Capitol City: Berlin

Highlights from Berlin:

We took a car with four people up as part of a 4-car entourage.  What should have been a six hour drive turned quickly into 9 hours on the road due to Friday traffic out of Stuttgart (think Chicago eek), a few severe traffic jams, and one large, deadly accident that shut the Autobahn directly ahead of us down for about an hour.

Still, we made it to Berlin around 2am Friday night/Sat morning.  Luckily our hostel was easy to find, had 24-hr check-in, and was all ready for us.  We dumped our stuff, made our beds, and of course headed back outside to get a beer (why not?).  Finally at about 3:15am we were back inside the hostel and going to bed... sleeping until 10am Saturday when we got up and our trip really began.

On Saturday we took a walking tour ourselves of the larger sites in the city.  We saw a historical account of the pre-thru-post war period written on placards and panels along an old standing section of the Wall.  We saw the Holocaust Memorial, the Brandenburg Tor, the Hotel where MJ hung his kid out the window (hah), the Victory Column, the Reichstag, etc... lots to see and lots of walking.  It was beautiful weather!

on top of the Victory Column

In the victory column there was a small museum and the option to walk ~282 steps to the top of the tower and look out over the center of the city.  Of course we did that too.

Later on Saturday we went to dinner as a large group - about 12 of us, or 2/3 of the total group.  Got some Pizza and walked to a nearby open-air bar to watch Eurovision* for a bit... but we were bored there so we walked further into the 'bar scene' downtown and found an Irish pub to sit in and watch.  I swear, this group of int'l students LOVES Irish pubs... not that I'm complaining though. Sweden won the Eurovision, so we had 3 very happy companions for the night.   Our night continued at a club that was a bit overrated, sweaty, and loud for me, but we stayed until 5am and then walked an hour home along the East Side Gallery**.

After sleeping some (2 hour or so for me..) we got up early and Everyone did their own thing on Sunday.  I went with 4 friends on a boat tour through the city, which was really a great deal for 2 hours of the morning and seeing quite a lot of the sights.  Sunday afternoon we saw the East Side Gallery (by day!), Alexander Platz, and then met up with everyone for the evening.  We celebrated the end of one of our friends' stays in Germany (he was returning to England after the weekend) at a steakhouse and then went out to a cultural festival near my hostel.

The fest was a bit boring... lots of food and drink tents and some bongo music ...but nothing really to do.  I tried a Brazilian  drink and bought some dried fruit and we went back to the hostel, sat in the common room and had a G&T, and went to bed.

Berliner Dom from the boat

On Monday I came back with 2 other people from our group; I decided to save some money and study and relax a bit in Stuttgart rather than continue on to Dresden and Prague.  In the morning, though, I still had time to get out to the Olympia Stadium from the 1936 Olympics.  It was a quite a sight... a huge stadium, a bell tower that scratched the clouds, lots of little tracks, an interesting museum, and some old and barely hidden Nazi symbolism and swastikas.  Really a neat little end to the Berlin trip for me!

Getting home only took about 5 hours driving; we made great time and thankfully no more big accidents!

*Eurovision is a competition in Europe held anually, similar to American Idol where each country submits one performer/singer/band and all the other countries vote for the winner... really funny!

** East Side Gallery is the largest still standing continuous piece of the Berlin Wall.  It is now (and has been since '90) completely mural'd over by commissioned artists, and the pieces looked to have been redone every 10 years.

Heidelberg

Best castle I've been to.  Including Neuschwanstein.  As cool as everything else I've seen in Germany, this may be the coolest single building that I have visited.  Erik, Justin, and I took a day trip to Heidelberg on Saturday

to visit the Heidelberg old city just for something to do.  A large group of our friends were in Munich this weekend and we had decided to not go.  Heidelberg is only 45 minutes away (by car..) but was about 2.5 hours away by train.  We got there at about 2pm after making a wrong train-stop exit and then walking to the next one
(side note - Bruchsal seems like a nice small city from what we walked through...).

Our goals for the afternoon were to see the old city, market square, churches, etc. and then make our way to Alte Brücke and finally the Schloss ruins, garden, and courtyards.  We found an Irish pub to sit outside at and have a nice lunch around 2:30 - Erik and I split a pitcher of (hard) cider since it was such nice weather and I had a bacon cheesburger - the best and closest thing to a true burger I've had here.  I really can't wait for some Five Guys back home!!!  Also - they give really small portions of ketchup here because most people eat mayo with fries instead (gross) so we asked for a bit more ketchup.  The waitress had to go 'ask'! and then came back with a tiny dish of more. We found out later that we were charged $0.50 for the extra ketchup and had a good laugh about how that would never happen back home.

