Rendez-Vous à Paris: January Travels: Part 2

Part 2: Berlin, Nurenberg, Munich, and Füssen (for Neuschwanstein Castle!)

Then we went to Berlin. Berlin was an interesting city. I mean, it is the capital of Germany, which as a capital, should present a great place, right? Well, I liked the city, I might have to go back one day and give it another chance, but for the most part I thought the city was filled with a lot of crazy homeless people and tons of people still stuck in the punk rock era. Okay, I mean, I grew out of that phase freshman year of high school haha! Got to see the Berlin Wall, the part that still is standing that divided East and West Germany or Communism and a free world. Such a crazy thought. The city was kind of ugly for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, it had a good deal of cool historical buildings, but I didn’t get a good feel of character from the city. Then again, thanks to Hitler, most of Germany was bombed out. Made me kind of sad for the country, because almost every historical German site we went to, they noted that most of it was reconstructed after heavy bombing during WWII…so sad to think that because of one crazy man, almost all of Germany’s physical history has been erased. Weird thought to me. Funniest moment of bar hopping was in this city though. We went to a bunch of random bars and a few gay bars. I was drunk and chatting it up with the bar tenders to get good advice on where to go. Got free shots for us out of it, good conversation and good laughs. We then took the U-Bahn, which is there metro home and we both freakin’ fell asleep on the metro! It ended and the driver woke us up and we left and realized we were like 8 stops past our hostel! HAHA. So we hailed a cab and when I paid the woman, I was so drunk I thought it only costed 1euro for that whole trip and I was like ‘fuck France! Germany is so cheap!!! I’m moving here!” HAHA. And Tyson was like….noooooo, you paid her 11euro! She gave you change! LMAO….ahhhh….my drunk mind, ill never know ;)

(Currywurst: Berliners love this stuff! It's basically curried ketchup on a bratwurst with fries haha, and of course a German beer to wash it all down!)

(Standing on either side of the Berlin Wall: This year is the 20th Anniversary of it falling...on the left, freedom, on the right, East Berlin & communism)

We then headed for Nurenburg. It was a really beautiful city. TONS of things to do. We did lots of random museums, walked around the old castle, ate my first super german dinner: tons of sausages, sourkraut, mustard. MMMMMM. So good.

(Sausage sampler and a dark beer: Sooo good)

Then we headed to Munich, capital of Bavaria! This is where they have the real Oktoberfest everyyear and drink from the giant 1 liter stein mugs and wear leeterhosten (sp?) Haha. We only spent one night here as a half way point to our next city. I wasn’t worried though, we were coming back for another actual full day after our castle trip.

(Haufbrauhaus: Famous beer hall and Oktoberfest brew house! Now THAT is a beer and THAT is a REAL pretzel! mmmmm)

We headed FARRRR to the southern part of Germany in Bavaria to a small town called Füssen, closest village to the castles I have been DYING to see. It is called Neuschwanstein…. A castle that was actually built by the last true King of Bavaria in the late 1800’s, construction stopped in like 1915. He died before he could complete the castle. There are over 300 rooms in the castle and only about 30-50 are complete! CRAZY! This castle is called the ‘fairytale castle’ because it looks straight out of a story book! It was SOOOO magical. As a matter of fact, the Disney Princess castles are modeled after this actual castle. Super cool huh? I loved this one. And, it is settled right at the foot of the French Alps, looking out over the vast forest and mountains. There was snow every where and some fog too, made it really quite beautiful. Sadly they had a quite strict no picture policy inside the castle...and believe me, I was so incredibly saddened by that. The interior was nothing but whimsical extravagance. Example: King Ludwig II's bed frame, elaborately carved wood, took four full time wood craftsmen 6 years to carve it. Just put yourself in that mindset and then expand that into making an entire castle!