Visit from my Family

This was a special time because my family came to visit Germany for 10 days! It started early Friday morning when I met my parents at the Munich airport. On their way here, they had to transfer in Atlanta, but the first plane had a delay and so their layover went from over an hour to only 15 minutes and they had to get all the way to the other side of the airport. So they hauled it over there and luckily made it just in time. When I saw them at the airport, I was so happy and excited and I saw that they were too, but also noticeably tired. My dad, my mom and my sister all got zero sleep on the overnight flight. Mostly because they were seated directly next to the restroom with people constantly going in and out and the door slamming all night. Add in the jet lag and the exhaustion was understandable. It worked out well because I had to work anyway on Friday, so we took the train to my apartment and they took naps for the afternoon while I was at work. They couldn’t check in at the hotel until 3pm, so they waited for me to get off work and we went over there and checked in. After that we went out to dinner at the Augustiner brewery hall on Marienplatz and had some delicious German dishes of meat and potatoes. After that, we walked around a little bit in the Altstadt and I showed them some of the coolest sights and gave them some ideas for other things they might like to see during the rest of their stay. We even passed an orchestra concert going on outside and listened for a little bit before heading back to the hotel for a much needed nights rest.

On Saturday, we decided to start with a bang and see some castles, so we headed to Füssen. Füssen is known for it’s two castles built by King Ludwig II, the Hohenschwangau Castle and the world famous Neuschwanstein Castle that was the inspiration for the Disney Land Castle. When we got there, we got a breakfast/lunch where my sister got apple struedel, my mom got meats and bread, and me and my dad got traditional Bavarian breakfast of weisswurst and pretzels. I hyped it up pretty good, and it didn’t let my dad down, he really enjoyed it. After that we walked around the quaint, cozy town for a little bit while we waited for the bus that goes to Hohenschwangau. Once we got there, we got a ticket for a tour in Neuschwanstein Castle. Before our tour, we walked up the nearby hill to the striking yellow Hohenschwangau castle and walked through the castle grounds and back down on a hiking trail with a beautiful view over the nearby sparkling lake. Then we took a bus up to the Neuschwanstein Castle and first stopped at a bridge that crosses a gorge and waterfall below. From this uncomfortably crowded bridge we got pictures of Neuschwanstein that you see on postcards. Though it is a heavily touristed place, it doesn’t take away from the beauty of the view and the scenery. It was worth the horde of tourists to see. Next we walked along a hiking trail toward the castle where we walked inside the castle walls and waited for our tour to begin. In the tour, we were able to see the magnificent inside of the castle, but unfortunately photography was not allowed. However, once we got out to the balconies on the side of the castle, photography was allowed and it was absolutely breathtaking views of the mountains and the lake in the distance and the other castle below nested between the mountains.

On Sunday, we headed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, located in the Alps right on the Austrian-Germany southern border. Garmisch was the site of the winter Olympics at one point and a lot of the buildings are still standing. We went there to go up to the highest peak in Germany, the Zugspitze. We got there and took the train to a place where we could take a lift up to the top. It was pretty crowded inside the lift, like a can of sardines, but as we ascended Zugspitze, we got increasingly more stunning views of the mountains in the distance. Once we got to the top however, there was already a lot of clouds. For about 15 minutes we had a great view out one side of the mountain, but then the clouds completely took over. It was still a really great view while it lasted though. We then ate at the highest beer garden in the world at the peak. After that, we were pretty cold and decided to take the train back down, which went through the mountain and the popped out the side about three quarters of the way down. Once we had gotten back it was pouring rain, so we took the train back to Munich and coincidentally got back just in time to watch the Women’s World Cup Soccer final between the USA and Japan. It was an exciting game, but disappointing in the end because we lost.

On Monday, we went to gorgeous Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is well known for being the place where the Sound of Music was filmed and also where the composer Mozart was born. Once we got there, we got tickets for a Sound of Music tour which was in a couple of hours. In the meantime, we headed toward the center of town. On our way we passed lots of specialty shops run by local craftsmen, such as belt-makers, carpenters, jewelers, artists, and so on. It was easy to get to the old part of town because we just had to look up and walk toward the massive castle that is perched overlooking the city. We went over a bridge that crosses over a river that runs through the city and had a really pretty view of the colored buildings along the bank. Once we crossed the bridge we were in the old part with narrow cobbled streets and lined with various shops, cafes, bakeries, butcheries, and chocolate shops. We walked past Mozart’s birth house and headed to the central square where there is a large fountain and a gigantic church, called the Salzburg Cathedral I think. The outside was amazing but nothing compared to the inside. The interior architecture was incredible. After that, we met up with our tour group for the Sound of Music tour. The tour was mainly inside a bus, but a few times we were able to get out to take pictures. We saw lots of places where scenes from the movie were shot. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen the movie, so I’ll just post the pictures and see if you recognize any of them. The tour was really cool and the highlight was driving through the rolling hills and lakes while listening to music from the movie. It fit so well and was a really cool experience. After the tour, we went back to the central part of the city and climbed up to the Hohensalzburg Castle that overlooks the city. Once we got up, we were able to walk through the castle grounds and it was really neat. Unlike Neuschwanstein which is more like a luxurious mansion, this was a bonafide castle that defended invaders. We saw archery towers, the stone fortifications, even cannons. From the castle, we had amazing views over Salzburg and panoramic views of the surrounding mountains. I think for me, Salzburg is the most beautiful city that I have so far been to.

