We flew into Frankfurt, Germany and immediately hopped on a train to Munich, where we stayed for 4 days. Then we took a train to St. Johann im Pongau, a little town about 45 minutes outside of Salzburg, Austria. We stayed there for about a week before taking three more trains to get back to Frankfurt for a night and fly out the next morning.
Yes, there were a lot of train rides, some pleasant and some not so pleasant. What makes a train ride pleasant? Enjoying the beautiful scenery without worrying about driving or directions, sleeping on the ride, playing card games and twenty questions with Jake, meeting English-speakers from our side of the world (being on a different continent among so many foreign language speakers somehow unites those of us who may not ever have been friends if we had met in America), making a fool of yourself by impulsively waving over-enthusiastically at LDS missionaries in the train station.
What makes a train ride almost unbearably unpleasant? Getting motion sick; riding backwards for hours; sitting by throw-up; being trapped in a tiny, insufferably hot compartment with four Germans who smell as though they may not have showered since the turn of the century; being held conversationally hostage by two very stinky men who would like to tell you an hour long conversion-aimed testimony of how they have come to know Jesus through a series of crazy stories (especially unbearable when you already know Jesus in a non-you-need-a-psychiatric-evaluation sort of way).
Despite the craziness, and sometimes maybe a little bit because of the craziness, we had a fabulous time! So, as per many requests, I am going to post a lot of pictures from our trip, and I'll talk about the fun things we did and tell anecdotes along the way. Because there are so many pictures, I've split the trip into four separate posts, so look for the rest soon.
I loved our time in Munich. It is such a fun city. It is very metropolitan, but around every corner you will see a building with beautiful architecture, a park, a fountain. I enjoyed the contrast of the modern parts of the city, such as the office buildings and strassenbahns (street trains), with these things that remain from the past.
The picture above is of the Frauenkirche (Women's Church). One of the towers was covered in scaffolding for renovation. We actually found that a lot of the cool buildings were under renovation like this. One of the buildings in Munich even had a giant faux front placed in front of it that was covered with a photo of what the real building looks like. We're just tourists, so we didn't even notice, of course. It was just like seeing the real thing. Anyway, we got to climb the stairs in the tower to look out over the city from the top. The picture below is taken from those windows in the very top.
In the center of this photo is Munich's pedestrian zone. The large building on the left is the town hall, pictured below.
You can't see it too well, but when the glockenspiel rings, the figures encased in green part of the building dance around almost like a cuckoo clock on steroids.
The picture below was taken inside of the Hofbrauhaus, a beerhall in Munich famous for being the venue for the meetings in which Hitler organized the Nazi Party. Sorry this picture isn't great. As you can see, the place looks busy, but nowhere near full. Jake and I tried to eat here another night, and there was a crowd of at least 50 people outside of the door waiting to get in. Needless to say, we went somewhere else.
The picture above was taken in the English Gardens, which is Europe's largest city park. It is bigger than Central Park in New York. Jake and I wished that we had rented bikes because there was so much to see, but it took too long to see all of it walking. I was worried we would get lost inside and never find our way out because we would be too tired to walk any more. It was worth the walk, though. It was beautiful inside. The picture below gives you an idea of the expanse of the park - this is definitely less than half of it.
And there is a cool place where a standing wave is created in the river and people surf on it. Here is a video we took. Make sure you turn your volume down before you watch it because the water is kind of loud. It was pretty funny when the surfers would come close to the camera and spray the tourists who were standing too close (you see them when I pan to the right).
Munich was such a fun part of our trip. I would love to go back someday. Look for the rest of the posts. I hope to put them up throughout the coming week.
