Munich, Germany

 We left Italy and headed to Munich.  It was a long day of traveling and we got into our new place pretty late. Steve had found us an awesome place to stay.  We met our host, Fran, briefly before she headed off to bed because Sunday was going to be a big day.  She was going to a festival called the Kocherlball or the Servant's Ball and invited us to go with her.  The Servant's Ball is held in the famous English Garden; the same place Oktoberfest is held every year (side note: the garden is bigger than NY's Central Park). This lively event takes place at the Chinese Tower, where locals come dressed in traditional servant costumes or traditional Bavarian garb to Waltz, Polka, and picnic the morning away.  Oh yeah, you can't forget the beer. What would a party in Bavaria be without Beer?  The tradition of this ball dates back to the 19th century when the cooks and servants of noble families rallied together and decided they wanted to have a ball of their own.  Every Sunday morning during the summer they would meet at this tower, before work (4am-5am), and enjoy the merriments. Eventually, the authorities put an end to these parties due to fear of immorality. But a good thing never dies, so about 20 years or so the custom was reestablished and grew in popularity quickly. The Kocherlball is now held on the third Sunday in July from about 5:30am-10am. The locals say it is the best event to go to outside of Oktoberfest.
It was shear luck that we found Fran to host us and introduce us to this spirited event.  You know Steve and I can't pass up a period event or any excuse to wear costumes and dance.  ;-) Needless to say we had the time of our lives!  Since we did come in late and had a long day of traveling we were not quite as gung-hoe about getting up all that early so we let Fran meet up with her friends when the event started and we joined them all a little later.  I think we got there about 7:30am-8:00am.  The party was in full swing.  It was super crowded but so much fun!  Steve and I loved seeing all the costumes and Steve decided he wanted a pair of lederhosen.  I think he would look so cute in those.  When he saw everyone dressed up he turned to me and said, "this is what I expected Germany to look like."  LOL  Can you believe that?!?!?!  He thought people still dress like that today.  lol  He is so cute, I just love him. <3  After walking around a bit we found Fran and her friends.  They were all so very nice and included us with open arms.  We tried a bunch of traditional Bavarian treats and yes, even the beer.  Neither Steve nor I are big fans of beer but you know what they say, "when in Bavaria. . . . ." Oh wait, that is Rome isn't it?  Oops :-D  Well, whatever the case, we joined in the festivities.  It was an weird feeling, knowing we were drinking alcohol at 8am in the morning.  I felt kinda guilty.  lol  I don't know if it was to make myself feel better or to water down the taste of beer, but I got a Radler which is half lager and half lemonade.  After we had closed down the place the party didn't end there.  A group of people were going to continue on to a music festival and invited us to join them, so we did.  Unfortunately, the festival cost a pretty penny (35 euros each) so we hung out with them until the festival started and their whole group had arrived and then we headed back to Fran's.  I can't believe it was only early afternoon by the time we got back.  It felt like we had already had a full day's worth of fun.          

Walking into the park, this is what we saw.  It was awesome!  Everyone was spread out and picnicking together. Some people were dressed in traditional garb and some in modern clothing but they were all having fun.

Cameos by a bunch of people we don't really know but liked their costumes.  lol   The guy on the top right has a rocking beard. Can't you just see Steve in the same outfit as the guy on the top right?   

Love the duster in the guy's hat on the lower left.  The picture on the bottom right was one of the bests, in my opinion.  There were many nice outfits, but seeing as this was a servant's ball, I think this was the most appropriate :-) 

These eggs were on the table and I thought they were marble eggs.  lol  I had no idea they were hard boiled eggs until I saw someone peeling one and eating it.  They were so pretty! How come our dyed eggs don't look this good and vibrant?  I am definitely doing something wrong.  (as a side note, we went to another place in Bavaria and the hard boiled eggs were the same.  I guess that is how they differentiate between fresh and boiled eggs in the store.  This picture was taken in a store but they had the same thing at the festival)

Fran (our hostess) is the girl in the middle and one of her friends is on the right.  Isn't Fran cute?  She truly was a joy to be with.  I love how she was always smiling and genuinely happy to include us in this memorable event.   

Steve with Fran's mom :-)  Always the charmer, Steve won her over and she gave him the flower necklace wrapped around her hat.  

Neither one of us is a fan of beer but since we were at a beer garden, we bought our first beer in Germany.  

