Well, after nearly a week's break (and overcoming some serious resistance to start now that I'm so far behind - funny how that works, huh?) I'm back. Well, we might as well resume where we left off...
On the Sunday of the first weekend here in Munich, after a week of intense German and fighting that "it's summer now, I don't want to work" mentality, we celebrated by taking a day trip sponsored by the Goethe Institute to two very interesting locations outside the city. The bus left from the Central Train Station 7:45am, which was no problem for me (I *still* had time to make myself breakfast, do my Bible study, etc. in the morning) but caused many complaints from the other students. We drove about an hour to reach Glentleiten, which is an open-air museum displaying traditional buildings from the last few centuries in Bavaria. I visited something similar in Russia when I went to Novgorod, but this time I actually understood most of what the guide said in German, and it wasn't at the end of an exhausting day but the beginning, so I enjoyed it much more. The weather was absolutely perfect - 75˚ and just enough clouds in the sky to make for better vista pictures. Which there was no shortage of opportunity to take, since the museum was on relatively high ground in view of the Alps. The buildings themselves were interesting and tastefully furnished with furniture and other household objects from the time period of the house. The thing that struck me most was what small areas people tended to live in in centuries past: a room the size of my dorm here in Munich would probably have served as the kitchen or living room, or parent's bedroom if the family was quite well-off. But in any case the ceilings in most of the buildings (unless it was a room with an open fire which necessitated a place for the smoke to gather above the heads of the inhabitants) were not higher than seven feet and gave everything a cramped and cozy feel (the reason being, of course, concerns over the necessity of heating the poorly-ventilated rooms with a fire). The entire museum was interesting and pretty, but not especially exciting, and I was glad when we loaded back onto the bus to continue to the real attraction of the day.
After another hour's drive, we arrived at Neuschwanstein, one of the three palaces of the Bavarian king of the 19th century, Ludwig the Second. The white stone palace precariously perched on the edge of a ridge against a breathtaking background of the foothills of the Alps is allegedly the inspiration for the Walt Disney Sleeping Beauty castle, and it even lived up to the splendor of its reputation. One cannot simply drive up to the gates of the castle, but must instead park down in the village like all of the other peasants and approach the imposing fortress on foot, a quite steep walk that winds back and forth across the face of the ridge, unless of course one wants to brave the fee and the line to be driven up in a horse-drawn carriage or take the much less romantic bus ride up the back side of the ridge. Before setting out on this taxing journey we of course needed sustenance, so we stopped in a restaurant down in the village for lunch. The menu was quite expensive on grounds of the monopoly the restaurant had on the foodservice industry of the village, but this was a special day and deserved a special treat. I ordered Wienerschnitzel (breaded pork) with Kartoffelsalat (potato salad, but better than what we think of as potato salad - made with oil instead of mayonnaise), and it was downright delicious. The waitresses were all dressed in the traditional Bavarian women's costume of a dirndl, complete with apron and hair in braids or buns, as was our guide at Glentleiten. One of my main goals before I leave Munich has now become to obtain one of these outfits for myself. I have been informed that although it is not uncommon to see both men and women in traditional garb going about everyday life in Munich, such a wardrobe will be laughed at in other parts of Germany, much like wearing a Stetson, chaps, and cowboy boots in the middle of Manhattan, but this does not deter me. The only question is finding a set in my price range...
After lunch we set off for the palace. Of course, besides the official way, there exist many shortcuts which take a steeper, more direct route up to the gates, but for liability reasons our tour guide expressly recommended against taking these more dangerous, unofficial paths. I was not to be deterred, however, from taking advantage of the obviously much shorter route to the palace gates, as our tour was scheduled for a particular time and, in true German style, latecomers were not accommodated. (Given the amount of people who come through the palace every day - several thousand - the tours are remarkably well-organized and impeccably timed). I was able to convince one other member of the group - Sheng - to accompany me, and we reached the meeting point without any injuries and well ahead of the rest of the group. This gave us time to both peruse the souvenir shop (I couldn't resist buying a few of the most beautiful postcards to send back to friends and family back home) and take a few pictures in front of the picturesque views. Soon the rest of the group caught up and we entered the palace courtyard to wait for our tour time. The tour, when it finally came, was quick, efficient, and informative. I again found, to my delight, that I understood most of the commentary of the German-speaking tour guide. Unfortunately there were no photographs permitted of the interior of the palace, but it was certainly a sight to behold. Not quite as lavish as those of the Russian czars that I had seen in St. Petersburg (i.e. the Hermitage, Katherine's Palace and Peterhoff), but the mosaics and paintings on the walls, as well as the carved woodwork, was still quite impressive. Most curious was the passage which was constructed to look like the inside of a cave, complete with stalactites and eerie green lighting (which is, however, most likely not authentic). True to the name, there were figures of swans everywhere (Schwan is the German word for swan, in case you didn't make the connection) and it was just a very pretty castle. Too bad Ludwig didn't get to enjoy it for long before he was hauled off to house arrest by Parliment who had a doctor's certification of his mental instability, and died in Starnberger See under mysterious circumstances soon afterwards. After finishing the tour one must pass through two separate souvenir shops and a cafe before exiting the palace altogether, so that one has every last possible chance to buy something if one has the slightest inclination. I didn't pay much attention to these, however, as I was occupied trying to soothe a lost child we had acquired just after the end of the tour.
