Munich and Füssen

We left Freiburg 2 days ago sadly; I will miss looking out the bathroom window above the sink to see a vineyard. The train to Munich took about 4 hours total and Adam and Angela met us at the station. They have already been here for a few days. Our trudge to our hostel was longer than expected, but most stuff here is within walking distance. We packed our late afternoon with seeing as many things as were open; 2 cathedrals and other random buildings we passed that looked cool (and free) to walk into. By 8 we met Angela and Adam at the Augistiner beerhall and restaurant for some more classic German dining. I got "pork escalope vienna style", which basically turned out to be pork schnitzel. It was delicious and I am already craving some more, perhaps in Berlin...

Today we woke up early and took the 2 hour train ride to Füssen. There are 2 big castles there, but we only went into the Neuschwanstein, the bigger one that is supposed to be more impressive. It is the castle that Walt Disney used as his basis for the Sleeping Beauty castle in the animated movie. It was everything I hoped it would be, one tall tower and everything. It was built for King Ludwig who died before it was entirely completed so a lot of the inside is not finished. The guided tour (the only way to get in) takes you through the 6 completed rooms. They are all ridiculously ornate with lots of frescos related to Wagners operas, who Ludwig was apparently obsessed with. The throne room has an enormous (maybe 10 ft. diameter) chandelier made to look like a crown. His bedroom took 14 woodcarvers 4 yrs. to finish and has a sink with a swan head faucet that got water directly from the mountain above. It was really cool inside, although it would have been nicer to have more time to look at stuff as opposed to being moved quickly along by the tour guide. We took a nice walk up and down to get to the castle from the town of Füssen (and yes, I do keep typing the name so I can keep using umlats). We didn´t do much else in Füssen since the trains did not run very often to and from Munich and we wanted to make it back for dinner.

We went out to a cheap, but yummy Thai place that had drawn our attention yesterday from the delicious smells eminating from the doorway. The asian food I´ve had in Europe so far has all been really good. Angela promises me that we will get indian buttered chicken (a new favorite of mine) when we get to Berlin. For an after dinner experience we went to the Hofbrauhaus: the big, famous beerhall here. It is enormous, loud, rowdy, polka-y....all the stereotypes you would expect at 10 times the decibel level. It was a fun and needed experience for any trip to Munich. Unfortunately we got there just as it had started to pour so we couldn´t find a place to sit in the downstairs area, so we went upstairs to an extension of the same place. A slightly quieter atmosphere, but we got the joy of a classic 'I´m too busy for customers' waiter. My main pride there was pointing out that he overcharged us and him admiting it. He was nice, just hard to get a hold of. I got the homemade apple strudel..mmmmmm. Although now I want to go back and try the bavarian cream with marinated berries. I had a minor brain hemorrage trying to decide between the two.

It was still raining so we took 3 different metros to get back to our hostel and tomorrow we will see the BMW museum, the English Gardens, and the Glockenspeil (sp?) before leaving on a nighttrain for Berlin. I hope they will have more butter pretzels in Berlin!