Europe Days 1-4

Day 1 - We left Provo amidst a bit of anxiety. Sue was sick and her application for a passport matching her ticket name had been mixed up. Adam’s parents took us up to the airport and we had no problem getting through security. The flight left at 11:30PM and landed at JFK at 5:45 am (Eastern Time). Our nine hour layover gave us time to visit Kristy Kadish and meet her friend Antonio. The visit allowed us to get our first taste of trains (subways) that we’d be using the rest of our trip. It was so good to see Kristy and she provided a great lunch that we were able to eat it in Central Park! That was Sue’s first experience seeing the park, which was really pretty with its gardens in bloom. What a great way to start our trip.
Since these pictures were taken by Kristy's camera, we should share her favorite- (yep, we're skipping)
From here we headed back to the airport and left JFK at 3:40 PM and landed in Frankfurt, Germany at 5:15 the next morning.

Day 2-Adam’s Aunt Stef was kind enough to pick us up so early from the airport. We were impressed to see how she maneuvered her van through the small roadways of Germany. It’s a feat to find a spot big enough for such a vehicle there. It was funny to note all the BMW’s, Mercedes, and other European cars. In our two weeks there, we only saw four Fords.

After two nights of 3-4 hours of sleep on a plane, both of us ended up needing a nap that afternoon. This is especially shocking because Adam NEVER takes naps. (He doesn’t want to have trouble sleeping at night.)

We enjoyed watching Stef’s kids play soccer for all their practices that evening. Since they attend school on base, their practices are also there. It was funny because we went to two bases for the various practices and both times the security personnel decided they didn’t just need to see our passports, but to completely search the vehicle. Apparently we passed both searches (30min apart), because they let us back into the car. I still think it’s funny that foreign security employees are the guards for US bases abroad.

We also learned about some interesting cultural things there in Germany. First of all, there is a quiet hour for a few hours in the afternoon by law. In recent years, children have been exempted from this law, but that doesn’t prevent the older neighbors from yelling at Stef and her kids if they are outside making noise during this time. Recycling is also huge in Europe generally. Even in bus stations, there are the various deposits for plastics, papers and other trash. Apparently neighbors in Stef’s area are also willing to go through your recycling bags to make sure you’re being thorough enough with your sorting. Ha! Maybe that’s just a twist on the one man’s trash another man’s treasure.

I love that each household has its own cute patio in the back. It’s definitely not as great as a big back yard, but I really enjoyed seeing how well-kept they were overall. People really maintain their flowers and little patios just so. It was fun to see all the cobblestone and brick streets. I would sometimes wonder how long it took to lay down all those streets. One of the funniest things to me was the trees lining the streets by Stef’s house. I noticed they were numbered with individual metal tags nailed into the trees. It all fits in with the patios and precision of recycling, I guess. We laughed as we realized it would help with reporting a problem with a particular tree that might be out of line “Hello, tree 38 on my street seems a bit tired, could we get a replacement?”

Being sleep deprived that night helped us adjust right over to the time change because we still slept wonderfully, despite the nap.

Day 3 – After Stef got the kids off to school we headed to Wiesbaden, the area capital (maybe like a county seat). There we got introduced to gelato – probably the best we had our entire trip – and explored the city shops. Our conclusion is we could probably live on Gelato. They have dairy and if you select properly you could fulfill the other food groups too – fruit, protein, carbs – I don’t think Europeans eat vegetables (so hard to find!), so we’d survive just like that. The shops are set up for ideal window shopping, and we walked the cobblestone streets for a while just looking around. We got our first taste of ancient palaces here too. Just a step into the main corridor revealed incredible artwork and architecture.

After the exploration of Wiesbaden we headed to the train station (bahnhof) in Frankfurt. I wish there was a video showing us trying to figure out the trains that first day compared to the end of the trip – initially we were worried about figuring out things, stopped like five people asking questions, and finally got on the train and had all sorts of documents to show the conductor when he asked for our ticket, and carefully scanning for our next stop. By the end it was just smooth sailing – get to the station, find the train, jump on, show the one document to the conductor, and relax until we arrived at our destination.

