Also, this is extremely embarrasing to admit, I made a 3 on my English Lit. in-class essay. A 3 is equal to a C in America. Though I really don't think I deserved that grade. We had an hour and forty five minutes to write a three to four page essay analyzing an excerpt from the "Merchant of Venice" which we had never seen before. I got points knocked off because I began my argument in the first paragraph. (Isn't that what the first paragraph is for?) Though I wont bore you with the details of why this was necessary to the topic of my essay, my TA said I should have pointed out that the character in the excerpt, who was claiming to be dim-witted, was actually speaking in a very loft language, which proved she was not dim-witted. How the heck am I supposed to know the difference between lofty and casual Middle English? Sheesh. Picky Germans. At least she gave me the full five points on the score sheet for "knowledge of the English language". As soon as I got back from my trip I began writing an analysis and interpretation of a sonnet for this class that was due on the Monday after the holiday. And people think I'm taking this class because its easier in Germany. Yeah, right.
Perhaps I should move on from this bitter topic.
Okay, on to Austria and Bavaria! I am absolutely thrilled that Kandra invited me to go with her. I would have been real freaked out if I had tried to do it alone. Anyway, as I mentioned before, we travled at night to save money. This means we left Freiburg at 12:30 am. I don't think I slept a wink, which made me really miserable when we got to our first stop, considering it involved hiking up a mountain. Out first stop was a little town called Fussen, which is where the castle Hohenschwangau and probably the most popular site in all of Germany, Neuschwanstein, are located. We first went on a guided tour of Hohenschwangau which is where "Mad" King Ludwig lived as a boy. Then we had to hike about thirty minutes uphill to get to Neuschwanstein, where we took another guided tour. Even though there were about a million tourists, it was really cool to actually be at Neuschwanstein, a place I'd only seen pictures of before. After we toured the castles, we hiked uphill some more to get to a bridge, which offers the most excellent view of the castle and the surrounding mountians. This seems to be the spot where all the photographers snap pictures of it for posters. We snapped lots of pictures of it ourselves. (Well, Kandra snapped lots of pictures. I found out the hard way that the last time I dropped my camera my memory card fell out, which means that I lost all but four of the pictures I had taken since I came to Germany. : `C However, Kandra has made a disk for me of our trip and our excursion to Heidelburg, and in the next day or so I'm going to make a separate blog for it. I promise.). I was really glad to get off that bridge though. It was wobbly wood between me and a painful death on the rocks below. ::shudders::
After we managed the somewhat more painful hike downhill, we caught a bus from Fussen to the Austrian border, and then a train to the city of Innsbruck. Our original plan for accomodations in Innsbruck was to stay with Kandra's friend Nicole (also from Baylor) in the Hilton, however after our consciences kicked in (and our common sense) we realized that wouldn't be possible and so we had to find a hostel as soon as we got there. Fortunately that wasn't a problem. The next day we met up with Nicole and proceeded to do everything in the town that my travel guide suggested. (I swear, that book became like the Bible to us. Before we did anything we always had to consult "The Book"). First we saw a palace on the outskirts of town, which was very interesting. (The walk to the castle is where I learned that Holly and Kristen weren't kidding when they talked about how hot they were in Austria last summer. No bubbles this time though, Gott sei Dank.) Afterwards, we ate lunch at a bakery and then went to see the cathedrals in town and also a Tyrolean Folk Museum. Kandra decided to have one of the artists on the streets do a sketch of her, and even though that took an hour, I totally enjoyed watching the work in action. The artist was really good. After that we went to eat at one of the cafes, where I ordered a plate with a sample of all the German bratwursts on it. Very delicious. Since we had nothing else to do, we planned on going to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie in English (because Nicole doesn't know German), but unfortunately the theater only ran it in English on Tuesday's and it was Saturday. So we went to Nicole's hotel room, where Kandra and Nicole decided to catch up, and I watched Star Wars in German. I was eagerly awaiting the most famous movie quote of all time (the second, in Jenny and Katie's opinion), when the stupid Austrian television cut to commercial and then didn't finish the scene when it came back on! How lame is that? It would have sounded really cool in German: "Nein, Luke. ICH bin dein Vater!". I think of all the places I went, Innsbruck was most beautiful. The city is located directly at the foot of some of the tallest Alps. I decided that wherever I live in the future, its going to be in the mountains. That would never get old.
Anyway, at twleve thirty that night we caught a train to Vienna, no switching trains in between. That was possibly one of the most miserable nights of my life. Our chairs didn't lay down, and there were two women and a little kid in our compartment and so we couldn't stretch out. Not fun. After we arrived and checked into our hostel, we decided to go see a museum of Viennese history and then we went to the Schonbrunn palace, where the Imperial family of Austria lived. That place was awesome. It was incredibly huge and had the most gorgeous rose gardens. After that we decided to go see an opera. (I would have preferred to have gone to the symphony, but "The Book" said the only affordable one was really cheesy, but if you wanted to go, all you had to do was look for one of the many Mozart look-a-likes on the street and buy a ticket). Anyway, we saw "Ariadne auf Naxos" for only 1.50 Euros! Talk about a deal! (Well, okay, we were standing in the nose-bleed section and couldn't see the left half of the stage or Ariadne, who was laying down in depression for most of the opera, but still, I was thrilled, and it was absoltuley fantastic). After that, we were so exhausted we didn't even eat dinner and just collapsed into bed.
