The Munich Days

So, our first day back in Germany. I could scarce believe I was going to see my family the next day. My first instinct was to be excited, but was tempered with a bit of curiosity as to how it would go. We had been on our own, doing our own thing for five months, and now we were about to be joined by Mummy and Daddy. Hmm...what could possibly go wrong...
Anyhoo, for our last day alone in Germany, we decided to take a train back to Ingolstadt, which we had visited with Wolfgang in October. When we first went, the church Maria de Victoria was closed. To go out of our way to see a church was unusual, since they all look mostly the same, but this church, we were told, was quite unique because of the ceiling. Fun little fact about Bavaria, though. Train tickets can be pretty expensive, and our passes had expired by this time. But Bavaria offers what they call the Bayern ticket. For thirty euros, up to five people can travel anywhere in Bavaria all day. Keeping in mind that a roundtrip ticket for ONE person to Ingolstadt from Munich would have been forty euros. So we happily purchased our Bayern ticket (thanks to Mother's wonderful research), and boarded the train to Ingolstadt.

Ingolstadt is a charming little town. We thorougly enjoyed exploring it in October, and enjoyed it just as much this time around, with the added bonus of Christmas coziness.
Here's the church we worked so hard to find. See, we had no map of the town (it's small, but not THAT small), we had a vague recollection of which direction it was in, but we weren't positive, and (and this is the best part) we couldn't remember the name of the church. I just knew it was named after a woman. But I didn't know how to say that in German. But of course, following our excellent travel rule of "when in doubt, ask at a hotel," I stepped into the first hotel I saw and asked. Unfortunately, it was a small, privately owned hotel, and the man knew almost no English. But he was very kind and helpful, and between gestures and very very broken English, the use of a few words that are similar between French and German, and also the help of a tiny map he had, he helped me locate the correct church. Which, as it turned out, was just down the road, and had we kept going in the direction we thought was correct, we would have ended up on the doorstep. Who knew? We actually do have a few recall wires in there. But what's really fun about this church is the ceiling. It's been painted so that from one perspective, everything looks 3-D. There's even a scyscraper painted in. But if you move forward, everything becomes distorted and just odd looking. It's really cool. And then there's the elephant. Supposedly, the guys who painted them had never actually seen an elephant, and so painted it from inaccurate descriptions...so the proportions are wrong. "An Oliphaunt!!!" But of course, all that doesn't really lend itself to a still photograph, and since I didn't have my wizarding camera with me, I didn't post a ceiling picture. Just a normal view of the church, with a little bit of the ceiling in view. But we do have ceiling pictures. If you beg and plead I might show you one someday. Or just wait for Elizabeth to post. ;-)=
Of course, they had a Christmas market as well, with a tent set up just for candied nuts. We got a bag of pistachios and a bag of walnuts. They were fresh, hot, and absolutely exquisite. Then we caught the train back home...erm...did I just say that? Rather, back to our hostel (we said that a lot, as we were essentially homeless for six months and our hostels became as close to home as we had...sniff sniff...poor us...), slept, and awoke the next day ready to greet our family. Now, in fairness, we were very excited about seeing our parents...and brother, if I'm pressed...and I wouldn't want to negate that fact at all. But I shall now disclose the other strong reason we were excited. Our dear Mother had done a lot of research planning this trip. She had planned almost every day out, though there was always flexibility. And far from being resentful that we didn't get to do the planning, we were thrilled at the idea of not having to plan, arrange, or figure out anything for a change. Two weeks for which we could switch our brains down to low power and give them some rest. The meeting point was in the lobby of the hotel they'd be staying in when we went back to Munich (the plan was Munich-Salzburg-Munich, but the first Munich hotel was much farther away from the city center than their second hotel was). Now get this: we had set a time to meet at the hotel, but here's our family, coming to a new country. They're not used to the European cities (especially Daddy and Daniel, who had never left the continent before). They've got all kinds of unpredictable time-eaters, like the plane ride, the bus to the hotel, check-in...etc. And what do you think? All the variables, and dang it all if my Dad isn't still exactly on time. To the minute. I give up. It was good to see them though.
The first place we headed was the Christmas market in Marienplatz. We got there close to noon, so we got to watch the Glockenspiel (their famous clocktower) go off, and it was a great deal more impressive than the one in Prague, I can assure you. The one in Prague was, I'm sorry to say, rather pathetic. A hundred people or more sit around for fifteen minutes with their heads turned upwards just waiting...and then one minute after the hour they all turn and look at each other and think, "that was it?" The words don't have to be said. You can see it in each other's eyes. But most people will say them anyway, because since the dawn of time, people have been obsessed with stating the obvious. Like Legolas. But this clock was quite impressive, and I think went on for about ten minutes.
We then had dinner at a place just next to the Christmas Market...and there's Daniel enjoying the experience. Hee. Can you say jetlagged. He insisted he wasn't...I'll let you be the judge. Of course, I, having been acclimated to Europe for quite some time, I was enjoying rubbing in how unjetlagged I was.
Mmmm. Orange. This was a random orange tree...thingy just east of Karlsplatz, and subsequently a bit west of Marienplatz. Here you have the family minus the photographer. But I think Elizabeth was happy to take pictures of other people for a change, since half had been of her for the last five months.
Still, she couldn't escape (gee, that looks just like escape) all the pictures. Here we are eating Black Forest cake in a little pastry shop in Marienplatz. I'm still pining for that hat. I lost it in Salzburg. Oh, I'm not supposed to tell you that yet...that's the next post.
Ever heard the phrase "end o' the line"? Well, I guess Fussen literally is. This is the train track we followed there from Munchen (That's Munich, and yes I'm showing off again. Isn't my German knowledge astounding?).
Neuschwanstein Castle (transalted as New Swan Stone Castle) is just outside of Fussen, and it's the castle that Disney copied when they designed their Magic Kingdom castle. It's absolutely beautiful, and the setting makes it even more so. If you're looking for a fairytale castle, this is the one. Unfortunately, the most striking view of it is covered in scaffolding right now (though we got pictures there anyway), but it's still breathtaking. I was excited to see it too because I'd learned about it in my Music History classes. Mad King Ludwig had it designed after and dedicated to Wagner and his operas, with different rooms depicting different scenes from said operas.

