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Germany 2015 - June 23

Tuesday was a long day.  We met at the school at 6:45 and the seniors (the grade of kids who came over to the US through GAPP last spring) were there early getting ready for their water attack on the other students (it was when the graduating seniors had their "crazy-day").  We saw several of the Germans who had come over.

The bus ride to Neuschwanstein was horrendous.  The traffic was so bad through München (Munich) that we were driving for about an extra hour, so instead of three hours, it was four.  Yuck!  I listened to music almost the entire ride there.

Finally we arrived, and it started to drizzle a bit as we waited for those who needed to use the bathroom (and public bathrooms, or the "WC," in Germany almost always cost 50 cents to use), but then, thankfully, it cleared up and we didn't have any rain the rest of the day.  Then some went to wait in line for a horse and carriage to take them up to the castle, and the rest of us walked.  Cassandra and I were the only girls who walked - the rest were guys.  And it was so worth it!  We got awesome pictures the whole way up, and we went out onto the bridge to get great pictures of the castle.  When all that time had passed and we were up at the castle, some of them were still waiting for a horse and carriage.....I think they should've just walked, since it wasn't a tough climb at all compared to some of the places we had to walk to, but whatever.  Finally, though, everyone got there and we took out tour.  It was cool, but almost too fancy for my liking.  My favorite room, though, had a a bunch of paintings literally on the whole room.  The one was a painting of Jesus and he was holding an open book - on one page was the alpha sign, and on the other was omega.  Also, there was a painting of a man killing a dragon, and Frau came up to me and asked if it looked familiar...it was a painting of the German legend/fairy tale of Siegfried the Drachentöter (dragon killer), which we had read about in German 5.  So that was pretty cool.  After the inside tour we went to the gift shop and then to a balcony with an incredible view.  Once outside the castle some of those who hadn't yet been out on the bridge went there while the rest of us walked down the mountain, stopping at some gift shops along the way.

Once we were all together again at the bottom, we began climbing up more steps to Ludwig's childhood home castle, Hohenschwangau.  (Yeah, there were swans everywhere there, too - apparently they're a symbol for that royal Bavarian family.)  Personally, I liked that castle a lot more than Neuscwanstein.  It was not quite as overly decorated, much more my style.  There was a cool picture of the Last Supper, where all of the disciples and Jesus had a yellow circle around their head, except for one man - was that perhaps Judas Iscariot? I think he also had with him what appeared to be a money bag. Anyway, there was also a really cool desk that I loved.  Also, I thought it was cool that they had secret passageways in the walls for the servants to bring wood and fan the stoves from behind.  There were neat old pianos and an old pool table.  That was probably my favorite castle that I saw the whole time I was in Germany.  The outside garden areas were also very pretty. And, while we were re-grouping and about to leave, we met two older couples from New Holland PA!

We walked down and headed for a restaurant.  Afterwards we had time to shop, so shop we did!  Then the bus ride back - thankfully, it only took the usual three hours!  When we got back to the school, a lot of us went to Maxi and Ethan's house in town for a hang out time.  Overall, it was a very good, but long, day.

The view from partway up to Neuschwanstein

Neuschwanstein up close

Neuschwanstein from the bridge

The view from Neuschwanstein's balcony of Hohenschwangau and surrounding town and scenery. 

Hohenschwangau

On the ride back, we passed the Allianz Arena, where FC Bayern München has their home base

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