Last Week

This is the last week of our prorgam. My roomate and I were in Amsterdam last weekend, and now we’ve got lots of stuff to do for our classes this week. Also, my internet contract in the hotel has terminated, so I will have to post the remaining blog posts I want to put up later when I’m at home.

Here’s a pic from Amsterdam until then!

Bischofshof Brewery

On June 12 we went to a local brewery in Regensburg. Germany (or just Bavaria, not sure) has a beer purity law in which they are only allowed to have four ingredients in their beer, and some beers can only be sold in the region they are made and others can be sold world-wide. I’m not exactly sure why that is or how that works, but this brewery produces two brands, one which is only sold in Regensburg, and one which is sold world-wide. They’re going to start selling in Tempe soon, apparently, and even the previous pope has drank their beer!

The boss at this brewery is involved in Tempe Sister Cities, a program that promotes a relationship between Tempe and Regensburg, and he was very generous and gave us a personal tour. He showed us where the beer is made, stored, and how it gets bottled. There is even a bottle-cleaning area, since they recieve recycled bottles and refill them (Germany is big on recycling). The filling area was pretty neat, really loud, and there was literally beer everywhere. The rooms where beer was cooking/fermenting smelled really bad.

Afterward, we went to the brewery’s nearby beer garden and had a chance to try a bunch of beer samples. I actually liked a oouple of them, but I was more interested in the freshly baked pretzels myself.

I’m currently on a train to Berlin borrowing my friend’s hotspot from her phone to post this, so I apologize for the rushed nature of this post. I’ll edit this later and add photos- didn’t bring the camera adapter with me on the train.

Wien

Last Friday the whole group took a trip to Salzburg. It was kind of poorly planned because we got there around 1:30 in the afternoon and the teachers were only paying/accompanying us for the train ride, so we got there and nobody knew what to do.

I’ve been to salzburg before, however, so Steph and I, after getting something to eat at a snooty cafe, eventually found our way to the old part of the city where the Dom was during the four hours that we had until our train left for Vienna that evening. We thought about going up to the old castle/musuem above the town, but we didn’t have the time or the energy to make the hike. Instead, we stopped by the statue of Mozart, took pictures around the Domplatz, saw Mozart’s birthhouse (is that a word?), and saw the same guy sitting in front of the cathedral playing guitar and selling his CDs as when I was there last, four(five?) years ago.

We also saw this really creepy statue.

We made our way back to the train station around 7pm to catch our three hour train to Vienna. We went alone; this excursion was not covered by our program fee and none of the other students joined us. One was going to, but when he found out that one train ticket cost 90 euros, he backed out. My roomate and I had planned ahead and bought Eurail passes, which allows us to travel for six days within three countries of our choosing and we will be making two more trips with our four days of remaining train travel.

We got to Vienna rather late at night and went straight to our hotel, which we had booked ahead of time and was purposely close to the train station. The next morning we ate at the overpriced hotel buffet (with the excuse that we wouldn’t stop for lunch and therefore ate as much as we could to get our money’s worth (also, they had real breakfast food like bacon and eggs, which we haven’t had for two weeks)) and decided over breakfast while pondering the city map that one day wasn’t enough time to see everything we wanted. Using the hotel’s computer, we booked another place (since staying another night at the same hotel was more expensive), checked out, dropped our bags off at the new hotel down the block, and headed for the U-bahn or subway station.

24-hour tickets for the subway in hand (which nobody checked, so we totally could have ridden the subway for free all day) we started our whirlwind tour of the city center in Wien. We started at Stephansdom, which was impressive from the outside and kind of touristy on the inside, with routes paritioned off to herd visitors on a certain path. It lacked the reverent feeling I got from both the Regensburg and the Salzburg Doms, in which people still seemed largely quiet and respectful even if they were snapping pictures. We were assaulted by ticket/event salesman outside of the Dom several times, and one of them thought I was from the Netherlands when he asked me in German if I spoke German, and I replied with “ein bisschen”. Apparently my German accent is a Dutch one?

Back to the subway we went, heading for the Hofburg Palace. It was the winter palace of the Habsburg dynasty while they ruled Austria and contained three musuems, only one of which we were allowed to take pictures of. This one was the imperial silver collection which, while impressive, was rather boring in my opinion, and I ended up with a lot of pictures of plates that I probably won’t ever look at again. The other two musuems, The Sisi Musuem and the tour of the imperial state rooms were more interesting. Kaiserin Elisabeth, or Sisi the Bavarian princess, has become a rather popular icon in Austria, but as far as I can tell, it is only because she was randomly assassinated. There have apparently been several less-than-factual films about her and she is extremely-well known in Vienna. I personally think that she is just another way for Vienna to make money off of tourists; I didn’t find her very admirable, though the history of her time period and of the rest of her family was very interesting. I’ll put up some stuff I learned about her in a later next post.

