Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Munich, Day 4

02 May:

A semi relaxing sort of day.

Relaxing breakfast. Train ride to Dachau which was "easily accessible by train". Too bad easily accessible means 40 minute walk from the train. Forgot water. In small town with no shops to get water.
 
Felt lost about every 5 minutes but that's normal for here since there are no signs anywhere. Grumpy! But we did finally make it.
This is the map of our walk from the train station to the concentration camp.


View Dachau in a larger map
Dachau:

1st of 22 concentration camps in ww2. Very few words to express. Horrible. One of the most angering places I've ever been. Makes u wonder what excuses Germans have/had for it happening. 
Torture. Human experiments on ridiculous concepts. Allowing crazy doctors to run wild. Religious and political prisoners since 1933. Saw lying media coverage in the day. Crazy how it only took a few years to go from normal to crazy. Pride. Economic downturn. Trashing capitalism as not fair. Electing fringe leader that says he's fighting for your rights; what you're entitled to, not realizing what he stood for or not caring. Political leaders who fear and install fear in everyday citizens about other everyday citizens. And it only took a few years, literally less than 4 from time of election to start the murdering. Meanwhile the whole town/city looks the other way. Extremely humbling. Makes u never want to stay silent about anything that seems the slightest wrong ever again.


English Garden:
3 mile long (as if we hadn't had enough walking) park. Rivers with surfers.
 
Lots of gravel. Biergarten where I got to fill up stein with coke. Started immediate downpour during meat and potatos. Chaos. Walked and walked and walked.
MarianPlatz:
Wondered around. Ate yummy ice cream. No good trinket shops to buy mother's day present or little presents for everyone else. Sorry mom. Looks like everyone including mom is just getting chocolate.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Salzburg Day 3

01 May:

Europcar on 24 Marsstraβe, Munich: bad idea!
Holiday in Germany, so closed even though they told us to bring it back today.

What a headache. Fernando waits while I walk down 3 levels of the parking garage in the dark to find the service people. Very scary. Dark corridors surrounded by concrete. Locked exits. Afraid that someone will be around the corner I can't see around. No one from rental company on the rental car level of the parking garage. Jerks. Find my way back upstairs. National number says they will open at 9am but we have to catch a train at 8:47am. So we go across the street to the other location on 19 Marsstraβe and they say to leave it with them. If we get charged more I will scream.


Train to Salzburg:
While on train, Fernando fears half of train will split off and go to different city. Very scenic ride.

Meet a nice guy on vacation. German. He loves Obama. He said, "Obama will increase tourism and save the world from oppressive Americans". Ugh. You think I'm exaggerating but I'm not. We try to convince him to come to Utah since he likes hiking. He says he will now that Obama is president. Like that would change his experience.

Salzburg:
One word- amazing. Nuns and high power catholic dude walking around the streets. Really. Good street musicians. Cobblestone streets. Churches. Lots of churches.

Water taps to fill up water bottles for free. Delicious mountain water. Hills. Rolling hills with the alps in the background and the stairs. Oh those stairs. 

A billion stairs walked, 100 billion steps walked. Felt like giving up by the end.



Mozart Residence:
Talk about capitalizing off someone. House was great for her. Fernando was bored but that was too bad. All audio tour but very little moving. Large amounts of text and few displays but the displays were letters, manuscripts, original pianos, art. Amazing. Sorry Fer.


The quieter side of the city:
Ice cream with no taste testing, tricky to chose a flavor because u can't read the language. Gardens galore with the most fragrant flowers. I guess it's the gardens from Sound of Music. Should really see the movie again because I guess after the places I went to in the town, a lot of it is in the movie. Flowers cut out in the grass in elaborate designs.
Some high school band playing in the background (played 'Circle of Life' - not very Salzburgish). Everyone clapping that they are so good when they really aren't. Super old middle ages streets so small only two people can walk in. What did they do with their horses then? They definitely had them then, right? We see a small set of stairs that lead to where some tourists are overlooking and taking pictures. Pretty we think. We'd do almost anything for good pictures. Scratch that. We've now proven we will do anything for good pictures. One set of stairs let to another, then another, then another, until we had climbed a mountain. The videos I took from the top are shakey cause I couldn't control my legs. 

Did I mention the beautiful river that runs through the center of the city? Legs still shaking, we crossed the river on some beautiful bridges to one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

Old town:
Service people very nice. Bought sandwiches (with weird meat that looks like uncooked bacon and tastes like salami. I threw my meat out) coke and water.
Found fountain from mountain water and continuously filled up water bottle. So good. Started self guided tour but since didn't read book first it was hard. How can u be sure you are in the right place and then not find a water wheel? It can't be that small. Ugh. While taking tour, found myself pretty music box piano, mini violin, Fer's shot glass (smaller than a mug) and the perfect gift for Craig jr. Not telling what it is. Fernando fell in love with city and bought a beautiful watercolor from a local artist. Saw half a dozen priests, nuns, and some cardinal/archduke or something. Fun to watch Japanese tourists take pictures with him like he was Caesar at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. Too bad he was the real deal. Priests with him were laughing.
We found McDonalds on the prettiest street. Silly.
Bought an apple strudel (kinda like a mushy apple pie with powdered sugar) and Black Forrest cake. Turned out the Black Forest cake had alcohol (We're not cut out for alcohol. Gross) but the apple stuff was good.