Her name was Alexandra and she appeared to be about nine years old. Thankfully she was American (I don't know how effective I would have been in consoling a German-speaking child) and she had somehow lost track of her family in the masses of people traveling through the palace. I was not the first to find her, only the first native English speaker. Of the other two women who were talking to her when I walked up, one spoke heavily accented English and the other only German. The German-speaker offered to go back and look for the mother while we took Alexandra to the palace exit in case the family had gone ahead and were looking for her there. Had I truly stopped to think about this course of action I would have brought Alexandra back myself, reasoning that she was much more likely to have run ahead of her family than to have fallen behind, but things tend to happen quickly in these circumstances and my first priority was to stop Alexandra from crying. So we slowly walked her out and I gratefully used my English to comfort her, meanwhile asking questions that would give us the information needed to reunite her with her family. I discovered that she was in the English-speaking tour group that had been just behind us, and that she had last seen her mother in one of the souvenir shops (which cemented my suspicion that the mother was behind, not before). Then we happened upon a potentially useful piece of information when she piped up with "I know Mom's phone number." I immediately whipped out my cell phone, glad to have a concrete way to help, but when looking over Alexandra's shoulder I saw her type in seven numbers I knew our cause was lost - why would a nine-year-old understand that an American phone won't work in another country? After explaining that she would need to dial a few more than seven numbers we tried again with country and area code but the call didn't go through - as I suspected, the mother was probably not using her American cell phone abroad. I decided to wait with Alexandra until her mother came out of the palace, as I reasoned she must eventually, while Dan scurried off to the palace gates to inquire whether an announcement could be made over loudspeaker. Soon the German-speaking woman returned and informed me that everyone behind us spoke only English, so she couldn't communicate with them, but that no one appeared to be overly distressed or looking for anyone. However, it was only a matter of time before Alexandra, watching the people emerging from the exit as I had instructed her to, let out a cry of "Mommy!!" and ran to a youngish woman and her husband. I was impressed with how calm the mother had remained: she just gently said to Alexandra, "Why did you run off ahead of us like that?" She then looked at me and I informed her, "Yeah, I wasn't going to leave her until we found you, I knew it was just a matter of time." My job was done. Not done particularly well or efficiently, but done, and I left the family to deal with the disobedient Alexandra. Man, my leader skills must be rusty - but then again, hindsight is always 20/20. At least I know what I would do next time in that situation - take Alexandra back myself instead of sending a (albeit well-intentioned) German-speaker into the crowd of American tourists to search for a mother who was not overly concerned that her child had left her sight (I only hope that when I become a mother I'm as calm as that woman. I think I will be - I can totally imagine my mom acting the same way if I had disappeared at that age :D).
Unfortunately this little escapade left us pressed for time and the group decided that we didn't have enough to take the side trip to Maria's Bridge, a footbridge over the deep ravine with a beautiful view of the palace situated in the surrounding mountains. I refused to accept such a decision, however, and belligerently set off with Sheng to prove them wrong. It wasn't hard with just the two of us hurrying (and even stopping to take some pictures from time to time - after all, wasn't that why we came?), and we made it to the bridge and back with plenty of time to spare - taking again one of the more "direct" paths down the ridge to the village. At one point, when the trail narrowed to a footpath, Sheng questioned our decision to forsake the official way, but I assured him quite confidently, "I'm an OA Leader. Trust me, I have a good sense of direction." Those could have been famous last words, but thankfully disaster was avoided and we enjoyed a very scenic, albeit quite steep and heart-pounding, journey back to the bus. (I was certainly glad for my hiking boots!!) Thankfully the AC in the bus worked, and I enjoyed a good nap during the two-hour ride back to Munich. While I didn't think I exerted myself too badly during the trek up and down the ridge, my legs told me otherwise as soon as I stood up to debus back at the Central Train Station, and they were quite sore for some days afterwards. By the time we reached the Wohnung again I was more than ready for bed, too tired even to have much appetite. One carrot sufficed for my supper, and I fell into bed quite early, lulled to sleep by a terrific thunderstorm outside my window complete with frequent lightning, ominous quick-moving clouds, and terrifying rolls of thunder. And so ended my first perfect weekend in Munich. Here's to many more to come!!!
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