After the pub we walked along the Hauptstrasse - main street- which was mostly shops and restaurants, scattered around and dotted with some churches and hotels.  We then made it down to the river and saw the bridge from a bit off... I took a few shots with my camera that will go together into a panoramic shot once I figure out how to blend them together.  Then we walked to the bridge itself, took photos of the gate, historical water levels of the Neckar river, and the castle up in the distance.  The monkey shown at right here is not the original, but a reproduction of what used to exist on the bridge -













 A statue of a monkey holding a mirror so that both the richer city-dwellers and the peasants who lived outside the city would remember to look over their shoulder as they crossed the bridge... so to say that 'no one is better than one another'.  At least, that is how the lore goes that I've heard.

The castle itself was breathtaking.. can't even explain it.  So many beautiful ruins and gorgeous views from above.  We went through the garden and courtyards, but not through the castle tour itself (we were running out on time before out train home).  I URGE you to go to my flikr page and see the shots of the castle - they are so amazing! (flikr.com/bucky91 or link at right of page)  Here's just another shot or two..

Hiking in the Schwarzwald

29.4.12 Oppenau, Deutschland (Schwarzwald)

So I started this post about 2.5 months ago after I originally went hiking in the Schwarzwald with my fellow Badger Lindsey... after completely spacing out about my Blog I am back and updating my entries a bit and will try to keep them short, interesting, and colorful.

Welcome to Oppenau!

At the end of April, Lindsey invited me and Erik to go hiking with her on a Sunday in the Schwarzwald.  She had picked out a specific spot that we could get to by a series of trains, set just outside a small town (Oppenau).  There would be waterfalls and the ruins of an old Monastary.  Erik didn't make it, but Lindsey and I still went and had a great time.

Unfortunately, the buses in a small city like Oppenau (unlike Stuttgart) do not run on Sundays... so Lindsey and I decided to hike the entire way out into the forest ourselves.... this mean that we hiked about 25 km total round trip!  We made it through the forest, over hills and through some valleys along the riverbank, through fields and past summer homes and youth hostels.  The waterfalls were really cool! It wasn't one single waterfall, but rather a 6- or 7-tiered / stepped waterfall that wound around the mountainside like a spiral staircase.   We climbed around 300 steps to follow its path to the top, and the views along the way were really neat.

After we reached the top of the falls, it was just a short walk to the monastery where a cloister of Monks used to reside... Quite possibly the coolest ruins I've ever seen.  It was nothing on the scale of a castle, rather small what was left actually, but really neat architecture.  We got some ice cream at the restaurant next to the ruins, hung out for a bit, hiked back (another 2.5 hrs) and caught a train just in time to get back to Stuttgart by 9pm.  Great day of hiking and some awesome views in a really unique and quintessential German location!

PS- We saw some cows, too!

VfB!!! Stuttgarter Fußball-Spiel

13.4.12 Untertürkheim-Stuttgart, Deutschland

Toooorrrrrrrrrrrrr! Is what we heard a number of times when our group took an excursion to the Mercedez-Benz Stadion (Stadium) to watch the Stuttgart Bundesliga team, VfB, play against Bremen.  Stuttgart won 4-1 in regular game time and in a resounding fashion.  It was quite fun to join in on the hype that the fans have for their games.  The stadium itself was probably very similar to the size of Camp Randall, but less seats.  Still, I must say it was quite impressive.  The fans definitely showed up too! It was almost entirely full with fans wearing the Red/White jerseys of VfB-Stuttgart, and just one section near us that was PACKED full with Bremen fans toting their green kits.

Football in Germany (or Europe, for that matter) is much more exciting than I ever thought it was in the states. Definitely glad I went and got to experience the football hype in person at least once.  Below you can see us showing off our VfB scarfs before the game.

-= of course: after the game, we went back into town for a few celebratory drinks =-

Strasbourg/ Strassburg, Frankreich

31.3.12 - 1.4.12 - Strasbourg, Frankreich


France.  The country of fashion, expensive wines and cheese, and snobby people. Stereotypes? Yes. False? Nope. Not in my opinion.  BUT - not all bad things.  I had a great time in Strasbourg with some great friends - one of which happens to be french and our tour guide for the weekend.  Clement (frenchie) put together a plan for about 13 of us to take a 2day/1night trip to the edge of France and see some touristy sights including a gigantic, beautiful cathedral and "Petite France" - a small section of town teeming with half-timber houses, restaurants and wineries on the river, and swans. Wild swans in the river. Yep.