As an interesting sidebar, you'll note that Ludwig van Beethoven, Mad King Ludwig, and I share the same name (in my case the English version, Lodwig). I was born 100 years after Mad King Ludwig died, and the first known portrait of Beethoven was made 100 years before that. A coincidence? I think not.
Here's the view from Neuschwanstein of Schloss Hohenschwangau, the other castle in the area. Really, Germany is amazingly beautiful. It's not all WWI/II history there, though that's a big deal too, as you'll see in the next picture.
This is just one memorial to the horrors the Nazis got away with. A lot of the memorials in Munich are like this...easily passed over if you don't know what you're looking for. It's another example of them acknowledging their past, but not being haunted by it. It's not necessarily shoved in their faces every day, but it is there, preserved for any to read, though not always for tourists to gawk at, as this one is only written in German.
Christmas morning. We thought our brother would enjoy the chocolates with liqueur. We had seen them around Europe, but were for some reason having trouble finding them when we were Christmas shopping. So we'd stepped into a chocolate shop in Vienna and asked if they had any. Heh. They started pulling out one bag after another...here's one with chocolate liqueur, here's dark chocolate with cherry liqueur...etc. etc. I think the Europeans will add alcohol to anything...hot chocolate, truffles, parfaits...macaroni and cheese... But then they pulled out the eggnog flavoured stuff, and we knew we had to get it. Daniel loves eggnog. So here he is proudly holding his chocolate up.
Mother and Daddy had bought some snacks in a grocery store in Fussen, and had brought our Christmas stockings with them. I had picked up a branch from an evergreen tree in Marienplatz and set it up above the TV so that it hung out over the floor. And Elizabeth and I had been doing some Christmas shopping since Romania, bought wrapping paper in Munich and ribbon in Fussen, and wrapped the presents late Christmas eve (after a fun night of pub crawling with Daniel, a tour where they take you to different pubs and tell you how the beer is made...Munich's very proud of their beer). So on Christmas morning, we awoke to stockings at the ends of our beds and present underneath our improvised Christmas tree. (Elizabeth and I did stay a few nights in the hotel with them so we could be with them for Christmas morning.) Here we are with our improvised traditional Christmas.
Here's our Christmas dinner. Check out those enormous beers! Forget the pint, they're all about the liters. One liter is over two pints. Yowza.

