Germany: August 2011

Two weekends ago, I stayed in Munich and rested from general exhaustion and letting my knee heal up. On Saturday I met up with Corey Vinton, his girlfriend Kate, Corey Knapke, Ben Zeigler, and Claire Koenig after their trip to Dachau and we went to Hofbraehaus. On Sunday, I went to the Alte Pinakothek, which is an 16th-18th century art museum that has one of the most important collections in Europe, including paintings from greats such as Albrecht Dürer (especially his famous self-portrait), Rembrandt, Titian, Raphael, and Da Vinci. I really enjoy looking at art and the pieces there were incredible.

Last weekend I made a trip to Nuremburg, which is in Bavaria to the north of Munich, but in the Frankish region. On Friday after work, I met up with my roommate Heiko and we took the train to his hometown called Kirchfembach, which lies about 30 minutes by train outside Nuremburg. Kirchfembach lies between the hills and has a population of only a few hundred people. When we got there I met his parents who have pretty strong Frankish accents, which was a little hard to understand, but they were very nice and welcoming. Then we went out to eat at the restaurant in the middle of town. As we were approaching the long tables outside everyone greets us with a big smiles and cheery greetings. Everybody at the tables and everyone we walked past the whole time knew each other. I had an amazing dish of homemade Leberkas and potato salad with a beer to eat amongst conversation. I loved the coziness of everyone living an unhurried life in the country and knowing each other. Then he showed me the firehouse that he volunteers at and he showed me inside the fire truck. Then we went and met up with some of his friends and went out to a festival in a nearby town where they were celebrating the town birthday and there were carnival games and a big beer tent but we went through that to a smaller tent that was set up like a bar and had loud music and lights going and stayed there having a drink and talking to people for a while. This bar serves a delicious homemade drink called Gwak that is milk plus some other things that I forget, but it was super tasty and really funny drinking milk in a bar.

Saturday morning me and my roommate went to Nuremburg and he showed me around to the churches and the big market place in the center of town where they have fruit and vegetable and meat stands and during Christmas time, people come from all around to celebrate Christmas in the market, eating a gingerbread they are famous for called Lebkuchen. Normally they just make it during Christmas season, but they make some now too because people love it so much. I bought a couple of them, one with almonds and one chocolate covered and they were so delicious. Then Nathan Wukie, from our UC group, met up with us and we went up into the town's castle. After that we went into a restaurant where they served Nuremburger Bratwursts which I had not yet tried, but was really looking forward to because they are much different than the normal ones in southern Germany. They are small and roasted and look and taste very similar to the sausage links from Bob Evans, which was really tasty. After that we walked past the famous German painter Albrecht Dürer's house. His house is the tudor style from the middle ages that have the house painted one color and the timber cross beams painted dark brown usually. Walking down the streets of Nuremburg, these houses are everywhere and it’s really cool. It used to be totally medieval, a lot like Rothenburg ob der Tauber before WWII, but then a lot of the city was destroyed. After that we escaped the rain into Nathan's favorite coffee shop which is super comfortable inside and reminded me of Taza except it looked older like an old wooden house. After that we went toward the soccer stadium and on the way passed the Nazi Party rally grounds that Hitler built and held all his rallies. There used to be a huge lot and a stage there with a podium, but the big lot is gone and some of the other buildings were desroyed, but the podium is still there and it was a little bit chilling to be able to walk up it and stand where he stood. Then we went to the soccer game which was super fun. 1.FC Nuremburg won, and the crowd was nuts. People were waving huge flags and jumping up and down the whole game and the whole stadium sang throughout the game to the beat of drums. After the game we met up with some of Nathan's friends he met through Couchsurfing who were from places like Germany, Spain, Columbia, and Russia. We went to a big festival called Volksfest that is similar to Oktoberfest with big beer tents and carnival games and stuff. Then we hung out at a house party for a while and then went to a bar and then a very small club which was totally empty and at this point it was 5am and we were the only ones dancing out on the floor.

I stayed in Nathans room and after going to bed around 6am, we woke up at 10am on Sunday and met some of the same people from the night before and went out to a really pretty part of the country called the Fränkische Schweiz, which is Frankish Switzerland translated, and it's called that because it's beautiful with hills and fields and stuff and it reminds people of Switzerland. This place is also known for being the highest concentration of breweries in the whole world. We went on a trail that went through 5 breweries, though we only stopped at 3 of them. One of them we had lunch and I got a famous dish in the region called Schaeufele which is pig shoulder and it was really good. The very last stop was a brewery where they served beer from a cave in the side of a hill. It was awesome. By the end, we had walked like 10 kilometers or so and after not having slept much as it was were really tired and took the bus back to where we could take the train back to Nuremburg. Then I met up with my roommate at the train and headed back to Munich and arrived around midnight.