Hallo!!!
Today it was decided that we should go on our final castle adventure, all the way to Germany. Have I mentioned before how much I love how close other countries are when you live in Austria? In case you were wondering Austria is bordered by Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Liechtenstein, and Slovakia. I feel the need to share these pieces of information because of my own poor grasp of world history and geography. Anyway, the castle we were headed for was the same castle that Disney based his castle off of. That sounded like a sweet deal and the pictures looked beautiful so off Sarah, Flo and I went.
Along the way we stopped at a gas station for some petrol. Have I mentioned how much I love gas stations here? You can get the best pizza and lasagna at most gas stations. The U.S. really needs to up its game if it wants me to come back! We also went to a grocery store and purchased our lunch: fresh loaves of bread. I love that about Europe: carbs and meat. Why are Americans so bent on reducing the best two things out of their diet? After all, the Europeans are skinny. I am officially on the best diet/weight loss program in the world: eat bread and meat and walk 8 miles a day. Boom!! This is genius, I will probably make millions.
Flo has a conspiracy theory that I would like to share because it makes so much sense: Americans eat crappy bread, then they get sick and go to the doctor. If they just ate European bread they would be healthy and we wouldn't be in such a state financially and physically. So, my next plan to make millions is to open a true European bakery and charge the prices they charge here (not the ridiculously overpriced rates we charge in the states for any half-way decent bread).
Well, two hours later we arrive in Germany (formerly Bavaria - land of the cream puff) only to find that Schlossel Neushwangau was under construction. So much so that you couldn't even tell it was a a castle. Schnitzel!!!!! (This apparently can be used sometimes to express a dislike of someone)!!! So instead we went to the lower castle, Schlossel Hohenshwangau (Highlands of the Swan Castle). Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you don't want a history lesson. Hohenshwangua, heretofore referred to as the castle, was built only in the 1860's on top of an old knight's keep. As Flo put it: "this s#^t is for the tourists. This is not a real castle. Real castles smell". It was built by a man named Maximillian who had two sons: Otto and Ludwig. Otto was declared insane at the age of 24 and Ludwig inherited the castle. Ludwig was raised in a castle with neo-Gothic paintings all over ever wall and this apparently made him crave owning his own castle (because one is never enough). Thus he built the Disney castle for himself and watched its construction through a telescope by his bedroom. One last "interesting" factoid and we will move on. Ludwig repainted his dead father's bedroom's ceiling with the night sky, had some holes drilled in and would have his servants light oil lamps in the ceiling so it would twinkle like starlight (thus it has always been cool to paste glow in the dark stars to the ceiling). He even had the moon put in and the phases of the moon could be changed with the phases of the real moon.
Moving on. We rode home, nearly died a few times because once again we were in a car. I ate my first bratwurst which was delicious but Sarah's food was better: Curry sausage. Mmmmm. When we got home we enjoyed the last few minutes of sunlight feeding goats apples. As most of you will know I LOVE goats. This was the height of my trip. Hands down. Don't worry, there are about a million videos and photos.
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I also deemed it necessary to see the movie "Taken" with Sarah because Bryan was certain that was going to have to happen to me. I think he partially wanted "Taken" to be a reality so he could act out the part of Liam Neeson's character. After finishing this movie Sarah and I started watching "The Sound of Music" because it is based in Austria. Needless to say, tomorrow will involve romping on the hills singing and reenacting the whole thing.
It is bedtime. Love you all :)
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