Here's the sobering side of Christmas. We went to Dachau, the concentration camp. This was set up quite differently than Auschwitz, but just as sobering. Again, I sat out a lot of it.
Mmm. Orange. As you can see, I was excited. I don't know what that is, but I'm sure it signifies excitement. This was one of the metro stops in Munich. Very cool. I hereby dub Munich that of the cool subway stop.

Did ew know...?
Munich is obsessed with sausage and beer. They even have a special white sausage and light beer for breakfast. Being a vegetarian is very difficult in Munich.
Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits (TM), and have a nice day.

Whining About Wine in Wien

Mmkay, that title has nothing to do with anything. But I thought it looked cool. There is nothing wrong with their wine. That I'm aware of. And Wien is Vienna, by the by. I was very excited to get to Vienna, since there are a lot of musically historical locations. But there was another perk of getting to Vienna that I wasn't aware of: it snowed once while we were there! One would think, being in Poland, Romania, etc. in the middle of December, that we would have encountered some kind of snow storm at this point, but it suited the weather to be a tease. Little minx. I finally got one light snow in Vienna, for which I was very grateful. But enough about me, let's talk about...

Beethoven!!! Since my brother named me after him, (or discovered I was named after him...either way), I've had a great deal of interest in him. And then after learning so much about him in school, and also seeing how adorably grumpy he always looks in his pictures, I loved him even more. Really, he's quite an amazing person, and was dedicated to fulfilling God's plan for him, even though he didn't always make the best decisions. This cemetery, Zentralfriedhof, has a large section just for musicians, including Beethoven, Schubert (who should be remembered for any of his work except Die Forelle...stupid trout), and a memorial for Mozart as you see here. The whole cemetery is enormous, about as large as the city center, so thankfully we already knew which entrance to take, and from there found a sign that pointed us in the right direction.
A little outside of inner Vienner (just adding 'r's as the British do), is an area called Heiligenstadt, where Beethoven once lived. They don't know exactly where he lived, but they've set up a museum for him in one of the houses he may have resided in. Pictured here is the Heiligenstadt Testament, the letter Beethoven wrote to his brothers when he realized he was going deaf. Actually, we were fortunate enough to catch Beethoven in the picture too. Erm, he's a bit smaller than he used to be.
This is the church and bell tower in Heiligenstadt...and in fact the bells that Beethoven saw ringing and realized he was going deaf as he couldn't hear them.
Well, yes, of course we went to the Christmas market in Vienna! It was lovely. Actually the whole town was quite lovely, if a bit cold. Cold with no snow is like food with no drink, a mirror with no reflection, a home with no kitty. And we did not get enough snow. Not that I'm whining or anythin'. At least not about the wine.
This is outside the Schonbrunn Palace. And once again, we were more interested in the grounds than in the palace itself. I thought this view of the fountain and the arches behind it was quite lovely. But of course the most beautiful part of the picture is that random chick on the right. I don't know how she got there. Kind of rude to jump into one's picture, really. But isn't she a doll? You should see her boots.
Here's an actual picture of the palace, from the fountain looking back. There's another weird person jumping into our picture. Nice boots.
And last but not least, our random stop. We had a pass on the metro, since some of the sites are quite spread out and it would have taken too long to walk to some of them. This particular time, we only had two stops, but we were tired from walking so much (we still did a fair bit of walking around the city), so we decided to continue on the metro and get off a while later at a random stop. So we did. And were met by this lovely view, which we snapped a few pictures of. We walked for a few minutes, and then it was back to the metro and on to our originally intended stop.

So there you have it. Vienna was quite lovely, but at this point the excitement was mounting, because our next stop was Munich, where we would arrive, spend a night, and then meet up with our family for the first time in five months...

Did ew know...?
Mozart was buried in a common, unmarked grave in the St. Marx cemetery in Vienna. A memorial was much later constructed for him in the musician section of Zentralfriedhof.
Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.

Poland...Land of the Lods

It was cold there. I can say that with certainty. We started in Krakow, and since that just wasn't quite cold enough or far enough north, we went up to Warsaw. But the most exciting thing was making the pilgrimage to my homeland: Lodz, Poland. Indeed, it is the place where Lods originated, and it pulls at the heart of every Lod, large or small. But I digress. I must start at the beginning...once upon a time I took a plane trip to Egypt........oh, just kidding. I meant the beginning of Poland. Silly me.



