Three Cities In Three Days

We started off our weekend in a small town called Fuessen. It is pretty much as far south in Germany you can get. This town was about 5 km from the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that the Disney castles were based off of. Joining the five of us were four others from our study abroad group. We arrived in Fuessen late Thursday night and went to our hostel, which ended up being more of a bed and breakfast. The lady that ran it was so sweet and the breakfast we got in the morning was awesome. Friday morning we head out, stop at a grocery store to get food for lunch, and take a bus from the train station to the castle. We ended up having to wait 20 minutes for the bus and Alyssa and Brent find a playground and decide to spend the time waiting there. I think they had a good time.

We go get our tickets and luckily got a few of the last spots on the English speaking tour. We had about a 2 and a half hour wait before our tour. We take a bus up the mountain and go to Mary's Bridge. This bridge is really high up, very rickety, but gave us some amazing views of the castle.

Next, we head over to the castle, do some souvenir shopping, and eat lunch. We actually bought food to make sandwiches at the grocery store, so we were able to eat a good lunch for about 1 euro. We got some pictures outside the castle, then headed into the courtyards to wait for the start of our tour.

(the bridge that we were on)

The tour only lasted about 30 minutes because only 1/3 of the castle was actually completed. The king died before the castle was finished. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle, but I took a few anyway, though they obviously didn't turn out well. They ended up being really blurry.

After the tour of the castle, we head back down the mountain. Though, instead of walking we took a horse drawn carriage.

After making it down the mountain, we took a bus back to Fuessen. We had about 2 hours until our train, so we all explored the town a little bit. Around 5 that afternoon, we got on a train and headed to our next destination, Salzburg.

Saturday, we spent the day in Salzburg. We started the day walking through the old town square.

The first church we went into was the Salzburg Dom. When we went there, there was a choir and orchestra rehearsal, which was really cool to hear.

This church also had a crypt underneath it that we were able to go into and see.

After wandering around the town a little bit more, we went to the catacombs. These were basically tombs up into the mountain. The staircase we climbed actually was built into the mountain.

After the catacombs, we went up to the Fortress of Salzburg. We got some great views of the city from there.

After touring the fortress for a bit, we walked back down and had lunch in the old town square. Next, we did some shopping there and everyone picked up either a few souvenirs or an extremely large chocolate covered pretzel, which they had everywhere in Salzburg.

After shopping, we decided to go to the Mirabell palace and gardens. The gardens were very pretty, but the palace was kind of a bust. All the doors were locked, so you were only able to see the hallways and the staircase. However, we were able to see into the Marble Room, which apparently not a lot of people get to see. A group of French people were having a private concert and let us take a few pictures of it.

Next, we headed over to a festival that the town was having, and hung out there for a bit while we waited for the USA game to start. We watched the game in an Irish pub in the old town with a bunch of other Americans. It was fun, until we lost, but it was okay. We all headed back to our hostels (six of us were in one, and three that joined later were in another one), got some sleep, then woke up the next morning to catch a 9 am train to Munich, our final destination for the weekend.

Unfortunately, we went to Munich on a Sunday. In Germany, on Sundays, just about everything is closed for the day. We weren't able to do any shopping or anything because all the souvenir shops were closed. Luckily, the Hofbrauhaus, which is one of Munich's famous beer halls, is open daily. We went there and had an amazing lunch. The food and the beer were incredible. We had a good time eating traditional Bavarian food and listening to traditional Bavarian music. The lunch filled us up so much.

We headed over to a park that was nearby that had a lot of fields and a fast moving stream running through it. A bunch of us ended up taking power naps because it was so relaxing.

(this is Brent who is also on our trip; i just thought he looked really funny the way he was sleeping)

After that, we headed back into town and saw one of the bigger churches in Munich. We weren't able to see it earlier because we got to Munich right in the middle of all the churches holding mass. Later it was empty though and we got some pictures of the church.

We headed back to the train station to catch our 5:30 train back to Muenster. Our weekend was crazy, but we all had a great time being able to see three different cities. Next we are heading to Prague!

Weekend in Berlin!

We started off our Berlin weekend on Thursday afternoon taking a 4:30 train and with an extra person with us, our friend Nick who is also on our trip. It was about a 3 and a half hour trip to Berlin and we took the ICE train which is the high speed German train, which was really cool. We arrived in Berlin that night and made our way to our hostel for the weekend. We stayed at Schlafmeile Hostel and the interesting thing about this hostel was that our room was right on the street. Instead of the normal rooms as you go up, the rooms went horizontal along the street, so we entered our room from the street. It was a different experience, a little weird at first, but ended up working out well.

