Travel Tidbits

Delicious chimney cake (there's Nutella inside!)

Alright, last blog post and then we're all caught up with my study abroad trip in Germany! Now I know most of my readers are my friends on Facebook, and I really strived to keep Facebook updated with photos from my travels. I thought I'd do a brief overview of my travels here, but if you really want to see more, go check out my Facebook album (there's a link if you click the drop-down bar on the top left of the webpage).

I definitely had fewer trips during this study abroad trip; student teaching was a lot more time constraining than just regular classes. However, I did make it out of the country once and visited several other places in Germany. I already wrote about my trip to Luxembourg, so I'll pick up after that.

Germany's festival season is in the fall, so I was able to visit a ton of festivals. Imagine a state or county fair + a lot more alcohol tents - the 4H/FFA animals = basically a German festival. Lots of rides, food stalls, vendors selling goods, and TONS of beer and wine!

The first festival I went to was a wine festival in Bad Durkheim. Devina and I went with a friend of hers and met up with the other NAU students from Wiesbaden. To be honest, the trip started off fun but kind of went off the rails. We got to the festival already quite a bit drunk and then kept drinking (I know, drunk people make brilliant decisions). After we met up with Taelor and Jacob, Devina went with her friend to ride more rides....and then we never met up again! I can't remember now if Devina's phone died or if she just didn't have a service plan at the time, but I wasn't able to get ahold of her. I also did not have her friend's number and they had the train tickets home. I was still drunk and didn't trust myself to navigate three train changes alone to get back home. Luckily, Taelor and Jacob were there. They let me go back to Wiesbaden with them and stay at their apartment for the night before taking a train back to Landstuhl the next day. Also, I had the key to the apartment so when Devina and her friend got back, they had to climb in through the window. Moral of the story, don't travel with people without everyone's phone number and an "in case of separation" plan.

Despite the misadventures with my first German festival, I gave it another go the following weekend. This time Devina, her friend, and I went to the Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart (or, as we foreigners call it, the Stuttgart Beer Festival). Overall, this festival was much more enjoyable. Rode a few rides, got the delicious chimney cake you see above and more oh-so-good but oh-so-bad-for-you food, and meet up with Taylor and Jacob again. We spent most of our time in a beer tent where drunk festival goers stand on the table benches and sing and dance to live music. The band and the entire audience would often sing "Ein Prosit aus Bayern" then say "oans, zwoa, g'suffa!" Basically, that meant "A cheers from Bavaria! One, two, drink!" and everyone would drink! It was actually a lot of fun to be in a huge crowd yelling that and celebrating together.

Devina and I

Me, Taelor, and Jacob at Cannstatter Volksfest! (I usually drank wine over beer)

The following weekend I was able to go to Oktoberfest in Munich! I met up with Taelor and Jacob because one of the teachers from their school offered us tickets at her table in a beer tent. Getting into a tent is a pretty hard at Oktoberfest since so many people attend. Our table was upstairs where the atmosphere was a lot more laid back then on the ground floor. Standing on our table benches was sadly not allowed. However, it was still neat to meet so many more DoDEA teachers and to actually be in a tent and not stuck outside in the overcrowded beer gardens.

Taelor and I in Stuttgart

Mmmm beer

Outside one of the entrances into Oktoberfest

The day after Oktoberfest we headed south to go see Schloss Neuschwanstein (schloss is German for castle). For some reason that I can't remember, we weren't able to actually go into Schloss Neuschwanstein (it might have already been fully booked). Butttttt there are two castles right there, so we did a tour of Schloss Hohenschwangau and walked to a creepy bridge to see Schloss Neuschwanstein. Hohenschwangau was nice to visit, but Neuschwanstein was gorgeous to see! Definitely a fairy tale castle (it was partly the inspiration for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle).  Here are some pictures of Hohenschwangau and the pretty foggy forest.

Isn't that stunning? 

Me, at Hohenschwangau, and a faint Neuschwanstein in the back

Schloss Hohenschwangau

And here are a lot of pictures of Schloss Neuschwanstein! I couldn't pick just one because it was one of my favorite places!

The magnificent fall foliage made the castle that much more beautiful

There was a big cliff right behind me; I was terrified

Castle selfies!

That creepy bridge I mentioned....you could feel it swaying

Just, wow.

The view looking the other way from the bridge.

And that sums up my trips while in Germany!! Hope you enjoyed this little peek into my time there and maybe I've inspired to you visit somewhere unknown or try something new.

Thanks for following me on this journey and reading my wordy and (probably) mistake-riddled posts!