Day 9 - Neuschwanstein (8/4)
In the morning, I awoke and shortly after heard voices from somewhere above me (not Jiekai's bed, but the one next to him). A woman was saying, "Where's this? Is this your hostel?... When did I get here?". A male voice then replied. A discrete peek revealed a couple in the bed - the man in a singlet and the girl in a red tank top (no, not only that - they both had jeans on as well). Gotta love these Europeans. Oh wait, I think these were both Americans. No wonder Americans like to travel so much.
Swedish Chef
In the kitchen there was a big soft toy of the Swedish Chef. I was horrified to see this blatant example of RACISM. I can't believe the Germans haven't learnt the lessons of the Holocaust - they need more National Education lessons and a sedition act. Making fun of people essentialises them and from then on it's easy to view them as The Other, putting them in a separate, inferior category in your mind. Stereotypes are reinforced and perpetuated and very soon, you start to see them as sub-human and eventually you'll want to exterminate them. Why, with all the lawyer jokes people tell, I predict that lawyers will be stoned on sight in 5 years' time. The solution is obvious - all jokes must be banned, except for corny jokes and puns.
On this day, I went to Neuschwanstein Castle with Radius tours. It isn't that hard to get there yourself, but I got a discount by signing up for this as well as the Dachau tour, the train ticket to the castle alone probably cost a lot, I'd get a guide for this and I didn't want to see Jiekai's face. Our guide was excellent and spontaneous, being very experienced.
Mountains of Bavaria
2 days after the snow fell, there was still snow on the ground on some parts of the train route in Munich. The weather's really screwy.
Neuschwanstein was really pretty:
Oops. No, this is not it.
Wait, wrong one again.
Neuschwanstein was supposedly built to a 10th-12th century design.
hohenschwangau
His father's castle
Alpensee - beautiful lake at the foot of the place
Castle
It looks better in the photoshopped pictures. I especially like the one where clouds surround the place - it looks like a vision from a dream.
Plain below
After an extremely ardous hike to the top of the hill (mountain?), we had to queue for entry. The whole thing was very elegant - at the bottom of the mountain you bought a ticket with a queue number and time on it. When your number was called at the correct time you would enter the place. It seems anal-retentive, but the guide said that the queues used to stretch for a mile (or was it a quarter mile) down the mountain in the past.
Mountain
Mountainside
It was a great day to go to Neuschwanstein - the weather had been horrid the previous days, but this day it was warm, bright and sunny.
Bridge
We were informed that taking pictures of the interior was forbidden. I was speculating that taking pictures from the windows was a loophole, and we were soon informed that that was indeed allowed.
Bridge from castle
The inside of the castle was very interesting, although it wasn't finished. Ludwig's building projects bankrupted the state, but only a few days after his mysterious death the castle was opened as a tourist attraction. These monarchs should just have issued long term bonds to be repaid on future tourist revenue to finance all these grandiose projects.
Plain from castle
There was a Byzantine chapel in the castle. The painted figures had the Byzantine halos, but they weren't as stiff as in true Byzantine art but fluid and lifelike. I like. He had the top of his bed canopy sculpted to look like the towers of famous German Gothic church towers - I want a bed like that! There were also lots of swans decorating everything - there were even door handles in the shape of swans' necks.
I can see why this inspired the Sleeping Beauty castle - many parts of the place have a Disney feel, and scenes from Wagnerian operas adorn the walls. Hell, the bugger had an artificial rock grotto built.
Lake from castle
Maybe it would've showed up on normal exposure also. Hmm.
The cafe at the castle had a surprisingly good deal - €7,50 for a slice of cake, coffee and a souvenir cup. Too bad I still have 3 1/2 months to go before coming home. The tap water in the toilet was joyously cold - ah, soon we won't be able to enjoy sweet cold water straight from the tap any more. I swear it's not the same as if you put a bottle of water in the fridge - it just tastes better this way.
Kodak moment
Me in Kodak moment
View of below
Neuschwanstein
On the way back, though it was quite stuffy and all the other windows were shut, this German woman in the train asked us to close the window. Apparently these Germans are all paranoid that they'd catch pneumonia - someone was relating how in the depths of Summer, this American almost got into a fight with a German because the former's group was suffocating in the sweltering heat while the latter wanted the windows shut.
The way back was boring, so people were swapping travel stories. One person told of how when he went to New Zealand from Australia, the first thing he did was lie down on a beach and happily shout "nothing can kill me now!"; Australia has crocodiles, snakes, scorpions and lots more besides. He also said someone camping with a group in Australia had not moved when reveille time came. I was privately speculating that something had killed him in the night, but the truth was almost as interesting - a snake had crawled in at night, attracted by the heat, and he was petrified. Eventually they took a knife (or something) and used it to partition off the sleeping bag. Someone else said this pretty 18 year old Scandinavian blonde wanted to hitchhike from Alice Springs down to the south, and hoped that she'd made it without being killed and raped (vice versa, rather) by strange perverts.
When I returned to the hostel at 7:30pm, the guy who woke up with the girl in his bed was fast asleep. He must've had a r/tough day. Or night. He was still asleep at 11:30pm or so.
For dinner, Jiekai insisted on going to a Turkish place, so I grudgingly accepted. They only had beef, so I ended up having a falafel sandwich while he had some variation on a kebab (beef shreds with rice, salad and sour cream). Neither of us was satisfied and we ended up going somewhere else to eat after that. Interestingly, the Turkish place not only sold beer but had slot machines. Tsk tsk.
A plausible reason why there's no Root Beer in Europe: Real beer is so cheap and good (I'm told, at least, since it all tastes like piss to me) in most places, so there's no point.
Cigarettes cost €8/20 in Canada. That's even worse than in Singapore. Meanwhile we have them for €3,00 per pack in Europe (Jiekai has a picture of one ad which we were going to caption, "wish you were here" and send to smoker friends. He was supposed to send it to me but as of the time of writing his head was probably stuck on a spike at the top of the Berlin wall, so.
Cock files, or things for which I would've pelted Jiekai with the Biggest Snowball In The World, Part Deux, if there'd been snow:
- He walked past the room door
- He got off at the wrong Munich S-bahn (suburban train) stop and so missed the Third Reich guided tour which he'd paid for.
- He insisted on having Turkish food (which is widely available throughout Europe) in Munich