Global Gauthier's: Arrival... Again

Well it does seem to have been a long time since we last wrote a blog! I'd like to make the following excuses: hard time finding computers, I hate typing lots on my iPhone or tablet, anything in Europe is expensive, we've been having too much fun doing other stuff, I'm a bad long distance friend. Ok, that's it! And now that I'm done making excuses, I can start updating you on our travels in Europe! We first arrived in Frankfurt, and soon realized we were not in travel mode. We had no map, forget they spoke German in Germany, and had made no plans :) so we somehow navigated our way on trains and buses to city centre exploring the Dom Romer (big cathedral type thing) and enjoyed/were appalled by seeing an incredible amount of people walk around the streets drinking beer, wine, or liquor. Laws are a little different here. After wandering around, we fell asleep early that night and woke up the next morning for breakfast and tried our luck at finding a bus to Weurzburg. Most people take trains around Germany, but recently bus services have opened up and although not as fast or convenient, they are about 1/3 the price of cheap trains! Unfortunately, bus stations and bus tickets are not as easy to use either and so we weren't able to find the right ones and ended up with the train to Weurzburg. Once there, we called from payphones and asked a million people for direction to Aut Main Brucke (Old Main Bridge) where we were going to meet Debbie Yeboah, my good friend from Athletes in Action who's in Weurzburg playing pro basketball! Somehow we found her and we had a great time hanging out and having her show us the city, palace, churches, the castle, good ice cream parlours, and the bridge where people are constantly standing around drinking wine, from morning until night. That was a pretty hilarious hangout spot for just about every group of people. That night we met a couple of her teammates and then went with them to the annual wine festival in the city square where, although we didn't have any wine, we had some delicious Bratwurst sausage! The seeing number of people in the centre square in a smaller city just hanging out was a really fun experience.

The next morning we took a bus to Munich, where we stayed at The Tent hostel. It's literally a massive tent with 100+ beds in one giant room. So cool! It had a great atmosphere there too with a giant fire pit, volleyball court, and lots of open space. From In Munich there was another festival going on at another river! So we went there and enjoyed walking around there and again people watching for a while. We also went to a palace called Nymphenburg Palace and walked around it. It was an incredible palace with building surrounding a huge courtyard and lake in the middle. The next morning we were up early to see the Olymipic Park that held the 1972 Olympics. Seeing the soccer pitch and the massive amounts of tennis courts was pretty cool. Also, that park had the largest single roof in existence, as it covered much of the stands, walkways, and the theatre. However it was a stretch to call it a roof. There was also a man-made lake and ill next to the stadium which made for great views of the city and its many churches. From there we headed to a Church of Christ and had a great service and visit with some of the members. When one particular father from Italy asked if we had kids or would soon, I laughed and said no way I'm way too scared. So he responded with some of the best advice I'd heard. He simply told me he was terrified before too (he now had 2 kids under 10) and then it was like when they were born he was given strength from God inside him that allowed him to be a dad. He said somehow, you find strength and he was sincere it was pretty cool. SO although no kids are anywhere on the way, me and that guy had a great connection :)

After church we went to Dauchau, I believe the oldest concentration camp. It was a strange experience being on those grounds, knowing how many people had been killed in such brutal conditions. It reminded us lots of the camps we saw in Phnom Penh from the genocide in the 1970s. The next morning we caught a bus to Vienna, Austria and it took some time to figure out the city. It's a super old city with lots of history and seeing palaces and churches from 100s of year ago was pretty cool. First we used our good ol' Rick Steves Europe Travel book from Charlotte Orr to give us a walking tour of the city and pointing out the highlights. The best part was simply people watching. Their is a unique culture there maybe originating from their rich and wealthy roots filled with royalty, music, and arts. People just gave a vibe of classiness. Needless to say, I didn't fit it well and that was pretty hilarious to us! We climbed up the 363 stairs of the Stephenplatz cathedral before wandering through the many walking streets towards the palace. Many buskers lined the sides with a variety of techniques; opera singers, musicians, and those funny 'I-painted-my-clothes-and-whole-body-including-my-face-and-now-I'm-standing-here-not-moving-all-day-which-is-totally-a-talent-so-give-me-money' guys. We ended up at the Sissy Palace where we went through the Sissy Museum and read lots about the former royalty and history of WWI. The next morning we went to Schonbrunn Palace and had tea with the queen. Ok not really but that's what it feels like I should be saying since writing "we went to the _______ palace," so many times this blog. Around back they had an unbelievably large gardens area and a castle type thing way behind and up the hill. We ended up spending most of our time there in the hedge mazes which was awesome. Also, we couldn't help but notice how perfectly they had cut the lawns and the cool lawnmowers they were using, and how much it all would have cost. I guess we have our roots as a lawncare company (please tell me you caught that pun) to thank... embarrassing to be in the midst of this incredible palace and our first thoughts were 'wow look at that grass and that edge.'

