Biosciences Bonn: München Away the Semester One Weekend at a Time

München on this pizza slice by slice……..München this castle apart brick by brick to find the glass slipper……München……hmmmmm what other pun can I think of for a caption?? ß that sums up the 6 hour train ride from Bonn to Munich. And of course, the monotone snoring of he-who-came-with-us-to-Munich-but-shall-not-be-named was heard the entire way to Munich. We arrived Friday evening around midnight; the weather was just dreadful. There was a torrential downpour, and it was about 35°F. On top of that, the weather forecast for the rest of the weekend was just as dismal. The next morning was an early one. We woke up at 5AM in order to catch the 6:25AM train to Füssen to visit Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle. As expected, the weather was still damp and cold! However, by some miracle, after the hour train ride to Füssen, the weather warmed up slightly, and the rain subsided! Somehow, the weatherman was wrong, and we were set to have the most perfect day in the small village of Hohenschwangau. Immediately upon arriving, we could see Neuschwanstein above us! We went ahead to pick up our tickets for tours to both castles. One of the other students in our group actually forgot to preorder his ticket online, so he had to wait in the massive line for people who did not order tickets through the website. The rest of us were able to pick up our tickets from a shorter line that took about 10 minutes to get to the front. We were in quite a dilemma……of course, we weren’t going to leave our friend behind and go the castle first, but it also wasn’t time efficient to wait another hour and a half to pick up a ticket. Ahhhh..luckily there are extremely nice people in this world. When I got to the front of the line to pick up tickets for myself to go to the castle, I thought to myself “why not ask if we could get another ticket for our friend…..?” No harm in trying right? I told the man at the desk about the situation that we were in and asked nicely if I could buy another one right then and there instead of waiting in the long line. Surprisingly, he sold me the ticket without a second’s hesitation! We proceeded to look around the small village because our tour of the first castle, Hohenschwangau, wasn’t for another 45 minutes. We stopped by this extremely pretty, frozen lake called the Alpsee. I don’t know what came over us, but all of the guys and a couple of the girls decided it was a good idea to venture a few feet onto the ice. YES. WE PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE. BUT HEY! I’VE OFFICIALLY WALKED ON WATER! Fortunately though, nothing broke below our feet and no one fell into the lake. J Next stop: Hohenschwangau Castle! On the outside, Hohenschwangau did not compare to Neuschwanstein whatsoever but still, it was quite a sight to see. The tour of the interior was amazing. There were numerous works of art, relics, and secret passages between rooms! I walked out of Hohenschwangau Castle and turned to my friend to ask him “How do I become a king and get a castle of my own??!” We grabbed a quick lunch and began the 2-kilometer, uphill trek to Neuschwanstein Castle. 20 minutes later, we were closer to the castle! More walking…….finally we made it to the top! We knew we would feel the soreness tomorrow morning. The Neuschwanstein Castle was just jaw-dropping to look at. During the tour, we learned that the construction of the castle was never completed because King Ludwig passed away before it could be finished, which was quite a tragedy. Afterwards, we pulled the biggest “dumb tourist” card and decided to hop a fence that said “do not enter” in order to get to a bridge to get a great view of the castle. Of course, we weren’t the only ones that were hopping the fence. Every 5 minutes, about 20 people hopped the fence to make the journey to the bridge. The reason that it was fenced off was because one lady had slipped on the icy path to the bridge and gotten injured a few weeks ago. We made sure we were careful and holding the rail; finally, we made it to the bridge. My oh my. The view was unbelievable. If it weren’t for my constant paranoia of heights and the rickety bridge, I would have stayed there all day to admire the castle. Later that night, we had dinner at the famous pub founded in 1328 (that’s almost 700 years old!!), Augustiner-Keller. The food was great and of course, we ordered the infamous liter sized beers because “Everything’s bigger in Munich,” right?? The next morning, the weather was fantastic yet again! What more could we ask for??? We went to visit the Glockenspiel (another clock that would perform several shows at the strike of 11:00AM), Marienplatz, and St. Peter’s Church. We made our way up to the top of St. Peter’s Church to see the city. The stairs were steep and plentiful, but the view was beautiful and breathtaking. Last stop: the Dachau Concentration Camp. I had read a lot about the Holocaust and concentration camps, but I had never been to a concentration camp in my life before. Much of the concentration camp had been torn down except for a few barracks and the crematorium. The next couple of hours were very insightful. I was very moved/angered/perturbed by what I saw and read; however, I was also somewhat bothered that whilst all of this cruelty in Dachau occurred, many of the residents nearby chose to ignore it and act as if nothing evil was happening inside. Regardless, going to the camp definitely enlightened my understanding about the past. It’s hard to imagine that there were people in this world who thought it was appropriate to treat other human beings as the victims of the Holocaust were treated. After this, we stopped by Vapiano’s for dinner and headed to the train station. We rode for about 4 hours and had a layover in Frankfurt for 3 hours. Although a 3-hour layover isn’t the best way to spend the night, we managed to make the most of it. We spent the 3 hours playing cards, eating McDonald’s, and playing the piano at the train station! Finally, the train arrived; we rode for about 2 more hours and made it back to Bonn at 6 in the morning on Monday! What an adventure Munich was. München this story, why don’t ya??