A Tour Through Munich and Berlin

Hello Everyone,

So I am getting down to the last few stops on my Eurotrip, and as much as I don't want it to end I feel my body might need it. However I am enjoying every minute that I have here traveling because it really is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So after getting on my flight from Venice, my Easyjet flight took me back to Stuttgart. It was a short flight so I slept the whole time, which after my time in Italy I really needed (Go read my Italy post to find out more). But after I got into the Airport I found Beth and we headed off back to her place. After a bit of catching up, and putting together Beth's new TV we headed down to her local and got some food. I got to meet some of her coworkers and have a nice meal with them. I also met Gina, who would be traveling with us over to the Bavarian city of Munich. So we all left early because we all knew that we had an early train to catch to get over to Munich in the Morning.

After getting up, and making our way to the train station, I got an underground ticket to get on the same train with them to Stuttgart HBF. There were two things I learned at this point. First no matter where you are in Germany the rail infrastructure is amazing. Second HBF stands for Hauptbahnhof which in English means Central. So there you can say you learned something from reading this blog. The train wasn't to long to Munich, and once we were there it was a hunt for food.

Once filling our stomachs we headed off to my Hostel so I could drop my bag to walk around. It was a quick stop at my hostel after spending a half an hour to find it. I couldn't get in my room yet so I just dropped my bag in a locker and we were off to explore. Just as we left both Beth and Gina seemed shocked at how nice a hostel can be.

But we all walked around for a while going into churches, and enjoying the atmosphere of Munich on a rainy Sunday. We ended up seeing the Rathaus-Glockenspiel. We timed it right so we could see the Glockenspiel move around, which actually was really cool. At this point I was hungry again, and I wanted to get out of the rain, so our next stop was the probably one of the most famous beer halls in the country, Hofbrauhaus.

So I ordered some sausages, and a liter of beer. Now I can finally say that I have had a stein of beer at the Hofbrauhaus. The food and the beer was great, but there was a lot of it. However right as I finished my stein one Beth's Bosses met us there. He wanted to drink and no one else was drinking, so he turned to me and said he was buying me a beer. When he said that I was kinda hoping for a small one, but another liter was put in front of me. Yeah it was a long time at the Hofbrauhaus.

After chatting for a bit we headed off to see some more churches, and said farewell to Beth's Boss. It was a nice afternoon walking off all of the food, and beer from earlier. We all saw some amazing churches and landmarks from around the city. But just as they had shown up we were at the train station saying goodbye. I won't see Beth again until a month before I graduate, so Beth enjoy your time there and I can't wait to see when your home. After that I headed back to the hostel and called it a night since I had a tour the next day.

Up early, and back to the train station to meet my tour guide. We then hopped on a train to get us to where the tour would start. It was only a short ride on the train before we got off at the Dachau train station. As some of you might have guesses at this point I did take a tour of the first concentration camp used by the Nazis during the second world war Dachau. It was amazing to see this, and was a valuable history lesson for me. We need to make sure that something of that scale will never happen again. I found out that every student in the Bavarian region has to go to a memorial of the holocaust to remember that something like the holocaust will and can never happen again. I was very humbled I had saw as we were leaving, and learned a valuable lesson.

From there it was back into the city, and I walked all around. I did find myself walking around the english garden, and found the man made wave that gets surfed in Munich year round. I must have stood at the wave for a good solid hour or two to watch these surfers. After wishing I could do that I headed back to the hostel and called it a night since I had another early and long train to Berlin the next morning.

I got on my train at 9 am and I didn't get to Berlin till 3pm. Yes, the train sucked and it was crazy long. I didn't have any trouble getting from the train station to the hostel. I really didn't go out that night, so I grabbed dinner and met these German guys and watched Germany win their last group stage match of the Euro's. I spent the rest of that night watching those matches. The next morning I was up and off to see the sights.

