Hot like a freshly-cooked weiner schnitzel

---

Hello all, I´m presently in Frankfurt for one night at the moment. Germany has been interesting, full of Americans and beer. I started out here coming from Salzburg, Austria (and the Sound of Music tour and ice caves) and went to Munich. Munich is an interesting city. The department stores sell traditional German dresses, everything edible consists of meat or pretzels (except the Indian food, which is actually affordable), and people are fascinated by the Glockenspiel in the town centre. My first day there, I went to see Dachau concentration camp, which is about 40 min. outside the city. It was really sobering to see the actual camp and to learn more about what went on there. Especially the so-called "medical experiments". After the tour, I went out for dinner to the Augustiner brewhouse with 2 guys I met on the tour. We went to the Hofbraühaus after, which is the really famous beer hall, but it was so busy and actually didn´t look that good. We ended up across the street from it at a smaller pub, drinking pretty much the same brew, since they distribute it to various places around the city. After Munich, I decided to go down the "romantic road" in Bavaria, which connects a series of towns and cities that have a lot of castles and medieval-looking buildings and stuff. I went to Füssen for one night, and went and saw Neuschwanstein castle. This is the one that Walt Disney supposedly based the Fantasyland castle on. It was pretty grandiose. It was also funny watching women trying to do the 20 min. climb to the castle in their high heels. From Füssen, I went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which is this really pretty medieval town. Pretty much the entire town centre is surrounded by these old walls that you can walk around. Again, another place where people are fascinated by a clock tower. This particular one reinacts the story of how the mayor in 1639 or something saved the town from invasion by drinking 3 liters of wine in one swallow. Not a lot of action in this one. Anyways, I stayed there for 2 nights in a really cool hostel that was a historically old building there. Yesterday, I went to Würzburg for one night, and it didn´t compare. Würzburg is a nice city, but since much of it was bombed out during the war, it definitely feels more like a city instead of an attractive town. It has some interesting sights, though, like the fortress and some of the original churches. Today I´ve made my way to Frankfurt. What can I say about Frankfurt? Hmm....the cheap places to stay are in the red-light district? Don´t worry, it doesn´t seem like a dangerous area, more like a seedy place with weird stores. And stripper-like people walking around. On the plus side, the food around here is a good deal, since its mostly the ethnic places that are in this area. It´s too bad that Frankfurt doesn´t have more of a historical section, but again, a lot of buildings were destroyed during the war. I´ve met up with yet another American, and since there´s not much to do here and it´s like 30 degrees, we are probably going to head to a movie later. Tomorrow, Amsterdam! Talk to you all later!
P.S. Maira, I´m going to get you started drinking Rädler, it´s kinda like beer with training wheels.....no arguments, my mind is made up : )

---