DAY 21 – FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2024
– LUZERN to MNCHEN a.k.a. Munich
Emily broke her ankle last night! Im so sad! I feel so bad for her…she had to have surgery, they couldnt get ahold of their parents, and all around it was a crappy situation. But the sisters handled it beautifully, according to Dr. Mac, and all is well. Unfortunately, they cant finish out the trip with us. =( I hope shes well enough to go on their trip to Italy.
Anyway, we left for Munich today. We made one stop on the way to Newschwanstein and, in the gas station that we stopped in, I saw Absinthe chocolate…it was very interesting. Anyway, that was the only exciting thing that happened on that leg of the bus ride.
We arrived in the town of E-something, where King Ludwig IIs castle, Newschwanstein, is located. Kelly, Erin, Kelsey, Jessica and I (and a lot of other smaller groups of students) went to a restaurant to grab a bite to eat, and it was like no other restaurant experience that Ive ever had. A couple of us went to the restroom and told the others to order for us. By the time we came back (NOT that long…maybe 5 mins), not only had they ordered, but our food was there! It was miraculous. The restaurant went from completely empty to comepletely full in a span of 5 minutes and, within 10, every single customer had his food. I was in awe. I am still in awe. And it was good food, too, for you jokesters out there.
Anyway, we decided to walk up to the castle instead of paying 5 euro (odd that this keyboard has a $ instead of the euro sign…) for a horsedrawn carriage. UGH. It was a pretty long way up…in the rain. But, the calves got a good workout. Once we got up there, we could see absolutely nothing. It was so foggy and rainy. After the tour of the castle, I bought a small folding picturebook-like thing so I could see what the views were like on the other 364 days of the year. Looks pretty gorgeous. Must be nice. Fun facts about King Ludwig and his castle:-KL was declared insane by a psychiatrist who had never met him, and was stripped of his crown. 5 days later, he and the psychiatrist were found dead in a 4 foot deep lake. Hm.-It took 14 woodcarvers 4 years to complete his bedroom. It was gorgeous, but seriously?
Thats enough for now. We werent at the castle for too long before we had to get back on the coaches. It was a somber ride to Munich because we knew that it was our last with Guy (pronounced gee, by the way. hard g). We love him. We took up a pretty hefty tip collection, made him a card, and Dr. Mac played some tribute songs for him. I made sure to get a picture with him before we parted ways. He looked sharp in his argyle sweater.
We checked into the hotel (2 normal hotel keys, thank God.) and met up downstairs for our last student presentations. We walked across the street to our room in a VERY nice 5-star hotel (which, apparently, cost $2,000 to rent for 2 hours. RIDICULOUS) and listened to the presentations on Munich, Dachau, and Audi. The Audi guys got creative and played fun songs at the end. It was a good way to bring the student presentations to a close. To get our moneys worth and use up our time in the room (I assume), we played a game of Dr. Mac says. I am proud to say that I was one of the winners and the only girl, at that! Being the gracious, selfless, all-around nice person that I am, I gave my prize (a large study abroad trip tshirt…it wasnt hard to part with) to Kelly to give to her boyfriend. Dr. B came in with giant pretzels for us to share, which kept us appeased long enough to listen to what he had to say.
After all of the formalities were finished, K, E, K and I went to the BK lounge (a little Dane Cook for you fans in the audience) for dinner. You may think this is a super lame thing for us to do since we had just arrived in a new country with its own unique cuisine…but we didnt care. Were authentic-cuisined out. Were tired. We were hungry. BK was cheap. So, get over it. We rented the Bucket List and watched it in the room, then called it a night.
DAY 22 – JUNE 7, 2024
– MNCHEN
Continuing with our laziness trend, we decided not to meet for breakfast until 10 this morning. It was wonderful, considering I stayed up talking to Mackenzie, Chelsea, and Jen until about 1:30. Breakfast at the Maritim Hotel is pretty good. None of our hotel breakfasts have compared to, say, Embassy Suites, but this one and the Hilton in Nice have been very nice. I even had meatballs for breakfast, which was a first for me.
K, E, K and I decided to check out the famous glockenspiel at Marienplatz, which was most easily accessed by the German verion of the Subway/Tube. Thinking that we were adept enough to figure it out on our own, we collectively voted against going with Dr. B last night to learn how it worked. Bad idea. Basically, it took us forever to figure out where we needed to go. We were finally pointed in the right direction by a very nice old German woman who pitied our feeble attempts to read the German signs. Once we finally got to where we wanted to be, the glockenspiel was pretty disappointing. Bullet points now:
-did some souvenir shopping-visited Hofbruhaus and bought cool glasses-ate dinner at BK lounge again-watched 300, which I had NEVER SEEN…it was pretty fan-freakin-tastic-packed, went to bed.