 I love these photos.  Steve decided to try the beer in the picture on the left and you can see how much he enjoyed it in the picture to the right.  lol Needless to say, I had to finish this one on my own.  

My Daddy would be proud :-) 

Where there is music, there is dancing!  Lots of Watlzes and Polkas :-D  The dance area in front of the band was packed!

We don't need room on the dance floor.  Steve and I make our own dance floor :-)  It was a nice Waltz  (one of my favorites dances).  I think they were impressed we knew how to dance to this music.

 These mugs were made out of glass!!! They were all being silly and sticking the glasses to their face.  I remember doing this as a kid with plastic cups with nothing in them.  These on the other hand were quite heavy.  I am sure it hurt a little but totally worth the fun!

The next day we went to the Neuschwanstein Castle.  This was the castle that inspired Walt Disney's Cinderella's Castle. Since this is my favorite Disney princess we had to go here.  ;-)  To get there we had to catch a train for about 2 hours to take us from Munich to Hohenschwangau.  Steve and I got out the door in plenty of time to make it to the train station and catch our 10:45am train but the train never arrived at the platform.  We were there about 30-45 minutes early.  The screen above us confirmed we were in the right place and then 10:45 came and went without any train stopping to pick us up.  We asked at the counter and all they would tell us was the next train came in an hour.  There was no explanation of what happened to our train.  It was really weird.  Thankfully we weren't the only ones waiting so we knew we weren't going crazy.

Random Coffee advertisement at the train station.  lol  Look at this woman's mohawk and jewelry.  Ridiculous! lol  you know I always have to include some sort of fascinating advertisement in all our posts.  

Look what else I found in the train station :-)

Eventually we did make it to Hohenschwangau. We got in line to get tickets to go inside the castle and the only tickets available were at 6:15pm. They were pretty crowded.  Plus if we wanted to wait there could be a possibility we would miss the last train back to Munich. We went back and forth on whether or not we wanted to wait 4 hours for a 30 minute tour and possibly miss our train and have to spend the night. We had come all the way to Germany and this was one of the things on our 'must do' list.  On the other hand, we had heard from some other people as well as read reviews about the tour and they all seemed to say the tour was a bit disappointing. We could, however, walk around the grounds for free and at our leisure.  The tour was only if you wanted to go inside the castle.  We decided we were happy to walk around and explore the grounds by ourselves and skip the tour.
The castle was beautiful and another dream come true.  It was quite romantic for Steve and I.  For those of you who know our engagement story you can understand why this was so special.  For those of you who don't know our story, the short version is: Steve proposed as a prince on a white horse, built me a castle (or should I say, our friends built us a castle, Steve funded the project) and threw me a ball where we danced until midnight.  He basically turned me into my favorite princess for the day. He even gave me a glass slipper, so coming to this castle together was a very special and memorable moment for us.

Steve saw his first squirrel in Europe!!!!!  Guess who took this picture ;-)

 After we got off the train, we had to take a bus up to the town below the castle.  These are some of the buildings in this charming town.  I loved them.  They have so much character don't you think?

Our first view of our castle. . . I mean, the Nueschwanstein Castle.  I was a little star-struck, I am not going to lie.

I got to hold the castle in my hand.  :)  Yep, that is it way up there.  The last picture was zoomed up.  Now it was time to walk ALL the way up there!!!!

Castle entrance

Family Crest

Walking into the castle

The courtyard

Two lovers kissing under the clock tower <3

I loved this horse decor on the door.

King Ludwig II loved his dogs

On our way out of the gates with perma-smiles on our faces

We took lots of picture (of course and you have only seen some of them.  I have spared you from looking at all of them.  You are welcome.) and admired the beauty and familiarity of this castle.  We decided we could get used to a view like that.  "Yep, used to it.  Guys, I want a castle." (Disney fans?  Yep its from Tangled) After seeing the castle, Steve decided he wants to build us a castle.  I told him I would be okay with that but we probably couldn't afford it unless it was made out of Legos.  He thought that was so funny!  I was picturing a model castle made of Legos and he was picturing a full scale castle made of Legos.  lol  Isn't it funny how we could have two very different pictures in our heads.  We laughed about this a lot and thought about starting a donation campaign where we ask people to send in their old Legos until we collect enough to make our full size castle.  lol

The view of the countryside below the castle.

The view of the castle as we walked down the hill.

A different view of the castle as we walked down the hill.  ha ha ha

The two of us with our castle in the background.  Say goodbye!

