So, on day two in Germany... I went to Cinderella's castle. Not really, I went to schloss Neuschwanstein in Fussen on which Walt Disney based Prince Charming's castle. After a two hour train ride, my tour group trekked up the side of the most gorgeous Bavarian mountain. Our guide, Nick, had a most peculiar accent: sort of New Zealand meets German, which I puzzled over for some time, until I overheard him tell one of the other tourists that he was from South Africa. Face palm. I can't believe I didn't catch that.While on our hike, we passed a beautiful lake. You could see the reflection of the surrounding mountains in the portion which wasn't frozen, where geese and the heraldic symbol of Bavarian nobility, the swan, swam gracefully together.
Once we got into the castle, we met the most amazingly adorable, young German woman who gave us a tour of the interior of Neuschwanstein. I learned that Ludwig the II, who was declared mentally unstable, built this castle based entirely on the operas of Wagner. The walls were decorated with murals depicting the legends of Tristan and Isolde, Sir Gawain and Sir Percival, and several other really German sounding names that I can't really remember. He also designed a grotto, out of one of the operas, just because. I mean, if I had nearly unlimited means to build my dream house, I'm not sure if I could put in a fake cave, but whatever floats your boat. On the way back down the mountain, I saw horse drawn carriages for the lazier, richer tourists. I think I saw a distant cousin of my buddy Spiffy. You scheming pony, I miss you!
By the time we got back to our hostel, Carrie, Sarah and I were exhausted, especially because we anticipated getting up at four a.m. to catch a train. Four rolls around and I hear Sarah's alarm going off, do I get up? I need to get up, oh, fine, I'll get up. Stumbling around the room and packing in the meagre beam of light from under the bathroom door, I eventually managed to gather my things together.
We all trundle off to the train station fifteen minutes later, me shuffling along with my little rolling suitcase, trying not to let it capsize on curbs. Arriving at the station, we discovered that the office which needed to validate our Eurail passes wouldn't open until seven a.m.!!! But glorious day, the lady at the information desk told us there was an even more direct route to Vienna which left at 7:20. So, four chapters into a Jane Austen novel later, we sped our way towards Austria.
Along the way, Sarah whips out a deck of playing cards and challenges Carrie and me to a game of go fish. Since it is Sarah, the cards have Disney princesses on them, and in the middle of the game, this tiny German fairy-child walks by. Her eyes got really wide and she jabbered something in excited tones. We all kind of smiled and shrugged and muttered that we don't know any German, then she skipped away giggling. Later she returned, and Sarah fishes out the wild card, featuring Belle, Aurora, Ariel, Cinderella and Jasmine, and gives it to this little blonde Fraulein. With this gift, she suddenly became most animated herself and began pointing at Aurora and grinning. We all sort of made hand gestures and pointed, making a conversation out of this little playing card. Eventually, the girl's mother showed up, who actually spoke English. She chatted with us for a little while, asking where we are from and what we studied. Apparently, we convinced her that we weren't bad people and she could trust us with Leuke, cause she didn't really bother to check up on her too much after that. We sketched and taught each other the German and English words for butterfly, mouse and whale, kinda adorable. After a while, she started getting a little tipsy on all of our attention, climbing on our table and turning the reading lights on and off. We resorted to playing patty-cake games, until she started tickling me. Thank you, Sarah Stitt, for letting her know I'm ticklish.
Once we arrived in Vienna, we checked into our hostel, which really isn't at all bad. In fact, my dorm at Mercer, freshman year was less cheerful. Then we wandered around Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) of Austria's palace gardens. I'd just like to say, I'm impressed. They even built a Roman ruin. That is definitely when you know you have arrived, when you can afford to fake classical ruins. Vienna, day two awaits tomorrow, more pictures and commentary to come.
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