau which I think will be really freaky but I've always wanted to go there and to Auschwitz. I left her at the museum bc I was starving and wanted to go on to Munich. It was like a two hour train ride and since I hadn't eaten anything all day I ate my awesome apple chips and some chocolate that I had bought. She will be coming to Munich on Thursday so we are going to try and meet up and do a pub crawl on Friday night since I am leaving on sat. She's 20 and is traveling alone for a month and said she hasn't gone out drinking or anything cuz she's afraid. I totally understand that, I wouldn't go out by myself and drink a lot of beer and then have to figure out where I'm going. It has been nice the few times I have actually gone out out that I've met people from the hostel or the whole hostel goes out to something. Sometimes I think I'd like to go out and do the whole European club thing more, but I'm quite happy to drink lots of beer early and make it back to my hostel when it's still daylight! Plus there have only been a few places where I would have gone to the club and let myself drink bc I sort of trusted those people I went out with.
I sort of feel like I am ready to come home. I feel like a bum for not having a job even tho I worked my tail off to not have one and it's the first time since i was 16 that I haven't had a job. At the moment I think I'll be back in the middle of September instead of staying through oct. I think after outlook 2012 the music festival I will fly from Croatia to Scotland and then go to Ireland and come home. One of my sorority sisters is moving to Florence to teach English in sept and wants me to go to Oktoberfest with her which would be awesome but then it's like I'm just jumping all over the place again. I'd be going from Ireland back to Germany and then flying back to nc but maybe flights would be cheaper. I'll just have to look into it I guess!
I think I'm starting to get why my uncle drew comes to Germany every yr! It seems like such a different lifestyle and plus beer and the food is awesome! He was out here last week in Berlin but he left on the 8th, it would have been so awesome to see him!
Tomorrow will be fun because the hostel has a free walking tour of the city in the morning and then I will either go to Dachau or the neushwanstein castle that Disney sort of copied for I think it's auroras castle in Disneyland but I can't quite remember. I think after Munich I will be going to austria for a few days so ms Debbie tell josef that I am going to zell am ziller!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)