Hannah the Travel Chick: January 2010

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Germany Day 6.

Yesterday I went on the German fast train, or the ICE. It went at around 250 kmh! It took me to Bremen, the famous home of the story, the Bremen town Musicians by Hans Christian Anderson. I stepped out of the train station exactly at noon, and all the bells in the churches were ringing. It sounded so cool!. All around were statues of a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster. I found it so funny! I stopped off in a local book store and bought a copy of Hans Christian Andersen's works in German. I will try to decipher them tonight. I explored the town a lot today. It is another medieval town that has been modernized, like Munich, and is a bit smaller, but just as quaint. There were some of the medieval houses like I saw in Rothenberg, and some even had the strange pulley thing on them! I loved getting lost in the twisty, windy, cobblestone strets, and having to find my way back to the hotel with my iPhone's GPS. I had to stop and get Gelatto, of course! This is a really nice place and I can't wait to got o Berlin!. the ICE train. one of the statues I saw

Germany Day 5.

Today I packed up my suitcase and said my farewells to Munich. It has been a lovely city. Sigh. I took a four hour drive to the Rhine River. I drove my car up to this really large, fairly old looking ferry, that took tourists up the Rhine to a town called Bonn, where I'd spend the night. First, however it would stop off at a castle near the town of Koblenz, which is on the way there. The river its self was beautiful, with clean, greenish blue water, and a fresh, wet smell. There is quite a lot of traffic in the Rhine further up, but where we were, we only saw a couple of barges an hour. As we passed them, the captain gave a brief history of the castles along the banks. Some of them are museums, some of them are private homes, and others are complete ruins! There was even one on a small island that looked like a ship, but that was probably just me. We stopped off at Burg Lahneck, which is at the mouth of one of the Rhine's numerous tributaries. It was a cool old castle, and we had a lot of funlooking at the old kitchen, the bedrooms, and sitting rooms of the castle. We Went through Koblenz, and up a couple pf hours more to Bonn. It was a nice city, But I liked Munich more. My hotel was about a block away from the ferry dock, so I didn't have to drive my rental that far. My whole room is yellow, and smells of lemons and wildflowers, which is nice, but a bit over the top. Tomorrow I will go to Berlin on the ICE, or the fast train, and leave my rental car here... Did you know Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany? Burg Lahneck Where our ferry docked in Bonn.

Germany Day 4.

Today was amazing. I read in my travel book of this old medieval town called Rothenburg, pronounced Rottenburg. It said that the city is still in it's original, medieval state! I had to go. It was a two hour drive, with a bit of traffic, to the city its self, and since you can't drive in the city, you have to park outside. Right away you can tell it is an old city. It is surrounded by a high, stone wall with an area where you can walk on the top. When you pass through the main archway you come in to this fairly narrow street, not unlike those in the middle of Munich, considering they're from the same time period. The houses all have around three floors, and at the very top is an odd sort of pulley thing. I later learned that it was for bringing non perishable foods up to the attic. First, I went to this house that used to be owned by a shoemaker. The house had a really low ceiling and really thin, steep staircases. I am not a fan of medieval staircases. The downstairs had the shoemaker's workshop, a cooking, and a dining area. The back yard had a small well and vegitable garden in it, and most certainly had a few chickens back in the day. The second floor had a children's room, the parents room, and a weaving and spinning room for the mother. The attic had old farm tools and other tools in it. Later i went to the main square. I learned about the Rathaus (Rat-house), or the town hall. it had a tall tower that you could climb. I did it and boy! A word from the wise, if yo are claustrophobic or don't like heights, don't go up it! The stairs were the original ones made of wood, and each was the size of 2 paperback books, in a row. And about as warped. They were Also two way. Then, once you reached the top, the floor slanted at a 5-10˚ angle towards a rail that didn't look at all sturdy. once I had gotten down, I went along the wall, that had a covered area just on the inside that was used by the city soldiers to patrol the wall. It went nearly the entire way around the city. once I got back I went to lunch at a little Biergarten near the Rathaus. I ordered Käse Spätzel, a form of traditional macaroni and cheese, served with fried onion. It was delicious. After lunch, I took a walk, just meandering around town. I stumbled across the medieval torture museum, which had all different kinds of tortue, some more gruesome than others. By the time I got out of there, it was dinnertime, so I went to this resteraunt called Zür Höll, or "To Hell" in German. It has the best roast pork skewers I have ever had! Apparently it is the oldest building in Rothenburg, and the oldest restaurant in Bavaria! Isn't that cool? I had a quicker drive back to Munich than before, and overall uneventful. I had a wonderful day here, and I am thoroughly excited to go to sail up the Rhine tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Germany Day 3.

On a brighter note than yesterday, I went to Neuschwanstein today. It's winter, so the whole place is covered in snow. It is a very good thing my rental BMW has snow tires, because I was slipping around as I was. In the parking lot there, I met my old friend Maria with her family, who were also going to see the castle. We all had lunch together and caught up. I had Knodel, a traditional Bavarian dumpling, sauerkraut, and Goulash, or stew. We chatted, and learned a lot about each other. Her little brother has grown so big. A couple of years ago, I went to his first birthday. Also, when he found Hannah too much of a mouthful, he called me Harry. Their family found that so funny, I am now Harry at there house hold. After lunch, we took a horse drawn cart up the mountain to the castle. It looked so much like the Disney castle it wasn't even funny. The inside was like out of a fairy tale, with murals on the walls of tales from the bible. I almost didn't believe our guide when he said it was built in 1869! It looked so old! Nearby was the palace that king Ludwig II grew up in. It was much older, but was not nearly as fancy. We learned later in that trip that King Ludwig II was drowned mysteriously in the Starnberg lake, near Munich, after spending all his money building his four castles. I loved my day here, and it was great seeing my friends, but it was getting late, and we had to go home. The castle in fall the interior

Germany Day 2.

