Traveling in the land of Bier

So last week was break for me. well the last two weeks were, but I only had enough money to allow for one of those two. It was a great getaway from Klagenfurt. I went up to Munich and Cologne! I spent four days in each place, and got a chance to participate in Karneval (I think my spelling changes with each day. I like to combine english and german?)

Munich was a nice city. Not the most photogenic, I thought, as it didn't ever have that 'typical' shot in my mind. A person could photograph everything in the place separately, but there was nothing to bind the entire city together, but still a pretty city. I spent the first two days with Hannah and Derek, and we withstood torturing winds and cold and snow to travel around. The tour we took was a nice overview of the city, with something from every time period of the history of Munich. The tour guide was nice also, yet, sorry for him, he was balding early. We did typical touristy things, and one of those was the HofBraeuHaus. THE typical beerhall in Munich, it was everything German in one building. Beer, Pretzel, Om-Pa-Pa music, and Bratwurst. If that isn't German, then I don't know what is. The third day I went to Neuschwanstein Castle, better known as the disney castle. I thought that this was a total let down. Seriously, the construction of it had barely started when Ludwig II died, leaving behind on 13 completed rooms. 41 euros for that?! The last day was Langer Tag des Museums. I went to the Alte Pinokothek and the Residenz Museums. The first housed pretty good paintings, from old german painters, to Rubens, to Rembrandt, to Da Vinci, etc. I spent about 3 hours total their, half the time my head towards the ceiling, what with 3/4th of the pictures being these massive Allegorical paintings of something or other. The Residenz was a good choice. This place was the offical residence (coincidence?) of the royal family. Now it is a never ending maze of luxury. I spent only 2 hours there, which was a shame because I felt like I would have needed the whole day to properly take it in.

Cologne was a huge party. from the day we got there to the time we left we were always surrounded by drunk people, and McDonald's, and Krapfen, basically anything to make one kill over from a heart attack in any one bite (the drunk people are not involved in that statement). Oliver and his family were really nice to us, providing food, showers, internet, and any other modern convienence we needed. Cologne is like Munich, in the fact that not one part of it is the typical picture of Cologne, it's just made up of billions of pictures. Plus, I think it would be more attractive in the summer. While we were there there was alot of gray to be seen. Der Dom is the center piece of the city. This thing is HUGE. You step out of the Train Station and it is the first thing you see. My head was constantly skyward as I encircled this thing going to and from other locals. One day we climbed one of the towers, and it took nearly 400 steps and about 10-15 mins to get up there. Koelsch, the 'indigenious' beer to Cologne, was tasty. We even made an afternoon trip to Bonn, to see that city somewhat. Bonn is like the little brother city to Colonge, but, ironically, it had been the captial of Germany up until 1990. I saw Beethoven's Geburtshaus, and that was about it. Hannah told me an afternoon was enough. We even made new friends!

Germany and Austria are similar in some ways, but tend to differ alot more. And I guess by Austria, I mean Carinthia.For one, the german is understandable. I was blown away, even in Munich, at how much I could understand. I got a huge confidence booster in knowing that I wasn't sucking at life and that staying in a German speaking land was actually having an effect. Another difference was in the people. Mainly in the fact that in Germany there were many different culturs. Of course, there was the 'typical' german, but there were also africans, asians, turks, middle easteners, etc. Everyone didn't look the same, and that, I thought, was great. I was impressed with how much the people of Germany were in touch with what had happened in WWII. They seem to have taken full responsibitlity of had happened, and were willing, and trying, to make things better, and to not let it happen again. I was dissapointed, though, in how much of the the cities, mainly Munich, had been destroyed in WWII. Munich had 90% of the city destroyed. There were paintings missings from the Residenz Museum, and one could see in the architecture of churches, what had been reconstructed. It was a shame to know that such beautiful things were lost forever, due to this war. Third, and lastly because this is getting a little long (I rhymed!) was the windows. They were so much smaller in Germany. Weird.