One of our stations we made a train change in was Augsburg, which also gave us our first taste of the many kabob shops found throughout Europe. Sue got a falafel and I got a durum. They were delicious and gave us the impression that prices weren’t so bad in Europe – we quickly learned differently. After that quick layover we arrived in Fussen. We figured out where the LA House was (the hostel we stayed at) and navigated through the little town until we found the place. This was probably our favorite hostel we slept in during our trip – it was an old house with probably 8-10 rooms that they adapted to either be dorms or private rooms. After getting checked in we roamed the streets of Fussen, a gorgeous little tourist town and got Sue some tasty Hot Chocolate. By the tourist center there was a statue of an Elk that looked like it really wanted somebody to ride it, but even with Sue’s insisting I refused, citing that getting a ticket or thrown into jail our first day on our own in Europe might not be the best way to start our trip.

Day 4-Saturday we woke up and had a typical European breakfast at the hostel (for 2.50 euros each). It consisted of juice, the options for tea, coffee, or hot chocolate, rolls, and various spreads of fruits, butter and cheese. Oh, we each had a boiled egg, too. After that, we headed out on foot from the town on a great walking/biking trail (these are also all over Europe and are really great!) up to see the castles that we went there to see. We did see one in town the evening before-Hohe Schloss. That one was built up by the bishop. The Hohenschwangau castle was built as a Summer palace by Maximilian II of Bavaria.
The walls were covered with murals throughout, many depicting scenes from the tale of a Swan Knight, as well as historical scenes and battles of the area. It made us smile to learn he had stars made into his bedroom ceiling with crystals in the center that allowed lantern light from above to shine through. Too bad no one told him about the simpler option of plastic glow stars to smack up on the ceiling with sticky tack like we did. J Oh, and there was a bathroom attached to the kings’ bedroom, as well as a door that led down a special staircase to the queen’s bedroom. I thought it was sad to know the queen lived on her own floor, the king on his above, and the children in a different building. Sad! We really liked the tour here, because they told us a lot about the family. There were also more golden or jeweled centerpieces, interesting carved furniture, and gifts from the people of Bavaria in this castle. This castle was the first with an elevator system built into it.

The Neuschwanstein castle was built in the late 1800’s. It was the inspiration for the Disney castle. It was built by Ludwig II, the son of Maximilian. Set just across the way from the Hohenschwangau Castle, it is about a 15 minute hike up another mountain. Nearby is a beautiful waterfall with a quaint bridge. We really enjoyed the view of the castle from there.
After enjoying the view we started back for a our tour and found a man playing an instrument neither of us had ever seen before and we couldn't pronounce the name of it either. The music was pretty cool sounding - almost like a harpsicord. If you figure out the name of the instrument you win a prize!
The view out over the land from the castles was the best, though. This castle has similar amazing art all over the walls. Several woodworkers took years to make his huge bed with church tower atop, as well as other furniture. Ludwig even built in running water coming from a silver swan right to his room. This is the more impressive castle, but only a few areas were finished before Ludwig died strangely. He had been judged incapable of ruling as king just a week or so before and then was found dead by a lake. So that’s a mystery, and the castle was never completed, so you really don’t see too much of it in the tour. It was still really neat, though.

After seeing the castles, we walked the couple miles back to town, rechecked the train schedule, picked up our bags from the hostel, and grabbed some quick eats. We were hungry enough to think of grabbing a good Turkish pizza and kebab meal, but did not think to refill water bottles, so hydration status was not the best for the next 6 hours as we traveled on the trains to Salzburg. Lack of water probably didn’t help us feel any better as we wandered around Salzburg looking for our hotel. We had a map, but it didn’t go far enough NE to include the hotel area. So we were pretty much going on Adam’s amazing memory and sense of direction from looking briefly at the map by the train station.

This was a new hotel and was priced cheaper than the hostels in the area, but some things were similar to a hostel, like having a shared kitchen with fridge and cooking area. The décor in the room was kind of weird-the headboard design on the bed was red gingham and there were weird phrases like “muuh” on the lights and “find the cow” by the light switch. We never did figure out what that was about. The beds were comfortable, though.