Last weekend I went to Munich, Germany with roommate Nichole, friend Jimmy, and new co-worker/camp adventure person Megan. We took an evening train to get there by midnight and checked into our hostel "the wombats." Nichole and I were the only ones that had paid for rooms and we had requested to be roomed together in one of their available 3 person rooms hoping that there wouldn't be a third person. Jimmy and Megan had not booked any hotel or hostel and had planned on finding an available place nearby but Nichole wouldn't have it...she insisted on sneaking them into our already paid for hostel beds. When we checked in we were informed that they had to separate us and gave us key fobs that were 2 separate floors. I went up to my room to find 8 bunk-beds of mixed gender with all but one already occupied. "this will be an interesting weekend" I thought. After making up the bed and putting my stuff in the locker provided I met back up with the rest of my travel crew to sneak Jimmy and Megan in.
There arose a problem when I discovered that Nichole had been given an all girls dorm and she had been the one planning on sharing the bed with Jimmy. So we went back and swapped rooms and put Megan's stuff with mine in the all girls dorm room. Being the last to get in, we had no problem "sneaking in" because the rest of the girls in the room were already asleep. Megan and I squeezed into the twin bunk by laying opposite directions and trying our best not to move much throughout the night. This was quite a struggle for me because I generally kick and move around a lot when I sleep, so I kept ramming myself into the guard rail on the side of the bunk...thank goodness there was a rail there or I would have fallen to the floor.
In the morning we woke up early to catch free breakfast at the hostel before getting on a bus that would take us to Neuschwanstein Castle. The tour cost 35 Euro and included a bike ride around Swan Lake and a guided hike around the backside of the castle through a waterfall gorge. In between the two activities was a 1 Euro Alpine slide that you could ride down and a restaurant where the tour guide did magic tricks. It sounded like a great deal to me. So we got on the bus and since our guide lives in Fussen (the place where the castle is) he had a recorded narration of the history of Mad King Ludwig (the one that had the castle built). Apparently the castle was built to honor Ludwig's good friend and possible gay lover Richard Wagner. The video also went over the mysterious death of the king and the possible theories as to how it may have happened. The most popular one that the Germans use is: after being arrested for insanity Ludwig ran away, drown his doctor in the lake Starnberg and then committed suicide by drowning himself.
The theory that our tour guide likes to believe is that Ludwig and his doctor were walking around the lake discussing whether he really was mad or not and the doctor had a heart attack...being disturbed by this Ludwig put the doctor in the water and ran out to a boat in the lake but was shot before he got there. This version of the story is supported by countless witness reports and an x-ray scan scientists have conducted on the coffin that saw two bullet holes in his back. I had no idea there was a story about his death all I had ever heard was that he died young...he only ended up living in the castle for about 6 months and it wasn't even finished! The bus was 2 hours long so I slept for a while.
We arrived below the castle and and were issued bikes without helmets...may I remind you that the last time I rode a bike was when I was probably 12 and I was so afraid of falling off when turning corners that I stopped and never got back on again...needless to say, I didn't feel too confident of my bike riding abilities...You know the old saying "its just like riding a bike, you never forget"...welllll...I forgot! I got on and the bike began rolling forward uncontrollably and I was flailing and screaming while putting on the brakes. The guide came back and asked me if I really wanted to do the bike part and I said or course, I wanted to see the lake! He then told me that he feared I would hurt myself the way I was riding the bike and that he didn't feel I would make it in one piece. So pathetic Rita had to sit at this kid station/parking lot for an hour and a half by myself! When the group got back from their ride they marvelled at the beauty of the lake and the scenery. I had nothing to report. Then we ate lunch, I ordered a turkey salad and received a salad covered in a mustard vinaigrette...I really don't like mustard...so I picked at the pieces that hadn't been covered in the dressing. We then got to ride the Alpine slide with a seat that you can control the speed at which you ride down...I did it twice. It was a blast to ride down the side of an Alpine hill. We went back in to the restaurant to pay and the guide did incredible magic tricks.
He was able to read the cards without looking at them and was able to get other people to do it too. With the flick of his hand he was able to make an Ace change into a Queen. His last trick was flicking his wrist and changing ordinary slips of paper into 10 Euro bills...and then changing them back. He was wearing short sleeves if you were thinking he had them up his sleeve. Afterwards I kept saying "I saw REAL magic!"After the magic show we finally got to the part of the day I had really been waiting for...going to the castle. The hike up was pretty steep but we got to see the waterfall channel the builders used to create power to build the castle back in 1869 when the castle construction began. The waterfall was beautiful and the surrounding trees and light colored rocks made a very beautiful scene I won't soon forget. high above us was the castle, but eventually we got there.
Unfortunately the castle at the top of a narrow hill/mountain so from up close there isn't many good vantage points to view the castle from. We got a castle tour that lasted all of a half hour due to the lack of completion of the castle upon Ludwig's death in 1886. The castle's third and 1st floor were never completed as was the throne. Another disappointment from the castle, no pictures were allowed to be taken as the whole castle is under copyright. I did manage to sneak a few but they didn't turn out well because I didn't have the flash on. But let me tell you the inside of that castle is incredible! Every wall is covered in murals of scenes from Wagner's operas including Sleeping Beauty, and Triston and Isolde. The most remarkable piece is Ludwig's bed which took 4 carpenters 16 years (it may be the other way around 16 carpenters 4 years) to complete due to the intricate detail he required. The most bizarre part of the castle...After Ludwig's apartment he had a cave built complete with stalagmites and stalactites and dark lighting...but all stage set type construction. 
