25.7.10--Schloss Neuschwanstein und Oberamergau
Today was FABULOUS. Quite cold, but otherwise, pretty awesome. After a 1.5 hour bus ride, we arrived at the foot of the mountain on which Neuschwanstein stands. To reach the palace, we had our choice of paths: the paved, easier, plain path, or the "summer path"--gravel/dirt/etc, uneven, a bit harder, but beautiful. It should be obvious which one we took. It followed a river, with multiple rapids and waterfalls, as it wound up the mountain through the forest. It was a bit scary at one part, where you had to walk across a grate bridge over the river (and we already know how I fare with grates and heights from the Kölner Dom). Other than that, it was so pretty. Then we got up to the castle, where even more beauty was there to behold. I'm convinced that craziness inspires art, because he was batshit insane, but made such beautiful castles. (For more proof: Van Gogh, Beethoven, and probably at least a few others.) Sadly, he died while the castle was still being built, so only 1/3 of it was ever finished. We took a tour, and saw all of the finished rooms (maybe 30? tops?). Our tour guide had an interesting accent, and Emily asked where it was from, and she gave the ambiguous "Oh I guess its a mixture of a lot of things." Anyway, the castle is what inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle, and there is no wonder why. The funny part about it is, is that it is very much like Disney. To exit the castle, one must pass through not one, but two gift shops. (Not counting the one at the entrance, of course.) It's pretty insane. After walking back down the mountain, we got a quick bite to eat, and after some confusion as to where we were supposed to meet, we finally all piled back on the bus for another hour or so.
We arrived in Oberamergau, and it was clear we were in the right place. We were surrounded on all sides by gift shops full of hand-carved nativity scenes and ornaments, as well as various other tchotchkes and souvenirs. Not to mention the large amount of people everywhere (lots of them were really old too). The play itself was really long, but really good. The first act was from 2:30-5:15, and then a 3 hour intermission for dinner, and then the second act was from 8:00-11:00. The entirety of the second act, my legs were screaming to move. The rows were very close together, so everytime I moved I bumped the seat in front of me with my knees. So no chance for fighting the restless leg syndrome, except for trying to massage it out (didn't work). Other than that though, the paly was really good. In addition to the normal passion story, there was a greek chorus that came out between each scene to talk about what just happened and will happen next. They also drew lots of parallels to other Bible stories, and had "living pictures" (the little shadowbox stage-within-a-stage would open up, where a few actors are posed for about 10 minutes) depicting each one. Cool stuff. Dinner was good, I had Hungarian Goulasch...yummy.. =) Since there were so many people at the play, obviously the bathroom lines were long, and also obviously, only the women's bathroom had a really long wait. In America when this happens, the women just wait patiently or give up. However, here, half the women went to the men's room after they got tired of waiting. One German man, as he walked out, joked about how there were more women in the men's room than there were men (they still went in and did their business too). It was quite interesting/funny. After the play, we got back onto the bus, and went home. I ended up getting home about 1 am, and that bike ride from the Rathaus Parkplatz to home was so cold my teeth were chattering.
26.7.10--München
Today we went around to all the places relevant to the Weiße Rose (a student group against the Nazis). We started out by seeing where they lived (which was right by where we ate Mexican food and Indian food the other day!). We then moved on to the Universität München, where they had gone to school and where it all happened. There we went in an exhibit about the group, which was pretty interesting. We also went into the lecture hall, which was pretty awesome-looking. I totally wish ours looked like that. We saw the main hall where they had dropped all their anti-Nazi flyers from, and therefore got caught by the janitor. From there, we followed their plight to the Justizpalast, and went in the room where they were tried and found guilty of high treason. They were beheaded via guillotine, the favorite execution method of the time. After lunch, we went to see their graves in the cemetary. German cemetaries are so much more beautiful and well-kept than ours. For lunch, we ate at the Augustiner Biergarten, where I had Wurst und Kartoffelsalat. Pretty good food, though the Wurst was kinda weird, and made me sick later =( The good news is, I think I feel better now =)
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