So today was my first day that I was actually able to act like a tourist...meaning I actually went out and was able to see things, carry around a camera, and go somewhere that actually required finding our way. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was planning on visiting Garmish-Partenkirchen today. After waking up around 9:15 this morning for our 10:30 departure, my aunt and her friend decided that due to the heavy cloud cover we should probably wait it out to make sure it doesn't rain. Seemed like a smart plan to me...if you've been in the mountains, rain/cloud cover is a hell of a lot different there than it is at lower elevations. Anyways, after trying to figure out when and where we were actually going to (due to the weather we changed maybe 4 times) we headed off for the town of Fussen; if that picture looks familiar, that castle is the actual castle that Walt Disney based his iconic symble from. On our way to Fussen, we once again changed our mind and decided to actually head to the site of The World Alpine Ski Campionships in 2011, Ga-Pa. We once again got delayed by the only Autobahn that links our two cities being closed...well only in our lane. No biggie, so we actually got a nice tour of the rest of the area which was nice and filled with small little quaint villages. We finally arrived in GaPa around 2.5 hours later and it was awesome to see the Alps turn from black outlines to monsterous figures over time. The only thing missing from the scene was snow..but I can't be too picky; it's July. GaPa is a beautiful city, no doubt about it. It sits near the Italy and Austria borders of Germany and it situated right next to the Alps. It's a pretty wealthy part of Germany and the houses and architechture definitely show it, they are unreal. Each building has small yet intricate paintings on the exterior. We toured the area for about 2 hours and sat for some Coffee, I'm slowly becoming addicted) and a typical Bavarian dish that was basically funnel cake but looked like shredded pancakes. Needless to say, it was good. We finally ended up driving home and attempted to actually go to Fussen, but decided to save it for another day. On the way back however, we did stop in Ettal for the Abby of Ettal. I thought that the church at Loyola was nice..albeit it is, but this was soooo nice. I imagined it was a small slice of Michaelangelos Sistine Chapel, but it was still very nice. Today was a great day and really set up a bunch of ideas for future travels. On somewhat of a side note, I passed by the Prison that Hitler was held and wrote the famous, and terribly written peice, "Mein Kampf." It's hard for me to explain my fascination of WW2 over here. Obviously being a History major doesn't help me but I personally feel that it's not just the fact that WW2 such a HUGE part of our countries small timeline and educational platform that actually seeing things in person rather than a laser disk (remember those!) or 300 page text book is very, very cool. I'm hoping that I can get a closer to look to many more sources of WW2 while I'm here. Tomorrow has more possible venues to see, but we will see what actually happens.
Miss You All,
Brian
P.S. If anyone is interested, my roomate Kevin and our friend Tommy are in Kenya. They just finished volunteering their time for the children and people of Kenya, and would surely enjoy others reading of their travels. The Websites are:
KevinInKenya.blogspot.com
TommyInKenya.blogspot.com
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