My favorite piece was the stage he had built with a delicate woodland scene painted as the eternal backdrop for performances. One of the coolest things about the castle was the amount of swans incorporated into the design. Neuschwanstein stands for the New Swan Stone and in the wall patterns, the door handle, sink spikets, etc the swan was used.After our brief but incredible tour through the castle we had to run back down the hill/mountain to get back to the tour bus. We ran for two reasons, one-it was raining very hard and we wanted to get there as quickly as possible...two-the grade was very steep going down and walking down wasn't really an option. We made it safely on the bus a bit soaked, and the guide popped in the movie Eurotrip for our 2 hour ride home. I felt like a kid on a field trip...I got to go on a slide, see magic, and watch a movie to keep me quiet on the ride home!
That evening we went out to the place where Hitler first began the Nazi movement and Munich's most famous beer garden...the Hofbrauhaus. Everything is over-priced and the food is very Barvarian (pig and potatoes) The waitresses all wear the traditional Bavarian style dress and the beer only comes in 1 liter mugs. I ordered a lemonade thinking a nice cold lemonade sounded really refreshing...when our drinks came everyone else got what they ordered and left on the table was a mug filled with something clear and bubbling...I asked the waiter where my lemonade was and he pointed at the bubbling mug...I shook my head and said that's not lemonade and he replied "you try it, lemonade" so I did...it was Sprite! Not what I had in mind, but at least it was something I liked to drink. I ate German meatloaf...that sort of tasted like a combination between Corned Beef and a Hot Dog. Oh well.
After dinner we walked around the main part of town and absorbed the surroundings for a while. Nichole wanted to go out to a club, but after much deliberation over the map we were given gave up and we went back to the Wombats for bed. Again I snuck Megan into my bed and we enjoyed a long nights sleep after a long day.
In the morning we woke up to all but one roommate being gone. The one remaining was a woman who looked to be about 40. Megan and I were really nervous that she would rat us out, but when she figured out there was two of us in one bed she said "oh well good for you!" with too much gusto for 8am. We got ready in peace knowing that we survived the weekend without getting in trouble for the smuggling. We wandered into the main part of town for breakfast but since it was Sunday and Munich is home to the largest number of Catholics in Germany...every place was closed except McDonalds...I was not too thrilled to have to order breakfast from an American institution, but we got to eat our breakfast sitting outside near an interesting fountain and take in more of Munich. After breakfast we met in the lobby of the Hostel for a free walking tour of the city. Our tour guide's name was Ozzie and he was extremely knowledgeable of the city. Along our walk he kept running into people he knew and would introduce us to them. The tour lasted 4 hours and went through all the history of Munich from the time it was founded by Monks in the 900s, the formation of Germany and how Munich lost the capitol status to Berlin, the traditions in Bavaria, and of course the birth of the Nazi movement that began in Munich. Unlike other German cities that have a plaque that tells you significant history that occured in that spot on every corner, Munich chose to rebuilt their city after WWII to look exactly as it did before the war began...only to erase the buildings that held too much negative history. I found this really intriguing that instead of shamefully displaying their history Munich chose to try to forget and move on. The only monuments that remain to remind one of the events that happened in the city are so hidden that to the common eye one wouldn't even think twice about it. Example: Hitler erected a plaque to memorialize the 16 Nazi's who died in a march in Munich along a prominent road in the city. Everyone that passed this was to 'heil Hitler' they even had Nazi guards to make sure it was done, if a person did not salute they were arrested for resisting the 3rd Reich...there was an alternate path to take that went around the backside of this memorial which resisters took.
That path is now memorialized in the road with golden cobblestones showing the path these brave Germans took. Who would have known that by just looking at the cobble stones! I thought it was so cool they way they hid the history so that to the average person, Munich is nothing out of the ordinary. The only really funny thing about this is that although all the buildings in Munich look to be built in the 1700s, all but 4 structures were rebuilt after the war and are therefore less than 60 years old. Oh! Another fun fact about Munich...did you know that the fly over scene from the original Willy Wonka when they are in the glass elevator is of Munich?! 
My favorite thing he showed us on the tour was an Art Museum that Hitler had built to showcase classic art pieces...Hitler hated modern art and had built this museum as a way of saying "this is good art"...when Munich was rebuilt they converted the museum into a Modern Art Museum as if to say "up yours Hitler!" but the building (having remained intact) still has swastika patterns on its ceilings. It made me laugh. Our last destination on the tour was the Chinese Tower Beer Garden which one had to get to by going through the cities English Gardens. This park is 3 times the size of Central Park and has the beautiful river Isar running through it which people...get this...surf in! There were also some nude sunbathers enjoying what God gave them and not ashamed to strut their stuff in front of everyone else...that was different to say the least. At the end of the tour the Ozzie expected a tip of at least 10 Euros...some free tour! But only having a 20 Euro bill and thinking it rude to ask for change back from a tip I gave him the full 20...But for the kind of tour he gave I felt like it was worth it.We were able to make it back to the hostel to pick up our bags and get to the train just in time for our train.
Pictures from top to bottom: 1) Nichole, Megan and I with our bikes...this was prior to me discovering I could not in fact ride one. 2) Swan Lake (Nichole borrowed my camera because she forgot hers) 3) me on the Alpine slide getting ready for round two up the hill for the ride down. 4) the waterfall gorge and Mary's bridge, my back was facing the castle when taking this picture 5) the view from Neuschwanstein of Hohenschwangau the castle where King Ludwig II grew up 6) trying to get the whole castle in one picture from up close 7) view of inner courtyard of the castle (can you see where Disney got his inspiration?) 8) the new city hall of Munich 9) me and the river in the English Gardens 10) the river Isar
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