It's a small world afterall

While approaching the entrance to Rheinfels Castle today, I spotted a blonde woman who looked strangely familiar. "No, it can't be," I tried to convince myself as I walked by, but I took a peek over my shoulder just to be certain. Sure enough: she was none other than my cousin Ruth Ann from Seattle, Washington! Ruth works for Rick Steves and is helping guide a tour group. What are the odds of us being at a castle in a tiny village along the Rhine River at the same time?!?

Rheinfels Castle, St. Goar

Oregon's scenery bears a strong resemblance to Germany's Rhine Valley, minus the centuries-old castles and villages dotting the hills along the Rhine River. Audrey and I are spending a couple nights with my friend Maggie's sister, Mandi, who lives in a small village near the Rhine. (Her husband is in the Air Force.) Today, we took a train to St. Goar and visited Rheinfels Castle, first built in the 13th century. We had fun exploring the ruins of the huge fortress - complete with dungeons, narrow underground passageways, a slaughterhouse and other not-so-Disney-Princess-friendly accommodations. One of the highlights was navigating the 3-foot-high, pitch-black tunnels beneath the castle. Surprisingly, visitors are allowed to explore without a guide. As we ducked into the passageway equipped only with my cell phone to light the way, I couldn't help but wonder how long it would take someone to notice if we were to get lost inside. Obviously, we lived to tell about it.

A Bavarian Breakfast

As much as we love the Bavarians and their culture, there are some traditions we don't mind leaving behind. Before catching a train out of Osterhofen, we were told we had to eat a traditional Bavarian breakfast served at the festival: weisswurst (white sausage), a soft pretzel and wheat beer. It wasn’t horrible, but it definitely threw off our body clocks for the rest of the day.

If there was ever any doubt, this morning proved that Bavarians are truly crazy. Hundreds of people showed up around 9 a.m. for breakfast – in spite of the festivities (and hangovers for some, I’m sure) from the night before. Audrey and I were expecting a mellower, pancake-feed-style atmosphere rather than the loud, energetic nighttime beer hall scene, but we were dead wrong. If anything, people seemed even more festive this morning – dancing on the benches as the band played traditional German beer-drinking songs along with classic rock (like “We Will Rock You” and “Sweet Home Alabama”). We’re told it’s just like Oktoberfest, only on a smaller scale. It's an experience I'd highly recommend, if you ever get the chance. (American Oktoberfests don't count - it's all too steeped in Bavarian tradition for Americans to ever come close to replicating!)

Goodbye, Osterhofen! It's been fun . . .

We said sad goodbyes to our new friends in Osterhofen today and are spending tonight in Munich. We’re heading toward the Rhine River tomorrow where we’ll stay a couple days before traveling on to Denmark. Right now I'm sitting in the lounge area of our youth hostel and the only language I hear in the background is English - and American English at that. It's a strange sound after spending a week hearing nothing but German accents. We were truly a novelty in Osterhofen - Hadde told us we were the first Americans he had ever met. Our week in Osterhofen was a trip highlight thanks to Regina and her wonderful friends and family. Here’s a few more photos of our time there . . .

#1) Picnicking along the Danube River with Regina and Melodie.

#2) Taking a boat tour on the Danube River through Regensburg, a town near Osterhofen with a history dating back to the ancient Romans.

#3) Audrey, me and Regina's dad, Wolfgang (the sun was bright - pardon the squinting). We hiked to the top of a steep hill and rode sleds on a concrete shoot to get back down (like Mt. Hood's Alpine Slide).



#4) An evening at the beer garden where Hadde works. Pictured: Regina, Audrey, Gecko, Me and Stephanie


#5) Gecko (who works as a brewer) giving us a mini brewery tour at the beer garden. Here, he's showing us the bags of malt used in the brew.


#6) Hadde, Audrey and me - listening intently (or so it appears) during Gecko's brewery tour.


#7) Willy, Audrey, me and Andreas at the top of Munich's Olympic Tower. Willy lives in Munich and is a friend of Regina, so he joined us for the evening as our "tour guide."

