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Published: March 10th 2009
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Ok, so I lied. It's been a while since I updated this so, I will get started. Tiffany has done a good job describing my time in China, so I will continue from the point where she abandoned me at the airport. I would just like to say that it isn't fun going through customs with red poofy eyes with the guards wondering what is wrong with you. Thank you my sister, you are a dork but I still love you 😉 From Hong Kong I had a 7 hour flight to London and then another two hour flight to Rome. I then had a six hour train ride up to Innsbruck, Austria to meet with my roommates to celebrate New Year's Eve in Germany. Needless to say, I was a zombie. We stayed with some friends of my roommate Sarah, who worked in Germany for a year before. New Year's Eve was chaos. Everyone had fireworks and firecrackers as we gathered into the Marionplatz, a little open area in the city center. Two groups gathered on either side and the drunk American guys proceeded to engage in fireworks warfare, aiming the explosives right into each other's crowd. Fun and scary,
but I pity whoever had to clean up afterwards. I woke up the next day with soot and sulfur on my face and on the jeans I wore. New Years day we went out the where they were holding a ski jump competition for the next winter olympics. The price to get into the stands was ridiculous, so we just stood outside and watched. After that we just collapsed, still exhausted from travelling.
The next day I left for Schwangau. It turned out my bed and breakfast was out in the middle of nowhere, which was pretty, but a little inconvenient for travelling without a car. I went to visit Neuschwanstein castle and Ho-ersomethin-steinorwhatever castle. I didn't know exactly how to get there, so I took the bus until I could see it from the next stop at a ski lodge. I got off the bus there to ask how to get to the castle and the lady told me to take the path to the left and it would go right there. So I started walking....still walking....castle a little bit closer.....feeling pretty isolated......trying not to picture being devoured by wolves.....ok it's freaking cold still walking....I finally spotted a sign
that said ticket center and 15 minutes later I made it. Lo and behold the bus that I had taken before did eventually stop at the castle. No matter, I thought, I can just take the same bus back to my B&B. Little did I know that my travel luck had run out.
So I went to both of the castles there. The Hohensomethinorother castle was built by King Ludwig II's parents. The king's bedroom had a cool mural of a forest scene with stars in the ceiling that could be illuminated with hidden lamps. Then I went into Neuschwanstein castle built by the Mad King Ludwig II. For those of you who don't know who he is, he was a german king who drove the country into bankruptcy while building his extravagant folk-lore influenced castles. Neuschwanstein, which influenced Disney's Cinderella castle, was only 30% complete but it was gorgeous. He may have been crazy, but he has style. The entire castle was a tribute to an opera writer, who I can't remember right now. The throne room was entirely decked out in gold and jewels. The king's sitting room looked like a cave, complete with fake rocks and pond.
Path to Neuschwanstein
I'm never asking for directions again....did I just hear howling in the distance? Every square inch that was completed was covered in paintings of different stories written by this opera writer. I'm thinking his last name was Wagner, but the guide pronounced it "Vagner". At any rate, if I were a mad king, I would want that castle.
So here we come to the point of my bad traveling luck. The bus didn't go back to where my B&B was, so after freaking out a bit I went into a restaurant and they called a taxi for me. Luckily all germans are nice and helpful to tourists *mutter* unlike in Italy. The next day I ventured out to a nearby town called Fussen. I wanted to go out to Oberammergau, but had a while to wait for the bus so I wondered around for a bit. It's a cute town, I wished that I had found a place to stay there. They had a few stores with the traditional German clothing, I had to resist buying them to wear at Renfest. Oberammergau was a very cute little town. It is best known for its woodcarving schools, which I had to resist raiding their stores as well. Then came the adventure of getting back.
I was told that I could get back to Fussen no problem, so I got on the bus and it took me to the midway point and dropped me off. The driver told me that the next bus going to Fussen would be there in 20 minutes, so I sat down and waited in the freezing cold out in the middle of nowhere. 45 minutes went by and the next bus came by. This driver told me that the next bus to Fussen wasn't for another two hours. Silently cursing my bad travelling luck, I waited until it eventually showed up. The last bus going to my B&B was already gone, so I had to pay for the taxi....again. Luckily I got back to Italy without many setbacks. I was very glad to be back in my apartment by then.
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