Thursday September 20, 2007
So I met Alice and Sonja in Bern to take a train to the Bodensee, which is practically on the other side of switzerland. The Bodensee, which is a lake, borders Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Sonja and Ueli have an apartment there that they want to eventually live in permanently. Anyways, we arrived in the little town around 7 pm or so. It was just me alice and sonja for dinner because ueli had a guy's night with his friends. We had spaghetti and then headed to bed bc we had an early start the next morning.
Friday September 21, 2007
So we got up fairly early, like 645 am or so. We were leaving at 8. I took a shower and then went downstairs for breakfast. bread and butter as usual. haha then we loaded up our suitcases. I was actually really happy bc ueli(the host dad) had a bigger suitcase than me!!! I borrowed a suitcase from my host brother!! haha Thats a big accomplishment for me bc i usually overpack!! haha So anyways, then we headed. We had to get gas first though. It was my first time to get gas in Switzerland! haha After getting gas, we drove for like 10-15 mins and then we were all of sudden in Germany. I didnt even realize we had gone over the border. We yielded to this guy and then he waved us on and that was it. No passports or anything. i was really suprised by this!! haha but ya then we drove a little bit longer, then we got on a ferry to cross bodensee, which is just a lake. See in german is Lake, slightly confusing, huh? haha so then we drove for like several hours to HohenSchwangau and Neushwanstein. It was really funny bc we got lost several times and Sonja and Ueli were fighting but bc it was in german i couldnt really understand it but i understood they were fighting!! haha These are two amazing castles. We actually only toured one of them, Hohenshwangau bc King Ludwig actually only lived in this one. Neuschwanstein never was finished and was really just a shrine to royalty. I was a little bit disappointed i wasnt able to tour Neuschwanstein bc I had done a puzzle of the castle this past summer. but its okay i at least got to see it. Hohenschwangau was really amazing too. I wasnt allowed to take pictures inside though :( thats okay though. The tour was in german but sonja helped me a little bit, she explained a few things in english, thankfully!! then after that we went into Schwangau to have what i thought would be lunch with Sonja's dad. However it was just coffee and apple strudel. I was slightly disappointed bc i was really hungry! haha but suprisingly the apple strudel was enough to hold me over till dinner. By this time it was about 2 pm in the afternoon. We then headed to the Wieskirche. Its a GORGEOUS church in the middle of nowhere. It was built as a shrine to this statue of jesus that was said to be crying. at first they built a small chapel but there were so many people making pilgrimmages to the shrine they needed to build a bigger place for worship. it was absolutely amazing!! ill post a few pics and links to look at my pictures. after that we had to pay to use the bathroom. pretty much everywhere you have to pay or you need a code from the place of business! its pretty crazy!! we then got back in the car and drove a little bit longer to sonja's mom house. luckily she told her mom that we didnt really have lunch so she could prepare something big and warm for us. It was nice to finally get out of the car and stretch!! haha that was my first really long roadtrip in a car!! haha We arrived around 530 or so. We then had dinner. It was some sort of soup. I dont know for sure what kind it was. I never ask, i just eat. haha we also had homemade pretzels! hmmm!! they were delicious! so ya then we talked a little bit after dinner.well dinner is actually a pretty big event. it lasts pretty long! haha then we were off to bed bc it was gonna be another slightly early morning the next morning!!
