Germany had to be broken into multiple posts, because who wants to read a fifty page blog about someone else's life? Hopefully you do because here it goes:
The second day in Germany we tried to go on this tour known as the "Three Country Tour" (hence my post about 7 countries in 5 days). Well, unfortunately they were full and so we could not go. So instead, we went to the gorge! When the bus pulled up to the stop for the gorge we looked out and saw this huge ski jump and a building that said Olympiahaus. We immediately got excited and ran into the building saying "We found it and we did not even know we were looking for it!" (This quote sums up our Germany trip in a nutshell). After pretending like I was back in Memphis doing the ski jump on my friend's Wii Fit, we found out that this spot was the stadium for the 1936 and 1940 Olympics; it is also a candidate for the 2012 Olympics! To think that I could be watching the Olympics this winter and know that I have been there is an unreal experience. We took a trolley up to the top of the mountain and walked around in the beauty of the Alps. I should stop here to say reason #1 why I love Germany: the people. They are all active and many of the older men wear traditional dress. I have a picture of a man in his 70s who was hiking the mountain in overalls and carrying walking sticks. We found this little restaurant that overlooked the edge of the mountain and split a Schnitzel for lunch. It tasted like fried chicken so of course we all approved and felt more at home. Southern pride.
Once we reached the bottom of the mountain we hiked the gorge: a huge waterfall/ mountain region where you could almost touch the blue greens rapids as you walked along the dark corridor of the mountain. We scooped up water from the river and drank it straight from our hands (it was so fresh that some of us put the water in our water bottle for later). Once we reached the end of the gorge we began to hike up a mountain. We did not know where it lead so to be honest it was rather miserable. Until... and this is a big until... one girl from our group stopped in the middle of the path and said "Guys. Do you know what we are doing right now? Were HIKING IN THE ALPS!" Considering this was one thing we really wanted to do we laughed that we did not realize it sooner. Also, our mood completely changed and we ran up to the top!
Day Three: This day was funny because I truly felt like I was in a movie. It almost felt like the movie "Are we there yet?" because one thing after another happened. We wanted to go to this famous castle that Walt Disney based Cinderella's Castle off of. It takes all day so we reserved a good twelve hours of out time for it. Well....we missed the bus by five minutes. The castle is about three hours away so we waited for the next bus to come, but it did not. Since we cannot read German we read the schedule wrong and realised that the next bus did not come for another two hours...whoops. We decided that we still really wanted to go so we went into the Main Plaza to kill two hours. There I found this quaint tea shop. It smelled so good in there and the woman was so friendly, I considered asking if I could have a summer job there (joke...kind of). When we finally got on the bus we all sat together in the back...for about ten minutes. It was not long before our total of 7 hours sleep from the past two nights caught up with us and we fell asleep all over the bus. It was great until the bus driver had to come wake us up and told us to get off at a stop in the middle of nowhere to change buses. The middle of nowhere is not a phrase I use often, I just do not like the way it sounds, but there is no other way to describe it. We got off and saw a little stand selling drinks, two men on motorcylces, and a cat. The end. Thankfully German people are compassionate because we were a little stressed about what could happen right about now. But then the next bus came and took us to the Castle stop.
The Castle was quite an experience because when we got there the next tour was in two hours and we only has one and a half before our next bus came. Keep in mind that if we missed this bus we would miss our connecting bus and therefore sleep outside the cafe in the middle of nowhere, miss our plane, and be stuck in Germany for who knows how long. Not to mention the final exam was in two days. So with all of that stress and frustration to make us see the castle we decided to make the most of our time there. The woman at the ticket booth looked at us with disgust when we said we did not have time to for the tour; she was amazed that we would actually disgrace the place with our minimal presence. Deciding to skip the tour, we wanted to see the outside at least so we ran up the hill. What was supposed to take 30-40 minutes to hike according to the sign took us 7 minutes. Everyone laughed at us as we power walked passed the horse-drawn carridges but no pasa nada. When we finally made it to the top we went across this bridge that spanned a huge waterfall and looked out over the castle. The bridge was made of wood and there were so many people on it that you really couldn't move. I must admit tumbling to the ground below entered my mind multiple times. After getting all the pictures our memory cards could hold we literally ran back down the mountain to catch our bus. As we ran down we made up our own story of what was in the castle to tell everyone back home. In reality the castle has a room of solid gold and no single wondow or door is alike. According to our story: the kids' room has a slide because it is two stories and we slide down it into a pool of diamonds after we slept in the canopy bed of rubies...extravagant? too ridiculous? Maybe, but remember we were running on little sleep and adrenaline from our power walk. Our group split ways for a bit (some to the bus stop, others to the WC). The WC costs money by the way, that's one way to save water. When the people from the bathroom got to the bus stop, the bus was already loading and almost full. Knowing that we would miss our connecting stop and be stuck in Germany if we did not get on this bus, we ran up to the front and hopped on in front of everyone. You could say everyone hated us but we could not think about that at the time. Thankfully all went well and we ended up back in Garmisch (the town we were staying in). But, I must back up the story a bit to tell you reason # 4567 why I love Germany: the people (again). We were waiting to get in line at our changeover bus and there was a huge group of women in their 70s-90s. We let them get in front of us to board and they began rattling off in German and smiling really big. We just awkwardly smiled and laughed as if we had a clue what they were saying. Once the women were on the guy behind us (an American) said, "they said you were very nice girls"... thank you for the translation American Amigo! Also, our final stop of the night, an older woman came up to the stop and I asked if she wanted to sit in my seat so she would not have to stand. When I say asked I mean made grunting noises and pointed to my seat, but you get the idea. She began to talk quickly in German as I smiled and did not respond. She then said something along the lines of "Oh you do not speak German", when I told her I spoke English her whole face lit up. When she realized we were from the US she said in the little English she knows "you beautiful girls" and "My daughter. Florida. Ten years." She was the most precious woman I have ever met because she then began to try to talk to us and had the BIGGEST smile on her face. When she talked to us, she would lean in about 2 inches from our face to talk, such a cutie. Also, anytime there was silence, she would nod her head up and down with a big smile and squinty eyes. I love this woman and want to be her best friend, basically.
The rest of the trip was traveling back home. One thing I love about Europe is that you will meet people that have traveled from all over and they are all anxious to help others (we are all always confused so when someone does know what is going on, the unspoken rule is that they inform the rest). One man on the train was from the US and we helped each other get to the airport.
For all of you hopeless romantics out there, eat your heart out: On the bus was an old married couple that were backpacking. They sat in two different rows because their bags were so big but the man would keep turning around to wink at her or caress her face. They were probably in their 70s, maybe 80s. They were reason # 28273 why I love Germany. Lesson to learn, if you get the chance, PLEASE visit this country. Oh, and don't forget to take me with you.
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