We spent the days we had wandering out to see the sights aforementioned as well as the current seat of the European Parliament and some other political offices.  Saturday night while we were there we had some drinks in our hostel as a group and then went out and partied all night at a club - Se7en.  Below are my two favorite pics of the scenery.

The food was also really delicious - and expensive.  We went for a 3-course lunch at a top restaurant when we arrived that Clement had booked (and neglected to warn us about the price...) Oh well - it was super delicious! I had a salad and onion pie for appetizer, fish and noodles for entree, and creme brulee for dessert. Apologies for lack of `'s above my french letters.  I also had Flammkuchen which is basically a french version of a very thin pizza- except replace the sauce with a not-so-sour cream.  Great food!!

-=Here's a couple of us snagging a photo at the club from the photographer=-

Neuschwanstein and Schwangau

24.3.12 Schwangau, Deutschland

Fairy tale castles aren't just in fairy tales.  You can see that for yourself if you ever have the chance to visit the famous Neuschwanstein Schloss, shown right.  Walt Disney saw this iconic palace of the mad King Ludwig II during a visit to Germany, and modeled the Sleeping Beauty castle around it for his film.  Later, a modified version of the castle became the well-known symbol of Disney and Disney films.  Still, that is only one small fraction of the magnificence that abounded in Schwangau, the small village just inside of the southern German-Austrian border.

A group of five of us (Myself, Clement, Vincent, Rikard, and Erik) traveled together by renting a car from Stuttgart - a Mercedes! (van.. haha).  Still, I made use of my first drive on the Autobahn to take it up to just over 200 kmh which is about 125 mph.  Next time we get a nicer car hopefully and can take it a hair faster and feel the engine really purr [=

While in Schwangau, we toured not just Neuschwanstein but also Hohenschwangau, which was his family's castle and his home as a child before his father's death.  We got to see a number of brightly painted rooms (murals and such) including one room just for receiving gifts! Must be nice to be a prince...

The rest of the guys in front of Hohenschwangau

The Schloss Neuschwanstein was fantastic not only from far away, but also up close and within the courtyard.  We got to tour the throne room (unfinished, since Ludwig II died before it was finished.  He only spent 120 days/nights in the castle before his death.  We also saw some studies, a dining room, a working telephone (In the mid-late 1800's this was very rare), a passage that cut through the rock face, and the concert hall.  We also got to step out onto the large balcony for a panoramic vista on the way. You can see the balcony spot if you look above, dead center of the 1st picture on about the 4th floor.

Finally, we ended our day by trekking 15 minutes up the mountains to Marienbruecke (Marien Bridge) to take the first picture, etc. of the castle.  Along the way I stopped to snap a shot or two of the Alps over Alpsee... breathtaking!

Wilhelma Zoo / Tierpark / Botanical Gardens

23.3.12- Freitag - Bad Canstatt- Stuttgart, Deutschland

We took a class trip in the end of April to Wilhelma Zoo, which is a Botanical-Garden and now Zoo/Animal Park just outside of the Stuttgart Stadtmitte.  Our class met around 9.00am at the gates. We were a group of about 15 students, plus our Lehrerin- Frau Irmgard.

We first went into the Botanical Gardens.  They were amazing - everything ranging from flowers and wild grasses to bushes and even trees.  They covered every major region of the world - the Americas, areas of Europe (Germany, France, Poland, etc), eastern Asia (Japan, China, Mongolia), Australia, and a small collection of African plants too I believe.  It was quite wet and humid inside a large portion of it, and within about 20 minutes we all went back outside to walk through the zoo.

For the rest of the time at the zoo, we split up into groups of 5 or so and explored what we wanted.  I stayed to watch a Sea-lion show (they fed them and did tricks all free to watch, Emily!)  and then visited the monkeys, reptiles, bears and mountain lions, goats, polar bears, etc.  Especially cool were the vultures being fed fresh lunch and the snowy Owl.  Also really neat to see at the end were the cats of prey - including the snow leopard, tiger, cheetahs, and - my favorite - panther! I don't recall if I have ever seen a panther in a zoo before.

It was a great day in the sun, and after the class ended (about 13.00) we went back to the Stadtmitte with everyone and had a picnic with some döner kebap, music, and a beer!