Saturday September 22, 2007
We were leaving the house by 10 but Sonja's sister was going to be at the house at 915 for breakfast so we had to get up at like 8 and start taking showers. We had to shower in the basement bc the shower on the second floor didnt have hot water. The shower was literally in the basement next to the washing machine! That was kinda weird!! haha So then i dressed for the day! haha Then it was time for breakfast!! as always bread, butter and jam. But Germans also eat cheese and salami with breakfast, oh and of course pretzels!! i love them!! haha Oh and Sonja's niece was absolutely adorable!!! she was really shy at first, and it was a little difficult to play with her since she spoke bavaran german!!! there are soo many dialects of german!! haha She was even dressed up in a dirndle, the tradtional german outfit. i wish i could've taken her home with me!! haha so we rode the bus to the train station. we took the U-Bahn which is basically like a subway system. i didnt really like it. i like the swiss train system bc you get to see scenery!! but the stations were really nice. So then we arrived in the main station in Munich. We then walked to wear the Oktoberfest Parade was. There were soo many people there!! And so many people dressed in traditional clothing. it was sooo cute!! haha The parade was of all the breweries tha were at oktoberfest. and only munich based breweries can be at oktoberfest. After oktoberfest parade, we walked to the actual oktoberfest. Oktoberfest was amazing!! SOO MANY PEOPLE!!! haha It was a HUGE fair with a bunch of beer! haha There were lots of fair rides. The beer tents were really cool. The decorations were amazing!! and there were soo many people inside too!! anways..we basically walked around and looked in all the tents and looked around at all the rides. We rode the star flyer and the Ferris wheel of course. We ate this delicous sweet nuts! they were soo amazing!! i could eat those forever and not get sick of them! haha so ya that was basically oktoberfest, me and alice didnt really know what exactly to do, so we kinda walked around like chickens with our heads cut off. especially since it was just me and her. her host parents let us go off by ourselves. haha but ya oktoberfest pretty much shuts down at 1000 so we were home fairly early bc we left a litle early so the trains wouldnt be too crowded. oh and my camera died fairly early in the night too!! i even brought my charger and converter just in case, but the converter didnt fit the outlets!! i was soo mad bc my camera is like my comfort!! and the girl i was with didnt take like any pictures!! :(
Sunday September 23, 2007
This was a slightly gloomy day, not because of the weather either. We went to Dachau, which is where Sonja grew up. We went to the castle first, and from there we could see Munich and the somewhat of skyline it has. There really arent much skyscrapers in munich, actually in all of europe! haha We also had a coffee there too. But the gloomy part of the day began after the castle. Most of you probably recognize Dachau as the name of a concentration camp. There is also a whole seperate city as well apart from the concentration camp. But we went to the concentration. It was Sonja's first time to visit the camp, even though she lived there her whole life. Its really hard to desribe what i felt when i was at the camp. I saw all the buildings where prisoners were, places were prisoners were killed and tortureed. i also read a lot about the history of the camp. it was one of the first camps. it was originally built for 6,000 people but by the end of the war it held over 32,000 people. it was crazy some of the stuff that went on in the camp. i wasnt able to read everything about the camp bc it was just too much. it was in english though, so that was good!! but it was just amazing to be there to learn about history. it was rather gloomy though thinking about all that horrible stuff. so afterwards, we went to a biergarten and had picinic. it was really fun. we just sat out in the huge garden and you could bring your own food. It was very pleasant. We then went to another castle. The Duke that built this one was trying to make his own versailles in Germany. It was really pretty. So ornate!! We spent quite a bit of time in there but then we got kicked out because they were closing. But then we walked in the garden which was soo pretty! i would love to live in a castle!!! it would be soo much fun!! haha so ya that was basically sunday.
Monday September 24, 2007
Tuesday September 25, 2007
So we got up fairly early to head back to switzerland bc Sonja had somesort of meeting to get back for. I slept in the car bc one my ipod froze so i couldnt listen to it and the weather wasnt great so i didnt have much to look at. It was like dozing in and out of sleep though. We drove through austria! haha so now ive been to austria! haha i didnt even realize we were even in austria at first! haha well sonja dropped us off at the train station, we then headed to zurich to get home. i was ready to get home and back to familarity! Plus the suitcase i was using was broken and it was a pain to carry around with me!!
My trip to Munich was really fun! I enjoyed it very much!! I was really grateful to Sonja and Ueli for inviting me along!
So here are some links to some of the pictures from the trip:
Castles:
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001435&l=38827&id=1517040103
Random Pics from the Car
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001437&l=e0550&id=1517040103
Wieskirche:
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001439&l=5009c&id=1517040103
Oktoberfest:
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001438&l=771ed&id=1517040103
I will try to get the rest of the pictures from Alice soon. and i will post links for them.
Sorry this blog is so long!! Its taken me a really long time to write it!! I have just been lazy about writing in here!! Sorry if the english is bad, im not doublechecking it, it might not make much sense!!!
LOVE TO ALL!! AND GOD BLESS!!