Krakow is a very charming city...not too big, not too small. There was another Christmas market, and many pedestrian streets in the surrounding area where we could walk around and soak up the atmosphere.



Most of what I enjoyed about Krakow was the shops and pedestrian streets in the city center...so...quite frankly I have no idea why I chose this picture. I suppose I must have thought it was pretty. Which it is. And there was a nice park area in the city. So there you go. We also took a side trip to the Auschwitz camp while we were there. We didn't take many pictures. It just seems...irreverant I guess. And I sat out for some of it. It's a bit too much for me to handle. But it was amazing. And very sobering.
It took us a while to nail down our Poland plans. In the end we decided to stay two nights in Krakow, and take off early for Warsaw the next morning. We would then store our luggage in Warsaw, take a very fast and very rushed tour of the city, then take a train to Lodz (with our luggage still in Warsaw). Afterwards we'd take the train back to Warsaw, collect our luggage, and board an overnight train to Vienna. The first thing we attempted to hunt down was the Chopin museum. It took us a little while to find it, and after walking back and forth on the street a couple of times, made our way up the stairs...only to find that it was closed for rennovations and wouldn't be open again until the following year. So here I am watching my non-existant watch and patiently counting down the hours...well, months I suppose. But Elizabeth got impatient. The elusive Chopin. I couldn't find his gravestone in Paris, couldn't get into his museum...ah well. Between my Chopin and Elizabeth's Hadrian, we couldn't seem to find anything.
This is the city center of Warsaw. I don't know why, but the name Warsaw doesn't inspire friendliness. Nor does the name Krakow, I suppose. But the city center of Warsaw (shown here) was just as charming as Krakow. We had so little time there, but we did make it to the Christmas market. I personally was fascinated by this tree here, which looks so fake, but is, in fact, a real tree. In fact, I think the whole picture looks like a doll house. Cute, isn't it? It's all real, I promise.
And at last, we made it to my homeland! Here I am standing in the city of Lodz and looking quite pleased with myself.
This restaurant has a picture of my kitty on it, and was built on this spot to commemorate the spot where I was born. Born as the Lod, not as Rebecca, of course. The Rebecca birth happened later. (Just smile and nod, okay? I don't expect you to understand all the complexities of my existence.)
The restaurant we ate at in Lodz was called Anatewka. It was a Polish/Jewish fine dining place, and they actually had a fiddler on the roof! Well, a fiddler in the loft behind me anyway. It was spiffy cool. And the food was really good too. Our waiter was Australian...go figure. This place was pretty out of the way of tourists. There weren't very many, and a lot of people didn't speak English. And yet our waiter was Australian. I would have loved to ask him what brought him there, but I didn't think he really had time to chat.
Here I am saying goodbye to Lodz. It was sad, but I was so glad to have at least made it, however briefly. After this we collected our luggage and headed for our next overnight train that would bear us all the way to Vienna, Austria.

However, before I conclude my post about Poland, the train station in Warsaw does deserve a mention. It deserves a mention because of how terrible it was. There was one area that sat above ground, where the information stands and some of the ticket stands were. Ther rest was underground. There were also many restaurants down there, and convenience shops, and more shops, and in this whole underground labyrinth, you'd be lucky to find even one helpful sign that would get you in the right direction. And so we wandered, and wondered, and wandered some more, and eventually found the information desk, the luggage storage, and the platform we needed. And then later refound the luggage storage, and the second platform we needed. Good fun! On to Vienna...

Did ew know...?
Some hostels charge you more in person than they do on the internet. So you can turn away from the desk, use their free internet, and book it right there online for ten dollars less.
Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.

Praguely Waguely

Prague is a very nice town, if a bit over touristed. After all that time in easter Europe, we hadn't really heard a lot of English (not as much as in western Europe), especially not with American accents, so it was strange to suddenly hear a bunch of Americans again. It was very crowded, especially at the Christmas market. I'd really like to see some less crowded areas of Czech Republic someday, as it was quite lovely aside from the people.

