Guten Tag Germany!

If you remember one of my posts from waaaaay back when, I mentioned that Aaron and I were the luckiest ducks in the world and that we would be going on an October Adventure. I can't believe how fast the time has flown because guess what, I'm blogging RIGHT NOW in our hotel room in Frankfurt, Germany! --By the way, sorry for the delay in blogging. Aaron has been busy preparing for this competition here in Frankfurt and midterms, school work, etc and I have been busy LOVING my busy, busy new job! Anyway, hopefully the next few Germany posts chock full of pictures will make up for our absence:)

So, let's jump in and I'll catch you up on what we've been doing the last few days. We left for Germany on Saturday, October 17...for you Longhorns fans, yes, we left on UT v. OU gameday. Fortunately, we found a TV at the airport by our gate and Aaron got to watch the first half...which just so happened to be a big, hot mess for the Horns. Anyway, I digress. We flew Air Canada (cheapest rate available) to Calgary where we had a 3 hour layover and free wireless internet so Aaron could check the score. By the way, we are traveling with Aaron's teammate and schoolmate, Jon and the boys' coach is Jeralin, an '07 law grad. We've had a really great time as a foursome so far! We landed in Frankfurt at about 11am Frankfurt time and killed about an hour before we got on a 3 hour train to Munich. Here we are on the platform waiting for the train!

We took an "ICE" train which is the fastest, most luxurious option in Germany. We managed to get a little enclosed travel pod for all of us and our luggage which was great. The ride was a gorgeous trip through the German countryside. In Munich (or Munchen as it is called here in Germany), we called a taxi and found our hotel with little complication. We stayed at the K&K Am Harras which ended up being a perfect little no-frills European style hotel. We were close to the S-Bahn (suburban train system) and so we were able to take about an hour to rest and then we navigated our way to the city center to search for dinner. The square was so beautiful at night...Aaron has some more pictures that we have yet to take off the camera but for now...


As you can tell, it is really cold here! It's been fun to really feel like you are somewhere else though...I love the scarves, gloves, coats, hats weather--at least for a week I can handle it:)
Anyway, dinner that night was great. We found a warm little Bavarian restaurant and had some local delicacies like schnizel! After a great night's sleep, we got up the next morning for breakfast back at the city center.


We spent the rest of the day exploring Munich. We have yet to figure it out, but they are really into lions here.

Here are the Frankfurt arbitration competition teammates in their new hats. They are standing in front of a building called the Marienplatz in the city center.

We ran into some great spots despite not speaking any German!

(I should mention that these photos are from Jon because we haven't had a chance to upload either of our cameras yet. I took the pictures with people in them, mostly, and I don't want to put off blogging any longer!)
Our next stop was the famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich. Even though Aaron and I don't drink beer, it was really cool to go there and witness all the culture and history there. The size of the beers is a little crazy, huh??





From the Haufbrauhaus, we caught a U-Bahn (Urban rail system) to Olympiastadt, the area in Munich that was built for the 1972 Olympic Games.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip...we are definitely with fun traveling companions:)

Across from the Olympics area is the BMW museum. We weren't able to check it out because it was closed but we walked through another part of the BMW area and got to see new car models and stuff...pretty cool!
After lots of walking, we headed back to the hotel and rested before checking out the concierge's recommendation for dinner. We were able to walk to the Spektakel restaurant but unfortunately, the food was only so-so. We all think that we look like hostages in this photo..oh well!

The next morning, we got up super early to catch a train to Fussen. Fussen is the home of the Neuschwanstein castle of King Ludwig. It was a 2 hour or so train ride but we had to make about 4 connections on our way there--which means, taking big luggage on and off each train--quite a workout!

When we arrived in Fussen, we put our luggage in lockers at the train station and Jon suggested we rent bikes to bike to the base of the mountain where we could buy tickets for the castle. It was a chilly, but beautiful ride and I'm so glad that we got the bikes. It was so fun!

(Of course, I was having Aaron take a picture of me while the man at the shop was putting a basket on my bike so I could hold our purses) Here's me with the boys:

All of us on the bikes!

After about a 5km bike ride to the base of the mountain, we locked up our bikes and went to buy tickets for the castle. Because of the icy roads and snow, the shuttle bus that normally takes you up the mountain wasn't working. So, our option was horse drawn carriage or FOOT. We elected for the 40 minute hike, of course! We probably managed to hustle ourselves up there in about 20 minutes, but man, it was cold. Anywho, it was totally worth it when we made our way to the top. We were a little early for our tour time so Jon led us to this bridge around the back of the castle. The view along that little trek were absolutely breathless.




Of course, the view of the bridge was simply stunning as well.



We were a little giddy after seeing those views--the occasion called for yet another group pic.

From where we were waiting to take our tour of the castle, Jon captured this picture of the bridge we had just stood on.

The tour was about 25 minutes long and the story of the castle is actually kind of tragic. Ludwig was a young king who never married or bore children. He spent all this time and money building and designing this castle and he actually died before the work was completed. There are 50 some odd rooms that were never completed and he only lived in it for 6 months. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the castle's interior but you could take pictures out the windows:



As you can imagine, the walk down the hill was much easier. We even had time to stop to try on some awesome hats.

Once we were down the hill, we decided to fill up before we headed back into town on our bikes. Jeralin and Jon sampled the local Neuschwansteiner beer and bratwurst:

The ride back definitely called for action shots. Just looking at these makes me smile!




Look at the beautiful view from our ride...

We had some time before our train so we decided to check out the town center.


That's it for days 1-3...next up, Heidelberg and finally, Frankfurt for the competition. Stay tuned!

He said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty." Zechariah 4:6