Loving Bavarian life

Lederhosen, dirndl dresses, oom-pa-pa music, beer maids laden with giant frothy mugs: until last night I thought it was all nothing but old-time German tradition re-enacted for tourists. But the local folk festival (one of the year's highlights, according to Regina and her friends) proved that Bavarian tradition is more than a thing of the past - it's still alive and kicking, even amongst the young, American-music-and-movie-fed generation of Bavarians. We spent last night eating roasted chicken and giant pretzels, drinking beer and linking arms with young Bavarians as they stood on benches and belted out songs. (The lederhosen-clad band even donned sombreros at one point and sang Feliz Navidad!) And we never ran into another American (or Japanese) tourist the whole night. There's nothing quite like hanging out with locals to make you feel like you're truly experiencing a culture.

Regina and her family have been wonderful hosts and she's introduced us to lots of her friends who remind each other "In English, please" when we're around so that we feel included. We're planning to catch a train heading north tomorrow, but it will be hard to leave Regina and all our new Bavarian friends.

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

1) Audrey and Stephanie (a friend of Regina) at the festival

2) Regina (doesn't she look like Snow White?) and her friend Gecko (coolest guy ever)

3) Traditionally-dressed Bavarians standing on benches and clapping along to the live band music

4) A photo from earlier this week at a fair in a nearby town.

5) Hadde, Stephanie, Andreas (Regina's boyfriend), Regina and Audrey at a bistro after an evening of bowling on Tuesday.

Surfing in the middle of a landlocked city

The sign reads "Surf-ing and bathing forbidden," but as you can see, it's not strictly enforced. We visited Englischen Garten (a huge park in Munich) yesterday, where a fast-moving river creates constant waves in a small area under the bridge. It's nothing compared to the ocean (the surfers have to go one at a time because there's not much room), but I guess you can't be too picky when you live in southern Germany.

A glimpse of Berlin

Audrey and I had our first Eurail experience yesterday taking the train from Berlin to Osterhofen (a Bavarian town), where we are staying for about a week with Regina and her family (Audrey's relatives). Regina is our age and took the week off from work so that she could show us around. But before I start posting about Osterhofen, here are a few photos from our time in Berlin . . .

First, some zoo pictures . . . (all of which are from Audrey's camera because my batteries were dead that day)


Here is Knut, the zoo's current main attraction, with his zookeeper. His twin died and Knut was rejected by his mother, so the zookeeper has become his surrogate mother/father. It's hard to get a decent photo Knut due to his constant movement and the throngs of people.


Look closely at the next photo - there's a baby clinging to this mama baboon. It was fun to watch them interact.



















This poor creature is quite possibly the zoo's ugliest inhabitant:

The next photo was taken from the top of the Berliner Dom - an old cathedral downtown. After that, we have the Reichstag = Germany's Parliament building. We took an elevator to the roof and then walked to the top of the glass dome - there's a walkway that wraps around the inside perimeter. From inside the dome, you can look out for a great view of the city or look down through the glass ceiling and see where Parliament meets (so that the people can always keep an eye on their government, they say).

Finally, we have two pictures from the Checkpoint Charlie museum. The museum sits on what was once the border between the Russian and American-occupied sections of Berlin (east and west). Before the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989, people went to great lengths to escape from the Soviet-ruled east to the free west. Hiding inside the hood of a VW Bug was one of the many methods people used to sneak past the guards.

Lions and tigers and bears (in the middle of the city)

Audrey (my cousin) arrived in Berlin on Tuesday, so I´m no longer travel buddy-less. She is staying with some relatives in Berlin, so we´ve been meeting up each day in the city to site-see and speak "American" together. Since we´re staying in different parts of Berlin, it means that I have to find my way home using the bus and metro system all by myself - and my navigational skills could definitely use the practice. It´s good for me . . . and it sure makes me appreciate (and miss) Katie´s map-reading skills!

Today we spent a fun (and sunny!) afternoon walking around the Berlin zoo. We´re now giving our legs a break at an Internet cafe. I can´t download pictures to post here, but hopefully I can get some up soon.

The line to see Knut, the zoo´s celebrity baby polar bear, was ridiculous. He´s only available for viewing a couple hours each day. We did finally get close enough to see him, though - and he´s quite cute. It was our lucky day for seeing baby animals, in fact - we also saw an infant monkey, warthog, jaguar, buffalo . . . I guess spring is a good time to visit. The Berlin Zoo is well-designed for seeing the animals up close. We were amazed at how few barriers were used in some of the exhibits. For example, the rhino was close enough that we could have reached out and touched him - and there was only an ankle-high rail and a small ditch in between us. Europeans must not be as lawsuit-happy as Americans.