The next morning we got up and ate breakfast at the hostel's cafe, where we got this great breakfast for 4 euros. After, we got on the metro and made our way to the center of the city. We were going to visit the Berlin zoo first, but when we got up to the street there was this beautiful and interesting church right there. It was a church that had been bombed completely and all that was left was the main tower. They decided to keep the tower there and built a new, very modern church right next to it. We walked into the ruined church and it was interesting to see how the paint was chipped, pieces missing and great holes in the structure that used to be stained glass.

So, we spent some time there and then we went through some souvenir shops where we got some German gear for the game later that day. We spent a little bit more time than we thought in this area, so we decided, because we wanted to watch the game later, that we would go to the zoo after the game. We were back on the metro and we headed to the center of the city, where the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag was. We got a few pictures of the Gate, but were obstructed because of tents and poles where they would set up an outdoor public viewing of the soccer games.

Next, we went to the Reichstag, which is now the German parliament building. We were going to go up into the top of the dome, which is all glass so you get good views of the city, but the line was really long and we didn't have the time to wait. It was okay though, we got some pictures outside and we saw the building which was really pretty.

Next, we made our way to lunch where we had some good German food and were able to watch the game.

Next, we went to the Berlin Zoo and had a lot of fun. We got a lot of pictures of all the animals there.

After the zoo, we went to Potsdamer Platz and had dinner at VA Piano, a really good, and cheap, Italian restaurant. Outside of the restaurant was a portion of the Berlin Wall. They had guys there dressed up in old East Berlin uniforms and you could get all the stamps that were required in a passport to go from East to West Berlin. Our first day in Berlin was great.

The next day we got up, ate breakfast at the same cafe, and made our way to the opposite side of Berlin to the Schloss Charlottenburg. This was a palace that the King and Queen of Prussia used to stay sometimes. It was a really pretty palace.

We only toured one wing of it, but we also went to the gardens behind it, which were absolutely gorgeous.They were huge, and we had a great time wandering through there.

Next, we got lunch right by the palace at this restaurant that actually brews their own beer and has two locations in all of Germany and they are both in Berlin. It was amazing food, but it was definitely a one time deal since we would never find this restaurant anywhere else.

We made our way back to the other side of Berlin and visited the East Side gallery, a section of the Berlin wall that was kept up and artists painted different things all over it. It was pretty awesome.

After that we went to the main shopping area of Berlin. We went to the KaDeWe, an 8-story department store that supposedly had really good shopping. As we go in, we find out it is definitely not a college students department store. When we saw shirts for 400 euros we decided it would be best to leave and find other places to shop. We walked down the street and went in a bunch of different stores. When we all started getting a little hungry we went back to Potsdamer Platz and went to the Sony Center where they had a bunch of restaurants and shops. It was a really cool place to be as it was getting dark. The lights there were really cool.

After another good meal, we made our way to our hostel, got up the next morning and caught our train back to Muenster. Another successful weekend!

Rhine River Adventure!

Two days after we arrived in Muenster, Steve and I (Kelsey) took a day trip down to the Rhine River. Four others from our study abroad trip joined us as well. Alyssa, Justine, and Taylor decided to stay in Muenster to catch up on some sleep and settle into Muenster, so they did not join us. Our day started really early. We had to catch a 6 am train, so i woke up around 4 or so. We had about a four hour train ride down to St. Goar, a small town on the River where we were to start our boat cruise. We arrived a little early so we were able to walk around the town a little bit, eat at a cafe, and hop in a few souvenir shops.

Around 11, we get on the boat and enjoy an hour and a half ride up the river. It was the most beautiful day out. We sat on the top deck relaxing and enjoying the views. We saw about 4 or 5 castles while we were on the boat, as well as little towns on the river and lots of vineyards.

We got off the boat at a town called Braubach, where the Marksburg Castle was. This is the only castle along the Rhine that was not destroyed during WWII.

We hiked up to the castle and were able to tour it. The only thing was that the tour was completely in German, and you had to do this tour if you wanted to see the inside of the castle. It wasn't too bad, especially for me. It helped my German to hear it for 30 minutes.

(view from the top of the castle)

After the tour we hiked back down to the town and found a restaurant to eat a late lunch. Then we had to go to the train station to catch a train back to Muenster. It was a quick day trip, but completely worth it.