When we were done admiring the castle, we headed back to the train and caught it just in the nick of time. On the way back there was a tour guide of some sort telling the history of the castle and it's creator King Ludwig II. The king's story was quite interesting.  Before visiting the castle, I had read about it online. Apparently, he came into power at a very young age.  The king was inexperienced and very shy.  They say the pressure of being king at only 19 years old, eventually made him crack.  It seems as if he retreated inside himself, some would even say he went insane, and started spending all his money on building unnecessary castles to bring him peace and joy.  This castle being one of them. At age 41 the king died.  There is much controversy over Ludwig's death and it is still a mystery to this day.  The official record states he committed suicide by drowning himself in Lake Starnberg.  Others believe he was assassinated.  His body turned up only three days after he was declared legally insane. It was fascinating to listen to King Ludwig's story.  The guide was really good and kept us all on the edge of our seats as he told the two sides to this tale. We didn't purchase the tour that took us inside, but we had a wonderful guide on the way back.      
When we returned to Munich we freshened up a bit and then headed out into town.  We had invited some people we met over the last few days to join us for dinner at a traditional Bavarian food restaurant and for a beer afterwards at a brewery.  Unfortunately, we never met up with anyone, but we had a great time anyway.  Steve and I always have fun :)  We had a delicious dinner and walked around town for a bit.  It was beautiful at night.  Along the way we found an ice cream stand and picked up a little treat.  They had dark chocolate ice cream that was so dark it was almost black.  It was heavenly and a perfect way to end our evening.

This was our dinner menu.  It was funny because you could buy the menu if you wanted to take it home. lol  Thankfully they had them in English too.

Dinner Time!  Steve loved his potato pancakes with apple sauce :-)

For you Feldmeyers and for the family friends that know our tradition about Knoedels, this is an authentic Knoedel with pork roast.  Yummmmm :-)  

The Brewery we went to after dinner

 I loved these Restroom signs

Inside the brewery.  It was very lively and full of energy.

They had a live band playing traditional tunes  :)

Fun painting of a barmaid on the wall

Our last day in Munich we spent looking around and seeing some of the sites.  I really wanted to go back to the English Garden and look around.  We went for the Servant's Ball but we didn't take the time to walk around and enjoy it's beauty. Since it was almost lunch by the time we got there, we decided we would have lunch there too.  When we were just entering the park area we passed by a horse crossing sign. Normally this would not have stood out to us except this horse was carrying Waldo.  Where's Waldo, you ask?  Steve found Waldo!!!!  He is riding a horse in the English Gardens in Munich, Germany. lol  It was so awesome! We went to get the camera out so we could take a picture to help us remember and so we could share it with you but it was then we realized our camera was broken (and we didn't have my iphone on us to take photos with either).  :-(   It was a huge bummer for many reasons.  First, we have no pictures to remember and share our memories of this day.  We were going on to Salzburg later that night and had planned on joining the Sound of Music tour the next morning and we would not have a proper camera to document all those exciting memories. And Steve's parents just bought him that camera for his birthday in April, with this trip in mind. Needless to say, we were kinda bummed.. . okay, okay, very bummed.  There was nothing we could really do about it so we went ahead with our day (although now it had a little grey rain cloud hovering over us the rest of the day).  After walking around the park for a while we went to the Olympic park where the Olympics were held around 40 years ago.  This is one of the only parks that is still active after the Olympics were over.  The pool is still used to train in so we went in to take a look.  It smelled like chlorine.  Go figure. We both thought if we were hard core swimmers it would be pretty cool to be able to swim there.  It would be so inspiring.  It was getting pretty hot and we still needed to get ready to catch our train so we decided to head back to Fran's place.  Along the way we walked past the BMW factory and museum.  We didn't go in but the building was pretty cool.  It was fun to see it and say oooo and ahhhhh. We stopped by a store on the way to get some stacks for our trip and some flowers for Fran.  Steve also picked up huge jar of Nuttella since we liked the German kind the best (Yes, there is a difference.).  We hoped it would last us until we were done traveling through Europe.  Then we got our stuff andwere on our way to Salzburg!  
Thank you Fran for deciding to take in some couch surfers after a few years of not having any.  We know it was not an accident but a blessing.  You were such a joy to be with and made our experience in Munich very special.  We hope to see you again!  Maybe next time we will see you of Oktoberfest. :-)