Fortress (all stairs and some concrete):
With wisdom, decided not to take funicular to go to fortress.
How hard can it be? Is only a 15 minute walk. Not a walk. More of a pipeline straight up a mountain but up... Yes... stairs. And of course when whoever built it 1500 years ago didn't follow stairs code so they were different sizes. Of course. After dying potentially 5 times from exhaustion just to save 6 euros, finally arrived. But the stupid villagers who built the place neglected to put in elevators, so we climbed another billion stairs on the tour. 
This was the first set of about 30 of these sets of stairs. Wanted to cry. Legs beyond shaking. Cool stuff though. And the view...
If I haven't lost weight from today alone...
Took little funicular down hill. Like tower of terror at Disneyland but welcomed. I'd rather die on a downhill tram then walk down those stairs. Refilled water bottle for trip back from free for all fountain. Walk back to train station exhausted.
Train ride back to Munich:
Slept dreaming of shower.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Bavaria Day 2

30 April castle Day 

Car mess:
Prepaid rental car won't happen again. Arrived after looking at wrong address. Man at desk asked for license, credit card, reservation and international drivers license. But we were told twice we didn't need international driver's license! We don't need it. Yes you do. How do we get it? The consulate. Where are they? Don't know. Can u look them up? No. Do you have the Internet? No. Do u have a phone book? No. Ugh. U suck. Oh, go to ADAC, the service center. They can help u. Where is it? 4 kilometers from here. Ugh. Ok. Finally! So the race is on. Run across town. Meet nice woman with excellent English on the road. She gives directions. She's shocked they require the translation. Meet nice man on the road. He says the ADAC has moved (seriously!!!) he tells us its closer now. Hurray! ADAC is closed. We feel like it's an equalizer step in the amazing race. We wait and wait. They open. They translate for us (€20) and give us free maps (lifesaver). We run back across city to the rental car company and a trainee helps us. She is short with us but much nicer than first guy. We are given a nice sports car. Very nice. But we must return it to that specific station, they say. We leave, program the GPS to go to Fussen and notice after 15 minutes we are going the opposite direction to Salzburg. Ridiculous. We ask for directions. The wife finally pulls out map and navigates us back to Ettal. All in all, 3 hours wasted on a day we had no time to waste. going to have to cut something out.

Ettal:
We saw a monk! A real live monk! Modern, not pretend.

Car:
Beautiful. Now I know what fernando midlife crisis will be. 2 exhaust. Nice.
Autobahn:
What is up with the constant speed traps? 80-100-120-80 in the space of meters. Either we don't understand or they don't.

Driving through the alps:
Austrian segment. Was the prettiest segment. Beautiful winding roads, single lanes. Keep almost getting run off the road by buses. Lake- stupendous. Glorious.
Oberammergau:
Voted best town so far. Mom would die here. Christmas shop too cute. Ate strawberry tort in cute little bakery. Nice little old lady. Beautiful and cheap wood carvings. Stopped at grocery store. Their grocery stores are tiny!! Bought yucky carbonated water by accident. Nasty.

Linderhof: First of Ludwig's castles. Beautiful grounds. Small house. Gaudy. Video camera left on and battery died.

Neuschwanstein (crazy king Ludwig's cinderella castle):
Marienbrücke (the bridge with a rickety view):
Who the heck tells tons of tourists to walk on a ridiculously unstable really high bridge? We could just read the headlines: "Unsuspecting tourists fall to death after bridge collapse." Not to mention they had that entire side of the castle covered with renovating scaffolding. Our response? You have got to be kidding me. Worst luck ever on this trip.

Castle tour: audio guide boring and ahead of tour. Boring rooms. Bor-ing!
Trail down from Ludwigs castle:
Very slippery. Do not advice in the rain. The wife slipped and wiped out, sliding down hill. Skinned up knee and one thick chunk of knee skin sliced open. Fernando corageously cleans up her wounds and saves the day once again. 'Course cleaning up the would means peeling back the chunk and unfolding it. Meanwhile she is trying not to throw up. She has felt pretty sick this trip. Maybe it was the swine flu.

Wurst in Neuschwanstein:
Fernando tried two. The first (2.50) was better than the second (3.20). Plus they charged for katsup. Who does that?

Drove back to Munich. Parked car in tiny parking spot at hotel. Scary. Watched "German Idol". Funny. Not very talented people.

Map of driving path.


View Larger Map

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Bavaria - Day 1

This account was actually a collaboration between the pretty lady I took with me to Germany and myself. This was mostly written on the notepad of my iPod in between train rides. I have included a basic map of the spots we walked around on the first day, as well as pictures and videos. In the map, the green route was done on foot and the red route was reached by subway. Once we arrived at our "subway" destinations, we still walked around there... a lot.


View Munich in a larger map

29 April:
SLC-ATL-MUC. 17 hours traveling. Arrive in Munich. Raining. Drag suit cases seemingly across town to hotel.
They let us check in early. But no sleep for us. Walk around in rain all freakin day. €3 sandwich for lunch. 
Took tons of pictures. 
Lots of churches. 
Allianz Arena.  
Olympiapark.  
BMW Welt. 

Don't really remember anything else. Too tired. 
Went back to hotel to sleep. Went back out at sunset. 

Ate at Italian restaurant recommended by hotel: La Vecchia Masseria. 
Best pizza ever. Gnocci good, but not as amazing. Bottled water perfect. €20 dinner.

No rain but very COLD. Wore every piece of clothing I had with me.