Disclaimer: Pardon the grammar in this entry, it was written pretty rashly and on a tight time schedule b/c today I leave on my next trip around Ireland with Lyndsey!
Where to begin.... Munich was AMAZING. Beautiful Bavarian architecture, delicious food, even tastier bier, and the sights were to die for. I have to say, I'm kind of wishing that I had studied abroad in Bavaria...
We initially intended to go to the Hofbrauhaus for some good eats the first night, but instead jumped on a beer tour that was leaving from our hostel. After 6 hours of travel, my stomach was complaining, but the beer tour actually proved to be worthwhile. We learned a Bavarian drinking song (video to soon follow) and saw our student manager best the tour guide at chugging bier (video also soon to follow). At one of the biergartens on the tour, I was able to rustle up some bratwurst and sauerkraut to calm my hunger pangs. The bier in Germany? Delicious. And LARGE. Bier is served in liters and half liters at most places, so naturally I ordered a few liters throughout the course of my stay in Munich. Go big or go home right?
The agenda for the next day included a trip to Dachau. I feel it's necessary to say how surreal it was to be standing in a place where such devastation occurred. There was a strange juxtaposition between the serene woods and birds singing around a place of torture and death. I was really unsure of how to react to be honest. The air was thick with tension. It was definitely a somber experience, but one I'm glad I've had.
I only took a few pictures at Dachau. I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of the ovens or gas chambers, whether out of respect or out of the sheer fact that I really only needed to see those things once. I'll be posting the pictures I did take in a separate entry.
Our whole group was pretty drained after that visit so we all took naps before heading out to Hofbrauhaus with Sohae that evening! Ladies and gentlemen, if you ever get a chance to try pork knuckle, DO IT! It's like the pork version of a turkey leg and it is out of this world. Bier maidens glide through the Crowds carrying 5 liters Of bier in each hand, its almost like a dance.
I'm glad Sohae got to come share a liter with us at Hofbrauhaus because I didn't get to see much of her the rest of the weekend. She did give us a mini tour of Marienplatz and explained the story of the church that the devil built.
The next day I was really torn between going to Schloss Neuschwanstein and doing a walking tour of Munich. There were only three people in our group interested in going to the castle and it was a holiday weekend, so there was a chance that it would be too crowded to get in. Two of us decided to risk it and I have to say it was the best decision I made the entire trip.
The train ride to the castle was a bit rough (we had to stand for over an hour on the train from Bucloe to Fussen), but we did have some entertainment. There was a Bavarian bier festival going on so hoards of lederhosen and dirndl clad guys and gals piled into our train singing drinking songs. We waited an hour for tickets to tour the castle and our tour time was set for 5:20pm. Since we had 4 hours to kill we stopped at a biergarten where I had the most delicious bratwurst I've ever had in my life. It came complete with King Ludwig's mustard.
We trekked up to st. Mary's bridge, which is where all your typical images of Neuschwanstein come from. Just past the bridge there were some tiny mountain trails off the beaten path. I'm not entirely certain that they were meant for the public to climb, but we did anyway. It was fairly treacherous and one step in the wrong direction may have led to the end of this story, but I survived and got some awesome pictures to boot. I also felt a certain sense of accomplishment, climbing an Alp and all :)
I already felt that the train ride was well worth the trip before we even stepped foot into the castle. When it was time for the tour, I was just ecstatic to be there. Let me give you a lil info about King Ludwig and his castle. Ludwig just wanted a place to chill where he could escape from the rest of the world. It took the dude 17 years to build his castle and he never finished it. He was arrested and taken from the castle 172 days after moving in on the grounds of 'insanity'. He allegedly drowned himself soon after, but most believe that he was murdered. The guy had the first automatic flush toilet (in the 1800s mind you) and it took artisans four years just to carve his bed. Oh and he had a man cave that opened up out of his parlor room. A literal cave. With stalagmites and stalactites. That last one is what authorities claimed was irrefutable proof of good ol' Ludwig's insanity. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside one of the tightest cribs in Europe, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
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