Today I took the 45 minute train ride to Dachau Concentration Camp. Once I got off the train, it was a short walk through the quaint city of Dachau before you got to the camp its self. You had to go through a large gate to get to the ticket office inside. I thought it was for entry, but it turned out to be for the little hand held radio guides. With one of these in hand, I got a detailed history of Dachau. Did you know that they never used the gas chamber there because it was built shortly before the war ended? I went in to the main building where they played a movie on how life was like in the concentration camp. For entry, you had to be thirteen or older, even with an adult. It was pretty tame, or as tame as it could be, for the first part, but then they got really gory, and I realized why you had to be over thirteen. It was really sobering to watch it, but outside it was a little better. They had one of the bunk rooms open, and it seemed okay at first until they told us up to four people slept in a bed the size of a normal twin! The bunks were also four high and were in four rows, end to end. Then I went into the gas chamber its self. Even though nobody was put to death in it, it was still a horrible place. It was a room the size of a classroom, with stone walls and heavy sealed doors, no windows. In the ceiling were a couple of things that looked like shower heads, but they were just decoys. The gas they used rose, so they had vents at the bottom of the walls. This killed the people by taking the out the oxygen in the air and having them suffocating to death. The next room over did actually get used though. It was the crematorium. It is where they took the people who died of disease or malnutrition, and put them into big ovens to burn. They then took the ashes out and dumped them in a pit behind the crematorium. That place is marked today. It was horrible, but it really made me think. Although not as many people died in Dachau as they did in other camps, like Auschwitz, many Jewish people lost their lives. I hope nothing like this will ever happen again. What happened to a man in Dachau. Each of these beds had 3-4 people sleeping in them.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Germany Day 1.

I'm so exited! I landed yesterday in the Munich airport, or "Münchener Flughaufen" as the Germans call it. I went to the car rental area, and I was shocked. They have BMW's and Mercedes' as normal rental cars! I pulled out on to the Autobahn, and it was wild. In the cities, there were speed limits, but out in the country, you could go as fast as your car would take you! More then once, I would see a Porsche zoom by me at about 250 kmh (kilometers per hour) which is about 155 mph! Legally! The hotel I'm staying at is nice. It's called the Hotel Olympia, and it's right near an S-Bahn, the local commuter train. There's a really good traditional German restaurant, locally called a Biergarten, and I went there for dinner. I had Wiener Schnitzel, breaded and fried veal, and potato salad. I also ordered an Apfelsaft Schorle, or sparkling apple juice. Man, I was full after that, so I went straight to bed. This morning I went to the Deutches Museum, the local science museum, situated on the river that flows through town, the Isar. I decided to take the S-Bahn to it since it has its own stop. It was HUGE. There were at least 25 exhibits that you could go to, some of them with English signs, and some of them only in German. Lucky I know a bit of German. There was a plane exhibit, a car exhibit, a boat exhibit, as well as things like waterworks exhibits and energy and chemistry exhibits. Also, This place had the best museum food I have ever had anywhere. In the front they had a smallish box with a computer screen inside, that had about 10 seats. It would play a race on the screen, and would rock side to side, as if you were in it. They also had what looked like a hamster wheel atatched to an arm. The arm would go around in a citcle. and the person inside the "hamster wheel" would have to walk around it to stop from falling over. By the time I got out of the museum, it was like, 4:30 so I went to check out the main city. First, I went to the Marienplatz, and got there right at five, when the giant cuckoo clock go off. Then I went to the Frauenkirche, one of the biggest churches I have ever seen. Finally I went back to the hotel for the night. This is a really interesting city, I've got to say. Marienplatz with the old town hall The Isar, the river that runs through Munich.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

7 things I hope to do in Germany

1. Go to the Deutches Museum 2. See Dachau 3. See Neuschwanstein 4. Go to Rothenburg 5. Sail up the Rhine 6. Go to Bremen 7. See the Berlin Zoo Knut!

German Words, Phrases, and money exchange

Good Morning: Guten Morgen (Gooten Morgen) Good Day (hello): Guten Tag (Gooten Tag) Hello: Hallo What is your name: Was ist deine Name? (Vas ist dina Nama?) My name is Hannah: Meine Name ist Hannah (Mina nama ist Hannah) Yes: Ja (Ya) No: Nein (Nine) I don't understand: Ich verstehe nicht (Ick versteya nickt) Good Bye: Auf Viedersehen I can't speak German!: Ich Spreche Deutch nicht! (Ick versteya Doich nickt) Money: 1$= 0.70 5$= 3.45 10$= 6.90 20$= 14.80 50$= 34.48 100$= 68.96 1 euro= 1.45$ 5 euro= 7.25$ 10 euro= 14.50$ 20 euro= 29.00$ 50 euro= 72.50$ 100 euro= 145.00$