Germany

So much goodness has happened in Germany, it’s hard to know where to begin. Ian and I started out in Munich. We stayed two nights at a nice, modern hotel. We wondered around the city and saw some of the sights. The highlights were BMW world (the welt, headquarters & museum) and dinner out at Hofbrauhaus (a famous brewery). We went to Hofbrauhaus on our anniversary (5 years!). The place is kind of like Disneyland, in the sense that there is a lot going on. There is a group of guys playing and singing typical German music (and dressed in the funky overall-esque getup) and people dancing around. For seating, there are large tables with benches on the sides that you share with anyone and everyone. The benches are where my story begins. Ian & I picked a table and sat down. Very quickly, the guy sitting next to Ian (who we will refer to as “Franz” from this point on in the story) seems to become enamored with me. He didn’t even speak English, but took our camera from Ian to take a picture of me…kind of weird. But, the trouble began when a large party came and sat at our table. For some reason Franz felt the guy sitting next to me was too close and began to argue with him about me. Then Franz stands up and is wanting to fight this guy over it. A manager was gotten, Franz calmed down and the large group moved to avoid any further trouble. But, I must say, it was the weirdest thing in the world, sitting at a table, having all these people yell about ME in another language! Makes for an interesting story though!
After Munich, Ian and I rented a car and headed out into the country. We went and visited Neuschwanstein, a castle by the border of Germany and Austria. That night, we stayed in Fussen at a campground on a lake. From our car (which we camped in, by the way) we could see Neuschwanstein, the castle we visited earlier in the day, and another castle (Hohenschwangau) right next to it. Pretty cool. The next day, we got up and took a trip into Austria. We spent about 4 hours driving in Austria (most beautiful drive ever) and found a cool ski resort for Ian to visit in the winter! Then, we headed back into Germany and went to Hitler’s Eagles Nest. The views from this place were amazing. It is like 11,000 feet up on top of a mountain. Honestly, both Ian and I started getting a little paranoid on the bus trip up there because it is quite the steep climb. After visiting the Eagles Nest, we were going to have to wait an hour to take a bus back into town where our car was, but Ian found a nice couple from Brussels to give us a lift back into town. The next day, we drove up to Rothenburg, a mid evil walled in city. The two highlights of this city were 1. Climbing up a tower that had stairs that went almost straight up and down and handrails that were not too well off! It made me a little nervous, but I survived. 2. Stumbling across a cute beer garden, complete with a fountain and everything…and getting sausage and sauerkraut there (my favorite!). Then we headed down to Burg, for another night of car camping. Burg, is pretty much a nothing town, but we stayed there because it was close to the BMW factory, so we wouldn’t have to drive too far for our early morning tour. Our tour was great, the people on the tour with us (a group of college students that seemed to care less about cars) grated on my nerves a bit. But, I got to see a bunch of beautiful cars being made! Did you know it takes 32 hours to make a BMW? Anything BMW and I am all ears! After that, we headed over to Dachau. Dachau really deserves a blog of its own. This place where thousands of people lost their lives in inhumane ways, really touches the soul. It made me question what I would do if my government ever decided to do something like that.

Well, that’s it for Germany. We traveled over 1200 kilometers in our little Kia, spent two nights in it and three nights in hotels. We maxed the bad boy (the Kia, that is) out at 170 kph (about 105 mph) on the autobahn, saw some beautiful sights and used McDonalds for the free internet. It was a good trip! Now on to Prague…