Tuesday through Thursday I had to work. On Tuesday my family visited the Munich Royal Residence and enjoyed the amazing art and architecture inside. After that I met them at Hofbräuhaus and had great German cuisine. After that, we went to a local movie theater and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II in 3D. I loved the movie. It’s my favorite of the Harry Potter movies and was really well done and great ending to the series. On Wednesday, it rained all day non-stop. So my family went to the Deutsches Museum of science of technology for the day. After work I met them and we ate Italian food at a place near the hotel and didn’t really do much but talk and hang out after that because it was still raining. On Thursday, my family visited Dachau concentration camp and took a tour there. I met them after work and we went to the Englischer Garden to walk around and go to my favorite beer garden called the Seehaus which is right on a lake in the middle of the park.

On Friday, we headed for Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which is the best preserved medieval town in Germany. The Nazi’s prized Rothenburg and defended it at all costs during WWII because Hitler believed that it was the epitome of German culture and represented all that was quintessentially German. Going there, I can see why they fell in love with it, because we did too. It has the original town walls still standing and watchtowers lining the wall. In order to get through the wall, one has to cross over a drawbridge that bridged over what used to be a moat. Once we did, we went up into the town wall and walked through it. We were amazed as we continued walking at the tudor-style medieval houses and stone-laden alleys. We walked through the central part of town around the spot where the road splits that you see on postcards and we stopped there to have some desserts. We ordered a local delicacy called Snowballs. These taste kind of like fortune cookies that are wrapped in a ball shape and covered with sugar, or chocolate, or hazelnut, and other sweet delicious possibilities. We continued walking through the streets and went into some of the coolest shops I’ve even been in. They have lots of Christmas shops where you can buy anything Christmas related that you can think of. There are also cookoo-clock shops and even medieval armor and weaponry shops. We got the very center of town where the town hall is and ascended the tower there where we could see out over the town on all sides. After that we walked through the streets some more and walked into a large garden that was very pretty. Moving on, we found a museum called the Kriminalmuseum, where they have exhibits featuring various torture, punishment, and execution devices for criminals back in the medieval ages. My mom and sister weren’t too enthusiastic about it, but I was giddy with excitement so me and my dad went in. They had lots of things in there that once I started really thinking about it, I started to get queasy. It’s definitely not for the light-hearted. It was really interesting and a once in a life time thing. I don’t know if other museums like this exist. In the meantime, my mom and sister looked in shops and they saw a procession through the streets of drummers with renaissance-festival like clothing on, which me and my dad unfortunately missed. I heard it through the window of the museum though. After that we had dinner and then headed back to Munich.

On Saturday, we rented a Mercedes A-class to drive to Hagen, Germany and meet some of our extended family for the first time. Hagen is located on the west side of Germany near Cologne. It took us about 7 hours to get there and on the way I got to drive for a little bit and I drove on a part of the Autobahn that had no speed limit. I put the pedal all the way to the floor and slowly climbed up to 185 km/hr, which is about 115 miles/hr. That was the car’s top speed. The only trouble was that the exit we needed to take suddenly appeared and I was in the far left lane at top speed. I gave my family quite a scare as I glided between cars and made the exit. It was really exciting for me, but not so much for everyone else haha. Once we finally got to Hagen, we met my dad’s uncle Georg and his wife and my dad’s cousin Heike at her house. Heike speaks really good English, so we were able to talk with her very easily. I was the only one able to talk with my great-uncle Georg though because he speaks only German. They served us cake and coffee as we looked through photos of the rest of our extended family and got to know each other some more. After that we had a German dinner of meats, sausages, potatoes, sauerkraut and beer. It was delicious. We talked more throughout the night and got to look at beautiful pictures of some of the places in the world Heike has been. We stayed the night there and had breakfast in the late morning before heading out for the long drive back to Munich. It was really an amazing experience getting to meet them and they were extremely nice and hospitable. We were all very thankful for Facebook that made it possible. On our way back we decided to take a short break from driving and stop in a very pretty city called Würzburg, which is also on the Romantic Road. We went into the huge castle overlooking the city. From every side you can see vineyards. After walking around the castle, we went down and across the old bridge in the center of town. It was strange to see everyone drinking wine there, especially in Bavaria where beer is king. On the other side of the bridge we ate Italian food for dinner and then headed back for the car and back to Munich. The following morning, I went with my family to the airport and bid them farewell. I really enjoyed having them here after missing home so much and it was really refreshing to spend 10 days with them here. I know they enjoyed seeing Germany for the first time too and connecting with our heritage.