The next day, we set out early and went to see the Hofburg, the other palace where the Imperial family of Austria lived. This involved a tour of the royal apartments, the royal silver collection (which I though was jewels, but was actually their dishes), and the Sissi Museum. For those of you who did not take German History with Dr. McGlashan (meaning everyone but Jenny), The Empress Elisabeth (Sissi), was considered the most beautiful woman of her time, and because of her "tragic" life story (mainly about how she was depressed for the rest of her life and wanted to die, because when she vainly decided to accept the emperor's marriage proposal at 15, she didn't realize being the Empress of Austria was going to put a serious restriant on her personal freedom), the city of Vienna decided to use this to attract tourists and make money. Despite this, the museum was really interesting. After this we decided to go see the Bellvedere Palace, however we took the wrong street and accidently ended up going into the entrance of the Vienna Botanical Gardens. Go figure. Apparently, even when I'm not on vacation with my parents, I am cursed to always end up at some sort of arboretum. (I mean blessed! Did I write "cursed"? Must have been a slip of the fingers). Anyway, after walking through the gardens and realizing we'd have walk out and go all the way around them to get to the entrance of the palace, we decided two palaces was more than enough, and instead went to see the Hundertwasser Haus. This is a carzy apartment building desgined by some modern painter, who thought straight lines were pure evil and that trees can be apartment tenets too. Needless to say, we got some interesting pictures. After that we were going to go see a play (Koenig Lear), but decided the line was too long and and so we went walking around downtown for while. We took pictures of the cathedral, watched some street magicians, and went to a few chocolate shops, where we sampled some really delicious treats. Then we went to a restaurant called the Mozart Stube, where we ate some delicious wienerschnizel. Then we crashed into bed again.
The next morning, we caught a train to Salzburg. Since we got there pretty late in the afternoon, we were rushing to see as much as we could before the musuems closed. We first checked into our hostel, which ws my favorite one by far (free breakfast buffet, and movie at night), and then headed straight to the Hohensalzburg Fortres, a pre-Roman castle, which offered an amazing view of Salzburg, and then practically ran to the Mozart's Residence. Unfortuneatly, we only got halfway throught he museum before they kicked us out. It had four room, but the audio guide played part of a Mozart piece at every display. After that we walked around Salzburg for a while, and then we stopped at restaurtant recommended in "The Book", and ate goulash cooked in beer with spaetzle (traditional German noodles). I also had some delicous cottage cheese studel. (It wasn't really cottage cheese, but that's what the English translation in the menu said). After we ate we went back to the hostel, where they were showing my favorite movie of all time, The Sound of Music, in the lobby. It was really cool to watch the intermission and be able to think, "Hey! I was just there today!" We decided not to go on the Sound of Music tour, which is tour that takes you around the city to see sights that were in the movie. because first, it was way too expensive, and second, "The Book" said it wasn't that good. Also, we were going to go to some sort of performance (symphony, opera, or folk dance), but it was way too expensive, even for the nose-bleed section.
The next morning we woke up really early in order to go the the little German town of Berchtesgaden, where Hitler's Eagle's Nest is located. The bus ride up the mountain offered the most incredible view of the Alps. It was gorgeous. When we got the Eagle's Nest itself, I realized what a silly Texan I was for thinking that I wouldn't need more than a sweatshirt on the Alps at the end of May. And good half foot on the ground made me realize that. Talk about cold. There's a funny picture of me attempting to warm my hands in the sleeves of my sweatshirt while standing in a snow drift. We pretended we were actually part of some tour going through, so we could here the history of the building. Basically, it was a present for Hitler for 50th birthday, which he never used because he was afraid of hieghts, and he was afraid that the Allies might think a house on peak of a really high mountain was a bit conspiscous, and bomb it. After we took the bus back down, we toured the Nazi Documentation Center (that was a bit depressing) and then toured the Nazi bunkers. After that, we took the bus back to Salzburg, and decided to go into one of the shops, try on a dirndle (a traditional German dress), and take pictures of ourselves wearing them. I don't think the store workers were really thrilled with that, but I didn't really care, because I've always wanted to wear one, and I'm not about to spend 400 Euros to buy myself one. (I am not kidding about the price. The cheapest one I've seen so far is 250 Euros, and that's just the dress. Not the apron of the blouse that's supposed to go under it.) After we finished, we went into a little bakery and bought a slice of Sachertorte, a traditional Austrian chocolate cake, with some sort of orange liquer. It was excellent.
Anyway, after that I caught the train back to Freiburg. I stayed awake on the entire train ride ride back, so that I could look at the scenary. It was so pretty and all the villages are so cute! In Germany, the law requires that all houses have the same type of roof, in order to preserve the aesthitic appeal of the buildings. Part of me thinks this is a horrible infringement on personal freedom, but another part is happy they do it, because all the towns really do look beautiful.
Okay, that's all for now. I'm sorry for making everyone think I dropped off the face of the earth. I'll try to be more prompt. Only two more months to go! (I don't know whether to be happy or sad. I'll probably be both come the end of July).
Ciao!
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