Hello again from Munich!
The trip has flown by and I am in the lobby patiently awaiting the shuttle to the airport and passing time by drinking some delicious hell (light/lager) beer and updating my blog.
This trip was many things: fun, exhausting, infuriating (only for a short period), to name a few. But it can probably be characterized by one of two things. You guessed it, just what the title says. We saw a few castles, but none as exravagant as the one we toured - Neuschwanstein. This castle is everything I thought it was going to be and more. It was crazy big, and built precariously on the top of a mountain. It was the grand idea of "mad" King Ludwig, who was declared mad shortly before his suspicious death because of his love for spending money. An odd symptom for diagnosis, yes, but that was the case then. The castle was started in 1869 and stopped in 1886 when King Ludwig died, to which the circumstances of his death remain unclear, but the common theory is that he drowned himself in a lake not far from the castle, shortly after drowning the doctor who diagnosed him as mentally ill. The circumstances are eerie simply because King Ludwig was an excellent swimmer and it was very unlikely that he would be able to drown himself. Anyways, dead or not, the castle remains, and he only lived in it for 6 months over a 2 year period. The castle was not completely finished because, when the king died, he was in so much debt (somewhere in the ballpark of how much the castle is worth today, and he was still building four castles at the time) that they stopped construction and it was turned into a museum some six months after he died. What is in the castle is original, including a bed that's canopy is wood carvings of gothic spires and cathedrals throughout Europe, a room dedicated to swans based on one of Wagner's operas, a giant ballroom/ concert hall (which now has concerts once a year and the roof literally shakes from the acoustics), and a man made cave that links his study with his chambers or some thing like that. irregardless of the connected rooms, he has a freaking cave on the fourth floor of the castle, with stalactites, stalagmites, and all. No bats though. Speaking of bats, and on a tangent, I went to the zoo today and they have a bat house where they just have it open and the bats are flying around your head in the dark. I got buzzed by a few of them.
Anyways, the castle was really cool, and I'll post pics in Georgia, since I can't here because the internet is really slow. There was also another castle on another hill by this one, called Hohenschwangau I think, and it was really cool too. We didn't tour it, but it looked awesome from up on the castle. There was also a trail up into the mountains behind the castle, and it had a really narrow foot bridge which Ryan dared not go on, as it crossed a gorge and was a couple hundred feet up, right above a river and a string of waterfalls. I can see why this castle was the ispiration for Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World.
The second thing that defined this half of the trip was pizza. Ryan discovered Neopolitan style pizza for the first time, and we ate it quite a bit. At least three nights, but I bet we would have ate it every night if it was his choice. We did eat at some good restaurants in Budapest, and here in Munich. I hate sauerkraut but I decided to try it out over here. I like sauerkraut here, it was so sweet and delicious that I ate a giant plate of it. If only I had known this at the end of the year department party. Maybe I would have a different view of the choice in ordering 50 pounds of sauerkraut. Ha. Back to the pizza... Ryan ordered the same pizza everytime too. It was called Pizza Diavolo, which was cheese, hot peppers, and a spicy salami. I think Ry might put money down for his own Punch Pizza restaurant when he gets back to the states (For those who don't know, Punch Pizza is a chain that specializes in brick oven Neopolitan style pizzas. It's good, but it's not the pizza here, that's for sure.)
We have done a lot of walking over this trip and I am ready to relax my first day in Georgia, although I plan on waking up and getting some Khachapuri and then probably feast on some Shashlik at night. Mmmmmmm... I think I said what those were in my older blogs, so y'all should be up to speed. If not, it's a great excuse to go reread all my blog posts. Ha :)
Anyways, we saw some great things, some awful things (especially at the House of Terror in Budapest, which is about the Nazis and Secret Police in Hungary and the ensuing massacres of the Jews, and Dachau outside of Munich, which was one of the first concentration camps), ate some great food, and survived without strangling each other, although we had some close calls. Now I remember what it was like living with Ryan, haha. No, it was a great trip and our over-reactions can probably be attributed to our hunger (don't say anything Katie).
This was a long one, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Bye from Munich and I'll write next from Georgia.
Nakhvamdis!
Reed
The trip has flown by and I am in the lobby patiently awaiting the shuttle to the airport and passing time by drinking some delicious hell (light/lager) beer and updating my blog.