First Day in Berlin

The weather has been making me feel right at home the past couple days. After spending the afternoon and evening wandering around Frankfurt (see first two photos) and getting drenched, I caught a flight to Berlin last night.

My mom spent about a year here in Berlin when she was near my age working as an au pair (nanny) for the Kasten family. Lucky for me, she has kept in contact with the family and they are letting me stay with them. The Kastens took me on a drive through Berlin this morning and pointed out some of the major sites. It was nice to have locals to give me an orientation! They dropped me off at KaDeWe. Since it was pouring outside, it was a good day to do some browsing in Europe´s largest department store. Ýou wouldn´t believe how many varieties of cheese and sausage exist. The toy section is impressive, too. The photo shows some of the famous Steiff teddy bears - I actually still have mine that the Kastens sent me from Germany when I was a baby.

Left Behind

Hello from Frankfurt! I'm hanging out at the Holiday Inn near the airport, awaiting my nighttime flight to Berlin . . . and feeling a tad lonely. Our 6-week journey has come to an end and Katie and Mark's Oregon-bound plane should be in the sky now.

As for me, I've still got a month of travel left. My cousin Audrey will be joining me in Berlin in a few days and the two of us will travel by Eurail through Germany and Denmark. After checking out of the hotel today, I'm planning to take a shuttle to the airport where I can hopefully ditch my backpack in a locker and catch a bus into Frankfurt so that I can at least see some of the city while I wait for my flight to Berlin. In Berlin, I'll be staying with some friends of my mom.

Since I've got free wireless and some time to kill . . . I'll do a little recap of the last leg of our trip. Our blog has been a little neglected since Budapest due to lack of Internet and/or issues with Blogger. It's bound to get a little lengthy, so feel free to skim . . .

The first photo was taken in our youth hostel in Prague (our next stop after Budapest) ... Mark's bangs were in need of a trim, so Katie put her skills to use with the help of mini Swiss Army knife scissors. They're not exactly a beautician's best friend, but they did the job.

The next photo was taken early one morning on the St. Charles Bridge in Prague. After visiting the bridge during the day and evening while it was crowded with people, Katie and I decided it would be worth it to drag ourselves out of bed at 5:45 a.m. to get some photos without the mobs. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and well worth the early rise.

Photo #3: Yes, those are human bones and you'll never guess where we saw them ... in a church! On our way out of Prague, we stopped in a small Czech town to see some sites, including this "bone church." It looks like any other old European church from the outside, but on the inside it is decorated with the bones of 40,000 people (many who died in the Plague). Skull garlands hung from the ceiling and bones were arranged in all sorts of artistic shapes – or simply stacked into huge pyramids. It even had a chandelier comprised of every bone in the human body. Supposedly, the monks’ reasoning for their bone décor was to represent that once you’re dead you’re still a part of the church.

We also toured a medieval silver mine in the same city, donning helmets and climbing a long staircase deep down into the mines. We were joined by Tom, an Australian guy we met at our hostel in Prague, who is nearly six and half feet tall. He had to be practically doubled over in the low, narrow passageways. Better to be a tall miner than a portly one, though – our guide told us that one large woman got wedged in between the walls and it took them 10 minutes to push her through.

We next stayed a couple nights in Cesky Krumlov (also in the Czech Republic). It wasn’t on our original itinerary, but someone at our last hostel talked it up and we had extra time, so we decided to check it out ourselves. It’s a fun little town, although quite touristy. We did some hiking, ate at a cool underground restaurant and walked around the grounds of a castle (even small European towns have castles and cathedrals) where they still keep live bears in the moat.

Munich was the last major stop on our itinerary. We visited Munich’s Olympic park (1972 Olympics) and the BMW museum (factory tours were all booked, unfortunately) and took an evening tour to get acquainted with Munich’s most famous product: beer. (Munich is home to the original Oktoberfest, started by King Louis I). Our tour ended at the famous Hofbrauhaus – where 10,000 liters of beer are served daily in huge, 1-liter glass mugs. It’s a place full of lederhosen, music, singing and giant pretzels to go with the giant beers. Yay for cultural experiences!

The last couple photos are car shots of our Peugeot station wagon, which we returned to the leasing company last night. She served us well.