Prague, like Budapest, was split down the middle(ish) by a river. This was one of the bridges: St. Charles Bridge. Very Sainty. Rather Charlesy. And a bit Bridgey too. It's supposedly the oldest brige in the city, and I have no reason to doubt them, as it looks the part. It's very old and imposing looking. But the best thing about it is that it goes all the way across the river so you can get from one side of the city to the other. Brilliant, eh? Who ever thought of using a bridge for that? Mmkay, moving on...
This building is called the Dancing House, co-designed by a Czech architect and a Canadian architect. As you can see, it's spiffy cool, and was just a few minutes away from our hostel. It sits on the river. Well, not directly on it, but just next to it. And I've now run out of things to say about it. But it's still cool.
This is a nice view of the Christmas market. You can't really tell how crowded it is from back here. Which is fine, because the people don't make the view prettier. Definitely my least favourite market, simply because it was so crowded (literally shoulder to shoulder), but it was still Christmasy, which is what matters most.
Okay, I know you think I'm Star Wars obsessed, but really they were just following me around! But honestly, come on, does that look like Vader or what? I was happy to see him. And he tried to downplay it, but he missed me too. You can see it all over his face. He was standing in front of a cathedral near the Christmas market.
Okay, just turn your heads sideways. Honestly if it's not one thing it's another. I've finally got the pictures loading in the right order, and so now they've decided to show up sideways. I'm not fixing it. I refuse. It's way too much trouble. The pictures win this battle. They won't win the war. So now we come to the best thing about Prague. Every city has its special thing that's very cheep. Venice has its wine. Switzerland has its chocolate. Prague has its boots. You can get really cute boots for ten dollars. Now I had been travelling all around Europe wearing incredibly ugly, old, worn, white and blue tennis shoes. I looked like a bum. So finally I had cute brown boots to match my brown coat from Germany, and completed my outfit by finding a cute brown hat in a store there. Which I later lost in Salzburg but never mind that. That was later. And just so Prague didn't feel left out, I went ahead and lost my water bottle there. But never mind that too. The important issue here is that with my shiny new boots, I no longer needed my beet up old tennies. So I threw them away. And took a picture of my reaction. Obviously I felt no emotional attachment to them. They were only about ten years old. I'd only grown up with them. They'd only seen me through twenty-four different countries throughout my life. 'sniff'

So, no food pictures here, but rest assured we still ate. They have lots of yummy food at all the markets, and we found a second and less crowded Christmas market in the city. They had excellent sweet crepes, and some kind of spiced hot drink, that I can't for the life of me remember the name of, and that'll probably haunt me to the day I die. But no worries.

Next stop, Poland.

Oh, and P.S. I probably have a lot of tense-changing. My poor brain gets confused because it wants to blog as though I'm still there, but I'm really home. So you can comment on my atrocious grammar in that respect, but I'll probably just ignore you. But then I ignore you anyway, right? So no worries.

OoPs!

Okay, okay, I know. I've been home for several weeks now and I still haven't finished my Europe blog. Which is probably bugging me more than it's bugging you. So here are two new posts. I can't do any more than that until my sister gets home, because she has all the pictures with her, but I got these loaded before she left. So, without further ado about nothing (someone needs to stop me when I start mixing phrases like that), here are Romania and Hungary (picking up right after Ukraine).

Hungary

We only had one stop in Hungary, but it was a good one. Budapest, though a large city, was actually really great! I'm sure the Christmas market nearby helped, and the general Christmas atmosphere. But it was also very clean and modern, yet with a charming eastern flair.