First it was the Berlin TV Tower, then to Berlin Cathedral and then from there it was only a short walk to the Brandenburg Gate. I stood there for a moment to soak in the importance of that monument to the German people and the world. But to the left of that monument there is the US embassy, and in front of it was one of the most amazing things that I saw during my travels. In another country people are mourning the tragic loss of life that happened in Orlando with candles, flowers, flags, and handwritten letters. It was a moment I won't forget because it was the moment I realized we are all people of the world no matter the flag we stand behind.

From there I saw the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Wall Monument, and Checkpoint Charlie. I then proceeded to get lost in a massive park before seeing the Reichstag Building. That building is amazing! I wanted to take more time to see if I could get in to see it all, but that will have to be for the next trip, because I had an early train the next morning, that would take me to one of the destinations I've most looked forward to, Amsterdam.

I am a bit behind on the blog so I will try and get on that soon. I hope you are all enjoying these posts because I love telling you all about my travels. But remember to stay safe and have fun!

-Tucker        

Tucker and Beth Take on Stuttgart

Hey everyone,

So this past weekend (and into the beginning of the week), I caught a flight to see my Step-Mother Beth. She started work over in German about a month ago, so I though I would go and visit her this weekend. We ended up going all over the map, and almost crossing into Austria thanks to our GPS. It was a great adventure and I hope you enjoy reading about it as much as we enjoyed doing it.

Well my journey to Stuttgart started with a red eye sleeper train from Plymouth up to London to caught my flight early Saturday morning. My train left Plymouth at almost midnight, and I don’t think that I will be traveling by night train anytime in the near future. I didn’t sleep at all and my train got me to London at 5:12 am so yeah it was a long train. When I got to Paddington I realized that the tubes wouldn’t get me to Heathrow on time so I managed to get an (expensive) ticket on the Heathrow express that would get me to the airport well before my flight.

After another quick train journey I ended up at the airport and since I already had my boarding pass I made my way straight through security. Once on the other side I found the closest stop to my gate and waited for my gate number to be announced. Then after it was announced and a transit ride to the gate I was on my way to Stuttgart. And yes I slept the whole way there. My ears didn’t like me when I woke up.

When I landed in Stuttgart it was a lovely day, and I managed to get through passport control with ease. Then it was through the gate and Beth was right there waiting for me. It was great to see her since it will be one of the last times I see her before I head back to the States. So after getting a quick bite to eat and trying to get some Wi-Fi, (free Wi-Fi in Germany is really hard to come by) we made our way out of the airport walking by car rental places and of course an adult store in the airport. Who knew right? So we got back to Beth’s apartment, and as we were there I had to turn her phone into a hotspot to make sure one my paper was in which it was. Two to make sure my last post was up. And three to let people know I was here and made it from my flight. After that and a quick change of shirt, Beth gave me a quick tour of her area of Stuttgart.

The area around where she lives is really nice and to my surprise really quiet for being in a city, and so close to all the stores she needs. So she showed me all the stores that she was close to and this little local market that happens every Saturday, which was really nice. I was so glad she lived in this little area, and that she was happy there.

After Beth’s guided tour of the area we wanted to do something more because there was still daylight to do things. So we made a plan to see Birkenkopf or Rubble Hill. The backstory to this place is that after WW2 ended Stuttgart was mostly untouched, however of what was destroyed the people of Stuttgart piled all the rubble on to this one hill and this was it. At the top you can still see pieces of the rubble that was created from the conflict that ravaged the continent for so long.

So after our history lesson we made our way over to see two things that I was jealous of Beth for being able to do, which were the Mercedes-Benz Museum, and the Mercedes-Benz Arena. The Museum itself was amazing! The amount of cars that they had in the museum, which ranged from the first car ever made to some of the iconic Benz models throughout the ages. I was so glad I got a chance to see it! Then it was a quick little run down to see the Mercedes-Benz Arena, which is where VFB Stuttgart play. Unfortunately they were relegated from the Bundesliga this season so the arena will be hosting 2.Bundesliga football next year, but I still hope Beth goes and catches a match there.

After our afternoon journey we made it back to the apartment where I got to meet Beth’s landlords. They are lovely people who make Beth feel at home which makes me really happy.

