Chiemsee and Stress and Excitement!

2.8.10--Chiemsee

Today the class went to Chiemsee, the largest lake in Bayern.  After an S-Bahn, a regional train, a little shuttle train, and a ferry, we finally arrived at our first stop:  Herreninsel.  This island is where both the old and new palaces are located.  We first went to the Altes Schloss, which was not that interesting, and not many rooms were open for tourists.  This was where the German constitution was written in 1948.  After a bit of a history lesson, we went to the Neues Schloss, which Ludwig II. built (same guy that built Neuschwanstein).  He based this castle off of Versailles, but only one wing was built.  It´s got some pretty interesting fountains in the garden, and its beautiful inside.  Though more of it was finished than Neuschwanstein, it still was not completed, due partly to money problems and partly to his death.  He only was in the palace for about 10 days.  After the Neues Schloss, we took another Schifffahrt to the Fraueninsel, where we had lunch in a Biergarten.  I had some kind of mess of spätzel and meat, with a side salad (I forget what it was called), and for dessert I had an Eisroulade, which was a "Swiss roll filled with ice cream" according to the menu.  It was pretty delicious.  It then began to storm, so we did not get to go swimming or anything, which was a shame.  At least the entire morning was sunny!  After a bit of exploring the island (it had a pretty cool little church--in the back there were a bunch of letters/plaques to God thanking him for things, like babies and such), we boarded another ship to return to the mainland, where we took the shuttle train and the 2 other trains back to Holzkirchen.


3.-4.8.10

Nothing too exciting has been happening these past two days...I just have a lot of last-minute projects and such to do for school.  On top of all that, the end of program party is this Friday, and me and another student are making a photo slideshow, which should be pretty cool (just a lot of work on my plate right now).  This Saturday after a lunch with both my families (host and real), I return to my real family and then Sunday we depart for Austria!!  I´m pretty excited to be going there, it should be cool.  I´m also excited/sad because I go home in exactly one week.