This trip was many things: fun, exhausting, infuriating (only for a short period), to name a few. But it can probably be characterized by one of two things. You guessed it, just what the title says. We saw a few castles, but none as exravagant as the one we toured - Neuschwanstein. This castle is everything I thought it was going to be and more. It was crazy big, and built precariously on the top of a mountain. It was the grand idea of "mad" King Ludwig, who was declared mad shortly before his suspicious death because of his love for spending money. An odd symptom for diagnosis, yes, but that was the case then. The castle was started in 1869 and stopped in 1886 when King Ludwig died, to which the circumstances of his death remain unclear, but the common theory is that he drowned himself in a lake not far from the castle, shortly after drowning the doctor who diagnosed him as mentally ill. The circumstances are eerie simply because King Ludwig was an excellent swimmer and it was very unlikely that he would be able to drown himself. Anyways, dead or not, the castle remains, and he only lived in it for 6 months over a 2 year period. The castle was not completely finished because, when the king died, he was in so much debt (somewhere in the ballpark of how much the castle is worth today, and he was still building four castles at the time) that they stopped construction and it was turned into a museum some six months after he died. What is in the castle is original, including a bed that's canopy is wood carvings of gothic spires and cathedrals throughout Europe, a room dedicated to swans based on one of Wagner's operas, a giant ballroom/ concert hall (which now has concerts once a year and the roof literally shakes from the acoustics), and a man made cave that links his study with his chambers or some thing like that. irregardless of the connected rooms, he has a freaking cave on the fourth floor of the castle, with stalactites, stalagmites, and all. No bats though. Speaking of bats, and on a tangent, I went to the zoo today and they have a bat house where they just have it open and the bats are flying around your head in the dark. I got buzzed by a few of them.
Anyways, the castle was really cool, and I'll post pics in Georgia, since I can't here because the internet is really slow. There was also another castle on another hill by this one, called Hohenschwangau I think, and it was really cool too. We didn't tour it, but it looked awesome from up on the castle. There was also a trail up into the mountains behind the castle, and it had a really narrow foot bridge which Ryan dared not go on, as it crossed a gorge and was a couple hundred feet up, right above a river and a string of waterfalls. I can see why this castle was the ispiration for Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World.
The second thing that defined this half of the trip was pizza. Ryan discovered Neopolitan style pizza for the first time, and we ate it quite a bit. At least three nights, but I bet we would have ate it every night if it was his choice. We did eat at some good restaurants in Budapest, and here in Munich. I hate sauerkraut but I decided to try it out over here. I like sauerkraut here, it was so sweet and delicious that I ate a giant plate of it. If only I had known this at the end of the year department party. Maybe I would have a different view of the choice in ordering 50 pounds of sauerkraut. Ha. Back to the pizza... Ryan ordered the same pizza everytime too. It was called Pizza Diavolo, which was cheese, hot peppers, and a spicy salami. I think Ry might put money down for his own Punch Pizza restaurant when he gets back to the states (For those who don't know, Punch Pizza is a chain that specializes in brick oven Neopolitan style pizzas. It's good, but it's not the pizza here, that's for sure.)
We have done a lot of walking over this trip and I am ready to relax my first day in Georgia, although I plan on waking up and getting some Khachapuri and then probably feast on some Shashlik at night. Mmmmmmm... I think I said what those were in my older blogs, so y'all should be up to speed. If not, it's a great excuse to go reread all my blog posts. Ha :)
Anyways, we saw some great things, some awful things (especially at the House of Terror in Budapest, which is about the Nazis and Secret Police in Hungary and the ensuing massacres of the Jews, and Dachau outside of Munich, which was one of the first concentration camps), ate some great food, and survived without strangling each other, although we had some close calls. Now I remember what it was like living with Ryan, haha. No, it was a great trip and our over-reactions can probably be attributed to our hunger (don't say anything Katie).
This was a long one, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Bye from Munich and I'll write next from Georgia.
Nakhvamdis!
Reed
ps. same spellcheck problem so don't be too harsh on my spelling :)
1. There is never a good time to order 50 pounds of sauerkraut.
ReplyDeleteAND 2. I didn't have to say it, your story spoke for itself! You should keep food on you at all times to avoid these situations.