So after Beth changed and a quick call to Dad we went off to find dinner. We went to this little Irish Pub which was close to Beth’s and got some food. There I got my first taste of German Hefeweizen, and I think that I will miss Beer in Europe quite a bit to be honest. We sat there eating, drinking, and watching both the FA final, and the DFB Pokal Cup final, so needless to say it was a good dinner.

So after a good night's sleep we managed to get up and get moving around 10am (Thanks to me sleeping in. I still blame the sleeper train.), and headed off on our journey into the Black Forest. The Black Forest is an area that spans south from Stuttgart as far down as Freiberg, and is this beautiful forest area. Beth wanted to see this shopping center in the black forest, but after not being able to find it we managed to get to Nationalpark Schwarzwald. The park itself is amazing and I wish I could go back some day. However we managed to get to the top of the mountain it sits on by ski lift, and then take a hike around the top.

On the top of this mountain we managed to find a beer garden called Darmstadter Hutte. Although they didn’t speak any English, but both Beth and I managed to get our food and drink. I will say that after that hike the food tasted better because we earned it! After we made our way down and then went on another adventure to the Black Forest Museum. 

It took us a bit to get there due to the long and winding roads in the German mountains, as well as the fact that bikes pass whenever they want on German roads. But when we got there we got there with an hour left, and we thought that we didn’t wanna rush it so we got some food instead. I managed to get a beer and the glass it came in for 5 euros, which I thought was a great deal. Got the glass I wanted to get well I was here so all worked out. We managed to make it back to the house in one piece, and have a home cooked meal. I had really missed that so it was nice to share a meal like that with Beth. Then it was to bed early so we could get up early to make it a castle that both Beth and I had wanted to see.

So up around 8, and out the door by 10 we put in the directions to the Schloss Neuschwanstein, and we were away. For those of you who don’t know what the Schloss Neuschwanstein is I’ll try and summarize it really quick for you. Neuschwanstein was a castle that was commissioned by the German King Ludwig the 2^nd, which sits high in the mountains overlooking Bavaria on the border with Austria. Some say it is the castle that gave Walt Disney the inspiration for Cinderella’s castle.

But the drive there was long, but the both of us wanted to see the castle so we didn’t really mind. However as we got close to the castle the GPS had us going into Austria then back into Germany to get to the castle. I had to do some navigation to make sure we stayed in Germany, and got to the castle. We managed to stay and Germany and get to the castle in one piece.

After we parked both Beth and I looked up to the top of the mountain’s and we saw the castle that we had come here to see. We made it to the ticket center and fought the line to get our reserved tickets, and then hopped on a shuttle that would take us to the castle. We got there about 20 minutes before our tickets would let us into the castle for our tour.  So after the wait in the rain we got in and got an English tour. Unfortunately, we were unable to take pictures inside the castle, but I got one with a great view on one of the castles balconies.

After our tour we went back into town and got some food. After a quick meal we made our way to see one of the mountain feed likes that are all around the region. The water was crystal clear, and made the lake even more beautiful. But after braving the rain for far too long we got back to the car to head back to Stuttgart.

I have to admit that I slept most of the car ride back to the city, and once we were back I studied for most of the night. I did get enough sleep tonight to make sure that I was able to function this morning to get on my flight. There was nothing really of note to mention this morning minus going to a Starbucks. But now I’m waiting for my flight to get me back to the UK for my exam this Friday.

But I wanted to take this time to thank Beth for her hospitality, and for being a tourist with me. I hope you had as much fun as I did. I know that you're going to be working there for a bit, but let me know if there is anything I can do when I get home to make the adjustment there easier. There will be some Dunkin Donuts coffee in your future I can tell you that. You have been amazing helping me through the whole study abroad process and one of my biggest cheerleaders when I need it. So thank you for being there well I have been studying abroad, and know that I will be there for you for anything you need well you're in Germany. Love you!

But that’s it for my adventures for the week. There will be some more adventures in the coming weeks you don’t want to miss, so stay tuned for those. But other than that remember to stay safe and enjoy the day!

P.S. Thank you for 2000 views I never thought I would get that many!


-Tucker