There are two sides to Budapest, separated by the Danube River. They are called Buda and Pest. No, seriously. This was in the Pest side, in the Pest Palace. I liked this statue because it reminded me of the Emperor in Star Wars. So I stood next to it and tried to pose like Vader. Trouble is, seeing as Vader has no expression due to his mask, and I didn't have billowing black cloak on hand, I couldn't figure out what to do besides just stand there.
Aaaah, my first taste of mulled wine. I've wanted to taste it ever since playing the computer game Dreamfall. And man was I ever NOT disappointed. It was really really good. We tried it many more times throughout the trip, and it was still good, but this place made it the best. It was this small stand in front of the Buda palace, right next to the lake-turned-iceskating rink for the winter. They also had these traditional Christmas cookie type things, and those were really good too.
This was one of the most amazing buildings I've seen in my life. It's just the parliament building in Budapest, but as you can see, it's beautiful! We got lots of pictures of it from different angles (including from across the river), so I'm just including a couple here. I think I could have stared at it all day though.
Here's another view with one of my favouritest things...orange flowers of course. The only thing that could make this building more perfect. Well, that and maybe a cat farm outside. And a free public toilet.
This was at the Christmas market in Budapest. Loved it loved it loved it! Why doesn't every place have Christmas markets? Well, I get Utah I guess. They'd probably run crying from even the mention of mulled wine. Mulled anything with a speck of alcohol. But still...Christmas markets are wonderful things. We were blessed to see quite a few after this, though I think this remained our favourite. Maybe it's because it was our first. I don't know. Or maybe it was because of these things in the picture. There was a constant line at this stand, and with good reason. Those are fresh rolls of dough which they cook to a nice golden brown, and then cover in either cinnamon, cinnamon and walnuts, or something else. They were all great, except the something else which we didn't try.
Here's me with the finished product. Elizabeth and I shared it because it was so big. And because we shared practically everything on this trip. They were so warm and delicious though. And of course went very well with a cup of mulled wine.
This was the amazing Holocaust memorial at a synagogue in Budapest. Cities all over Europe have memorials, and we saw quite a few, but this was one of my favourites. It's a metal tree in the shape of a weeping willow, but it's also an upside-down menorah. Many of the leaves have names of victims engraved on them. It was very beautiful.
I finally got to try grog in Budapest! I've wanted to try that since playing Monkey Island a lifetime ago. Well, since I've known it was a real drink anyway. Which was probably about five minutes before I ordered it. It wasn't green, but it was still very good. And very warm. And very strong. Mmmm.
Here's the beautiful blue Danube. Which looks like all three from back here. Up close it's the murky green Danube. So I went with this picture. Plus you can see the parliament building in there. So there you go. I snuck a third picture of it in here.
Yes, of course we went iceskating! If you could go ice skating on a real lake in front of a real palace in eastern Europe, wouldn't you? It was fun. The view was great. And we got more mulled wine.

And that about covers Hungary. Well, it covers Budapest anyway. I'm sure there's much more to see in Hungary besides its capital, and I'd love to go back someday. Two more things to say. If you ever go, make sure you see the labyrinth under the Pest palace. It was a blast! Especially if you're into cheap scares (caused by your own imagination) and giant hoaxes. I loved it. And finally, since no place is perfect, here is Budapest's flaw: their metro system. The tickets are expensive (though not as bad as London as we were to discover...holy manna!), and they don't allow transfers. They only have three lines, and if you're transferring at their meeting point, you have to buy a new ticket. None of the other systems we used in Europe worked like that, and we used quite a few. So either be prepared to be ripped off, or just walk everywhere. We walked. As usual. Anyhoos...

Vampire Country

Okay, yes, it's sad, but one reason I wanted to go to Romania was because of Dracula. But hey, I'm allowed one or two silly tourist flings, right? I really was delighted with Romania...it's a beautiful country.
Our first stop in Romania was Bucharest. Not too exciting...just a large city...but we enjoyed the brief amount of time we had there. I even got a bit of Christmas tree shopping done here. I thought this one was very promising.
This one was...less promising.
This one was, I thought, very worthy of Charlie Brown.
Well, enough about Bucharest. This is Sighisoara, the city where Vlad Dracul was born. (The legend of Dracula is based on Vlad Dracul.) Although its main claim to fame is Dracula, it really is a beautiful and charming town. This being one of the only times on this trip we "GUS"ed it, we thoroughly enjoyed looking down at all of the gothic architecture. Really, there's not a lot to do there, but I could have spent more days just walking around. Even our hostel was friendly and laid back.
Well of course I saw the Dracula sights!! All that remains of his birthplace is a restaurant and this plaque. But I suppose that's enough. A haunted house would have been too tacky.
It's porridge! And it's happy to see me! This was our traditional Romanian meal with goulash, an egg, and the stuff in the middle which tasted kind of like grits. And someday I'm sure the name of the dish will come back to me. It was really good though!
This was the first decorated Christmas tree we got to see in Europe (though not even close to the last), and as you can see, I was extremely excited! Christmas!!!!