It's about time for me to catch my shuttle, so I'd better wrap up. Give Mark and Katie a hug for me when you see them . . . and be sure to ask Katie for an impersonation of our Neuschwanstein tour guide. She'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

P.S.

To give credit where it´s due, a good portion of these photos were taken by Katie - not me.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

MOMS,

Hey Mom... I just wanted to wish you a happy Mother's Day... today as we were driving through the countyside I saw several little flower stands selling Mother's Day flowers... I mentally picked out a bouquet for you. It was a medium sized bunch of bright gerbera daisies, they were yellow and orange and red!!!! So... if I could bring some home for you I would... but I don't think that they would be very pretty when you got them ;) you will just have to be satisfied with the picture... that I copied off of the internet ;) just to illustrate!!!!

So... all that to say... HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY moms!!!!

We all love you... and you are wonderful moms!!!!!

Lots of love, your three awesome kids!!!!! ;)

On this day in 1992 . . .

I got a brand new brother! And he's kept me laughing (and rolling my eyes) ever since. So, I'd like to briefly interrupt this travel blog to say . . . HAPPY 15th BIRTHDAY GABE!

Budapest

Tomorrow morning we’re off to Prague (or Praha, as it is known here) – just two more countries to go. It’s hard to believe that we only have ten days left in our six weeks of travel.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time here in Budapest. Yesterday we heeded Rick Steves’ (our travel guidebook) advice and spent several hours relaxing in the public baths. It wasn’t really as intimidating as we first thought. In fact, the atmosphere wasn’t much different from a public swimming pool in the states. (And yes, people were wearing swimsuits.) It was definitely a hot spot for the locals, with old, pot-bellied men in Speedos gathered around chess boards in the water. We spent most of our time soaking in the large, outdoor bath located in the center of the building pictured above. There were a bunch more saunas and baths of varying temperatures inside, though.

The second photo was taken today inside the House of Terror museum - the former location of the Nazi's and (later) the Communists' Hungarian execution headquarters (they called it the House of Loyalty). The photo shows a wall in the museum covered with the faces of those who were murdered there. Communism wasn’t overthrown in Hungary until 1990, so it was a fairly new – and very powerful – museum. It would have been even more fascinating if we’d been able to understand the numerous video clips of victims recounting their horror stories (in Hungarian, of course). Still, it made for a sobering couple hours – especially the part when we watched a video describing the prison conditions and executions as an elevator slowly took us to the basement where the prisoners were held in cells, tortured and murdered. We visited Mauthausen (a Nazi concentration camp in Austria) a few days ago, but that didn’t make the House of Terror any less shocking.

Speaking of shocking, we saw a dead body tonight. Curiosity got the best of us when we noticed people gathered along a bridge with fire and police cars parked nearby, lights flashing. Sure enough - firefighters were standing in the shallow water around a dead man. Eventually, news reporters showed up. Too bad we can’t read the Hungarian newspapers – I guess we’ll never really know the full story.

Adventures in Eating

If there's one thing we're all good at, it's eating. And the food here in Budapest is downright delectable. Last night I dined on cold fruit soup and cheese-stuffed, breaded chicken breast served over rice and fries (obviously not pictured, I'll explain the photos in a minute). Our bill came to about 3,500 - but it was in Hungarian forints, so we actually came out pretty good. The money here is confusing, for sure. We feel like high-rollers carrying around wads of bills marked with 5,000 and 10,000. (With the current exchange, around 186 forints = 1 U.S. dollar.)

But back to food . . . along with the good, we've sampled our share of not-so-tasty as well. For example, Katie and I have both had our turn accidentally ordering pizzas topped with sardines and other questionable sea creatures. Sometimes, even the food we make for ourselves doesn't end up quite like we expected. European meat departments can be rather scary - chickens with the beaks and feet still attached, mold-cased salamis, mysterious skinned creatures, etc. One night, we thought we had purchased a tube of ground sausage for our spaghetti sauce. It ended up being a bologna substance, but we still fried it up and added it to the sauce. It's not a recipe I'll be duplicating at home, but it actually wasn't bad.

The photos illustrate a night in Austria when Mark made his specialty - ramen noodles with pretzels prepared in the bag so that you don't dirty an extra dish. Now that's a recipe I might actually use again - and teach my brother.