So classes have been pretty relaxed lately. I had gotten most of my presentations out of the way before I went on Christmas break, so when I got back I mostly just chilled and had exams. Our finals were pretty easy, and I am excited to now be on break. Today is January 29, and classes start back up on April 13. So you are probably wondering what I will be doing during that time, so I decided to post it here.
I bought this train ticket called a "EU Rail Pass" which allows me an unlimited amount of travel anywhere in Europe by train. I have planned out a big trip that I will be doing and it should be an amazing time. So below is where I will be doing and what I roughly plan on doing while there
February 2-5- Bastogne, Belgium- I plan on visiting 3 museums there all pertaining to the Battle of the Bulge. I have always wanted to go here and am so excited for it. Should be awesome
February 6-7- Amsterdam, Netherlands- Not really sure why I am going here. Why not I guess. Seems cool. Main goal is to see the Anne Frank house
February 8-11- Brussels, Belgium- Brussels has a surprising amount of things to do. Lots of museums, this cool place that has a mini recreation of a lot of famous European monuments called "Mini Europe" even a scuba diving place if I am bored. Of course I shall consume Belgian Beer
February 12-14- Paris, France- Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, museums, the catacombs, Versailles
February 15-16- Bayeux, Paris- The Bayeux tapestry, on the 16 I have a full day tour of the D-Day beaches. So excited to finally complete a life goal of visiting here
February 17- Caen, France- Visiting a D-Day museum here that is supposed to be really good
February 18-19- Paris, France- Finishing off the things I didn't get to do the first couple days
February 20- Taking a high speed train back to Munich from Paris. Will only take 6 hours!
February 21-22- Stuttgart, Germany- Mercedes-Benz and Porsche Headquarters and Museums
February 23- 25- Vienna, Austria- Not really sure yet
February 26-28- Berlin, Germany- Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, other stuff
March 3-7- London, England- Imperial War Museums, Churchill War Rooms, HMS Belfast, Big Ben, London Bridge, more stuff
This is when it gets a little blurry. I will probably go to Vienna. After that I want to hit Stuttgart, Germany and visit the Porsche and Mercedes headquarters and Museums. If I have enough days left on my train pass, I will hit Zurich or Stuttgart. We shall see what happens.
So that is the plan. Will be out of Munich non stop from the 2-20. Should be a fun experience. I am also applying for a grant from Bates to go to London in early April to visit the Imperial War Museums. Hoping I get chosen for that. I will try to keep this updated as much as possible, but it will certainly be hard since I will always be on the road. I will certainly have a ton to write when I get back.
March is still looking fuzzy, but it looks like I will be having guests from the homeland. If not, I shall do more travelling.
P.S. I am doing mostly all of this trip by myself, which will be cool. The exception is that Josh arrives in Paris on the 13 and we will visit the D-Day beaches together and he is with me until the 19. That will be a fun little time. So excited for this trip. Will definitely be the highlight of my time abroad!
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Whoops
So it has now been 2 months since I last updated this. Sorry about that. A lot has happened since the beginning of December. As many of you know, my mom and sister came to visit me in Munich from December 22 or 23-30. It was an incredible amount of fun. We did pretty much every touristy thing in Munich that you can imagine which was awesome. We started off at the Christmas Markets while they were still open, enjoyed the food and bought gifts for each other and for the people back home.
This is the town hall from the tower of St. Peter's Church, the little green things are the stalls which contained small items to buy as Christmas gifts as well as food
Entrance to one of the markets, there are several in Munich
We went to mass on the night of Christmas Eve in the Frauenkirche, which is Munich's most famous church that you often see on postcards. Its the one with the two towers
Us dressed up for mass
We still managed to have a real Christmas. We bought a little tree and decorated it and bought each other gifts
In the days following Christmas, we went to Schloss Nymphenburg and toured the castle and gardens there. It was really beautiful. We also went to a circus show (Circus Krone) and saw a show there the day after Christmas. The tickets were cheap, only 17 euros a person, we had great seats, and the show was actually really good. Normally I go to these things and am pretty bored and daydream about random things, but this show was about 2.5 hours and that didn't happen a single time for me
The main building of the castle complex
The Circus. Many lions.
We then visited Schloss Neuschwanstein, which is the castle that Disney modeled Sleeping Beauty's castle after. It was incredibly beautiful
This is a smaller castle next to Neuschwanstein called Hohenschwangau
This Ludwig II guy had good taste
A side view of the castle (complete with tourisits)
A night shot of the castle
We then visited Dachau concentration camp, which admittedly is sort of a strange thing to do on a family vacation, but I think that it is good to be educated about these sorts of things. It was the third concentration camp I visited, and still equally as interesting. There are actually notable differences between how the camps were run and general life there when compared to each other, which I think is interesting
The main gate to the prisoners camp
The missing door. The famous "Arbeit macht frei" sign was stolen around the beginning of November, and still has not been recovered
This is the system the Germans used to prevent escape. I thought it was cool so I posted it
Those hooks on that bar in the center of the top of the photo is right in front of the fire places in the crematorium where the bodies were burned. Prisoners were often hung right here in front of the fires
The crematorium
There was actually a gas chamber at Dachau, which I did not know. It was not used for mass extermination, but only to kill a few prisoners. I did not take a picture of it though.
After Dachau we visited the Olympic Park and BMW World, did some shopping, ate at Hofbrauehaus and Hard Rock Cafe and generally had a great time. Our hotel was awesome and had the best breakfast buffet I have ever seen. It was honestly the most fun I've ever had in a week.
That is pretty much all for this trip, sorry for posting so little!
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