“may 16, 2001”
“third day on the train. we have been debating amongst ourselves whether we could have gotten away with buying only the 15-day eurail pass instead of the 1-month that we got, but the flexibility of being able to hop on a train to anywhere and not worry about schedule or price is unbeatable. train travel is actually a lot of fun. you get to meet or observe random people, and see lots of countryside…you’d never be able to do it any other way. i wish trains were a more feasible option in the united states.
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i think it must be travel season for german schoolchildren or something–everywhere we go, there are sizeable groups of 14- or 16-year-olds. perhaps they have some kind of spring break? i’m not sure.
the other interesting note about germany is the number of bicycles! when we left the train station in heidelberg, there must have been literally 500 bikes parked outside, some locked up, but some just sitting with the kickstand as its support. i saw lots of bikes in stuttgart as well, and have seen them sitting at the train stations–hauptbahnhof–we’re passing on our way to fussen.
in the distance, i can see the alps! it’s breathtaking and humorous all in one glance–we’re riding through flat plains and farmland, seeing cows grazing in pastures, and then suddenly in the distance i noticed huge, snow-capped mountains! they just rise up to these majestic heights seemingly out of nowhere! i can’t wait to get to fussen and be in the middle of them. i was hesitant to miss munich, but this castle should be great. if nothing else, it is fun to pass through these small german towns. it reminds me of the bus ride in stratford-upon-avon a week ago, when we sat among the schoolchildren…just like we are doing at the moment on this train.
we just passed a field full of yellow flowers and puffy dandelions. these are the kinds of towns that you’d stop at if you truly wanted a random experience. it’d help if we knew german though!
but geez, kids everywhere. becca and i are caught in the crossfire between two boys and a few girls throwing bigs of paper back and forth at each other. “the middle school mating ritual,” as becca called it, and rightly so. it’s annoying to get pelted every once in a while, but also kind of funny. the paper balls are getting bigger–if i were at home, i’d have taken the newspaper away from the kids by now, but here, i don’t even know how to talk to them. anyway, a few just got off the train, so the frenzy of flying paper has calmed.
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this afternoon becca and i visited neuschwanstein, one of the many extravagant castles built by mad king ludwig ii of bavaria in the 1800s. it is the castle disney based cinderella’s castle on, and it was absolutely beautiful. building it was so expensive that ludwig ran out of money, was declared insane, and “mysteriously died.” all work on the castle stopped immediately, and so many of the rooms are unfinished. the ones that were completed are extravagantly decorated with paintings depicting richard wagner’s operas, wood carvings, and ornate chadeliers. the throne room even had a delicate mosaic floor showing all kinds of animals. it was really neat to see.
fussen has turned out to be very nice. after checking into the hostel–which is sparkling clean! 🙂 –we wandered back into town. instead of a full dinner, we opted for coffee and ice cream sundaes at an outdoor cafe. it was sooo relaxing to just sit and sip and talk, with the alps providing the background scenery.
kimberly is in town somewhere, but she missed getting a bed at the hostel because they’re full. we hope to find her tomorrow.
this has been maybe the best day of the trip so far for me. we began in stuttgart with a jelly doughnut–ich bin ein berliner!–and ended with a pleasant walk to the hostel. the building is in a lovely and quaint location, hidden in a neighborhood along the railroad tracks. we even laid some german coins and an american dime on the tracks to have them flattened by the next train. that made us giggle like kids.
tomorrow we hike around fussen and then head to munich to meet with carter, kent, and hopefully kimberly.”