From Vienna we took the train (no buses in Austria) to Salzburg and were able to see some of the beautiful countryside of the Austrian Alps. Salzburg ended up being one of the nicest cities we'd visited in spite of its main attractions being 2 things I have almost no interest in: Sound of Music, and Mozart. To this point I have avoided any and all opportunities to see that movie. However being in Salzburg and going on a Sound of Music bicycle tour (in which I was the only one who had not seen the movie- I felt like Smalls when the rest of his Sandlot buddies found out he didn't know who Babe Ruth was... "I thought it was some lady... You mean that wimpy dear!?") made it tough to continue my proud trend. So after our tour where were the abby the couple got married, the house used in the film, the concert hall, and multiple other sights, I caved and watched the movie with Milessa. And 20 other young adults (boys and girls) who all sat in the hostel common room watching Sound of Music, where this hostel played the movie every single night of the year! Salzburg was also home to a beautiful fortress up on the top of a cliffy mountain that helped them fight off enemies for 1000 years as well as Mozarts birthplace and house he grew up in. One of the days in Salzburg was very rainy so we stayed indoors and only ventured outside to the city centre which was full of beautiful old buildings for a few hours in the afternoon.

The next day we made a round trip on a train to Werfen, a quaint little town between a couple mountains. As soon as we stepped off the train and walked over a bridge overtop of a stream and saw the mountains and open space in the background, it felt like a breath of fresh air for the both of us! It was here we realized how much more we love being outside and in the outdoors in country-sides and smaller villages than the many big cities we'd spent time in the last 10 days. Suddenly we both felt so much happier and it was a little odd. Anyways we came here so we could see the worlds largest ice caves inside one of the mountains. On the way we saw another fortress up on a hill (weird how it becomes totally normal). We hiked partway up the mountain and taking a bus and cable-cars the other portions. About 1800m up, we came to the cave mouth, where a cave filled with ice was discovered about 100 years ago. It dives into the mountain 42 km, with some ice as thick as 25m, the largest 'room' being 40m x 40m x 75m tall. There was massive stalactites and stalagmites made purely of ice. It all formed because in the ~3 summer months water seeps through cracks above cave, gets inside, where it drips until the ~9 winter months when freezing cold air blows in through the openings and keeps it colder than -10 Celsius for most of the year. That was a very fun 1 hour walking tour 1 km into the cave.

We stayed in Salzburg again that night before heading to Innsbruck. Our hostel was way outside city centre so it took forever to make it there later in the evening. The next day we hiked up a mountain outside of Innsbruck, which a very similar vibe to Banff. This mountain I believe was about 1900m high so 2.5 hours up was a lot of work! We were rewarded with amazing views of the surrounding mountains and exhausted legs, before making the 2 hour descent. We forgot to mention we walked 2 hours to the base of the mountain, and then also from the base to our hostel. In total, we hiked around 9 hours that day! I so wish we had a pedometer it was unreal. So because of our great accomplishment of taking 5 millions steps, we decided we deserved to take the bus to the train station where we'd make our way back to Fussen, in the south of Germany!

bakery is the only thing open in Germany on sundays, too bad right?

our church of Christ in munich!

largest roof in the world! like I said, roof is stretching the truth a little

Tent Hostel

View from the top of the Catedral

Sound of Music Bike Tour

Mozarts Birthplace and the house he was raised in

veranda from the movie! Not in its original place because people kept braking in. One 80 year old lady even was dancing in it, slipped and broke her leg! k that sounded like I was being funny about it, I kinda wasn't