Berlin May 24, 2009 Munich and beyond

Alright, so I left off right before our tip to Munich I believe. The flight over and everything went perfectly well. In fact there were no real mess-ups in the entire trip that I can think of, which was very fortunate. One may only note that the sky is gray in most of the pictures, but it even opened up for us a bit on our trip to Neuschwanstein (castle new-swan-stone). On our first day we wandered around town and saw all the local sites in the old city. We tried out an authentic Bavarian restaurant, which was passable, but not excellent. We wandered around and checked out all the government buildings and statues littered all across the main city square.


The next day we were up to go see the castle! We had to take two trains and two busses over the course of two hours just to get there, but it was very worth it. We hiked up a steep incline for about twenty minutes until we got to the bridge with a beautiful view of the castle, which this picture illustrates. Sadly the castle was covered for renovation, but you can still get a very good idea of it's gloriousness... plus that just tends to happen all the time so I get use to it. The castle itself was beautiful, though we couldn't take any pictures from within it. There was a ton of elaborate wooden carvings, and the place was completely filled with swan sculptures and pictures... there area was once ruled by a royal regime known as the knights of swan, hence why Ludwig the second themed his castle as he did.







A strange story goes along with Ludwig 2, who built this castle with the royal families money, throwing their once wealth estate into debt. Shortly before his mysterious death he was removed from power for dissolving parliament three times in under two years, claiming he was mentally unfit for this one and only power. Several months after his and his psychologist body are found dead in a lake. Some claim suicide and others claim murder, since they were only in knee-deep water... Either way, the man's legacy lives on in one of the most mysterious and beautiful castles in the entire world. I felt more than fortunate to view this masterpiece with my own eyes with my love Kristina. As you can tell, we also had a very nice tour guide named Mike. He was from Minnesota actually... if you ever want to plan a tour of Neuschuanstein go through Viator and ask for him! They arrange all the traveling details and whatnot, which is necessary to get there. I know I would have gotten completely lost.

So the rest of the time in Munich was great. The best restaurant we went to was an Irish/Australian pub and restaurant behind the tall Frauenkirche. They served amazing food! Ironic how the most cultured places in any cultural location tend to be in representation of other cultural places? How silly! We also saw the Nymph palace, which had, as you could guess tons of swans swimming around in front of it. The inside was influenced by the French short-lived empire, but was quite beautiful.


We also checked out the old Olympic stadium with its infamous history; see the film "Munich" for more on that... It's a pretty ugly stadium actually, but it's huge and the funny part is that AC/DC was playing there that night so we got to hear them warming up as we passed by... and I'll certainly live on not having seen them... lol. Not sure how much shaking they'll be doing all night long at their age, but hats off to them for persistence. We went to the English Garden as well which was very large and quite beautiful. There was an interesting little Chinese tower in the center of the garden with an expensive little restaurant... it' a good place to eat, but you can't get anything under 10 Euro per person really; Tourist prices, which I try to avoid when possible.





The bar at our own Hostel, The Wombat was also phenomenal, as well as also being Australian themed! We got a very generous plate of nachos there, though German salsa is gross... it just takes like sugary ketchup with maybe a little chili powder or something... German cousine has never really impressed me, especially in reflection to sauces, which tend to all be either cheese based cranberry or Ketchup based, and vary quite little... curry sauce is usually just ketchup with a little curry sprinkled on it, but practicality and efficacy are the key words in all that is German! Has it good and bad sides I guess.



We also watched x-men origins while we were there just to take a break from all the walking around. It was in German because we had just missed the English showing by 10 minutes or so. I did my best to help Kristina through it, but I think I'd like to see it again in English just to get a few of the dialogue sequences down... not that I think I missed anything pivotal in my first view... I really don't know what people expect from action movies these days... critics complain because they're brainless, but isn't that what we go to them for? Maybe the problem is that the market encourages such, and now we're being flooded with hundreds of brainless action thriller movies wit not substance or plot... see my Tarintio debate post on Facebook for more on that and his new ridiculous movie... honestly, This director is just a controversy addict, and attention whore if you ask me, but at least he's original... to say the least.
So then we went back, hung out with my friends for a little bit to watch that sill Eurovision thing... hillarious kariokie style sing/dance off between all European countries by less than known performers... we made an elaborate drinking game out of it, though Kristina had to go to sleep pretty early for her flight back.
So not much has happened since then really... I took a picture of the incredible amount of SEEDS falling from the tress on my neighborhood. It's insane. they totally covered the ground like snow.



I also went to an open air theater in Friedrichsheim park, which was showing the most ridiculous French film I ever saw called "Louise-Michel" It was about a bunch of French factory workers that try to kill their old boss who had outsourced their company and left them all jobless... there's an ugly woman who eats pigeons she catches in a mouse trap, and a fat man who sells guns who she hires to kill this guy... they're both psychopath murdering imbeciles and the bit spin in the end... well I'll leave it to all of you to find out... It's not a terrible movie really except for the part they show some guy blowing up simulated models of the wtc for his own sick amusement... I guess it' wasn't too offensive, but even I found it to be a bit much.


Just yesterday I went and visited the soviet memorial in Treptow park. It was very impressive, and I like it very much. I was a bit over-glorious, but it deserved, since at least 70,000 people died just in the final battle in capturing Berlin. The memorial served it's purpose well in serving as a mass-grave for all those who couldn't be buried.

Think that's about all I have for now... man this turned out to be by far the longest blog I've ever written me thinks... Who knows though... I'm still practicing for the play I'm in, and getting a little nervous about all these lines I have to memorize... they say I don't have to have them all perfectly memorized for this Monday, but that still implies I should have most of them, where only have a little over half so far... I'll keep working on it! I hope I can still at least plan a trip to Hamburg, Krakow and/or Copenhagen, but time is running thin... either way I'm doing well, and am very satisfied with all I've already gotten to do here in my trip to Berlin... It's been such an amazing trip, and I still have 1.5 months to go!
Best wishes to everyone out there,
Dave