After those three musuems, for which we had audio tours, we took a break at a cafe for a little while before going down to the historisches kunst musuem, or the historical art musuem. Armed with audio guides again, we went through several exhibits of European painters from the 15-18 centuries(ish), a coin collection, Greek and Roman sculpture, and Egyptian art.Many of the paintings had been collected by a Habsburg king, who had actively sought and supported art during his rule. I enjoyed the paintings the most, as well as the Egyptian tomb exhibit.

Next, we made our way to the Viennese Opera house, stopping by a statue of Schiller along the way (a famous author some of whose works I’ve read). We couldn’t do much more than take pictures outside of the building since a performance was about to start and you weren’t allowed in without a ticket. We saw this gem in the subway station just below the opera house.

We headed back to the part of the city where our hotel was after that, getting Wienerschnitzel for dinner. I was so thirsty after walking all day that I drank an entire beer despite being rather un-fond of the taste- it’s cheaper than the mineral water they sell everywhere and waiters will sometimes not bring you anything at all if you ask for leitungs Wasser, or ‘plumbing water’.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and stopped by the train station to reserve seats on the high speed train back to Regensburg that afternoon. I put my big bag in a locker at the train station for two Euros so I didn’t have to carry it around all day. Then we headed to Schönbrunn, the summer palace of the Habsburgs at what used to be the outskirts of the city. The tour inside of the palace had a lot to do with Sisi again and seemed different from the one I took when I was there last, which was odd. The palace grounds were gorgeous, however, and contain the Vienna Zoo as well as a large fountain of Neptune (Schönbrunn means pretty fountain).

I ditched my roomate then to go back to the city center of Vienna, going back to the opera house to find the opera musuem, which was basically one large room with some costumes and the history of the opera house and it’s management. I also took a picture at Hotel Sacher of the famous Sachertorte, but I didn’t try any because I don’t really like Sachertorte.  I took the subway to the Prater park with the big ferris wheel that is the symbol of Vienna, then got back on one stop further to see the Donau (Danube) where it flows through Vienna. Finally, I rode back to the train station to meet up with my roomate and get on the train back to Germany, which covered twice as much distance as the ride from Salzburg to Vienna and took the same amount of time as that trip due to it being a high speed train.

It was, of course, raining again in Regensburg when we arrived.

There are a lot of other things to see in Vienna that we didn’t have enough time to- more musuems, theaters, etc- but I think we did pretty good with the time we had. Everything there is rather expensive and there were a few people who had such strong dialects that I couldn’t understand a word of their German, but I had a good time even though I can’t decide if I would ever go back again.

We are going to a brewery tour in Regensburg today, so I might have another post later this afternoon about that.Til then!

Day Something- I’m alive!

I was in Salzburg and Vienna this weekend and did lots of stuff and am too tired to write about it right now. So here are some pictures- blog post to come later.

It’s raining in Regensburg again- suprise! (Regen means rain in German, even though Regensburg is actually named after the river Regen.)

Also, as a side note, I’ve realized there are a lot of typos in these posts. I can indeed spell, but my fingers don’t always work on the 6.5 inch keyboard that I have with me for my tablet.

A longer post explaining all these weird pictures will come soon!

Day 11, of Thurn and Taxis

For our culture class on June 5 Wednesday, we went to the castle here in Regensburg (which is less of a castle and more of a manor). It was originally a monastery, so the building has an odd mish-mash of architecture from different time periods when things were added-on, etc. We took a tour in German and the lady was very nice and repeated things whenever we didn’t catch something.

The Thurn and Taxis family apparently started the first “pony express” or postal system of the Holy Roman Empire. They were an Italian family whose name (pronounces a little like “tahk-suhs”) meant badger (incidentally, a dachshund (which stems from the same root word and has the same sound) is a badger-dog, or a dog who hunted badgers. The things you learn.). Thurn, meaning tower, is the name they took, inventing a relationship to an Italian noble family so that they could become part of the noble class when their wealth grew immensely due to their monopoly on the medieval postal service. They are still like celebreties in Germany today- Gloria is the current Fürstin (means princess or lady) of the Thurn and Taxis family and is well-known in Germany for her extravegent lifestyle. The Thurn and Taxis-es don’t live permanently in the Thurn and Taxis Schloss, however.

We techincally weren’t supposed to take pictures anywhere inside, but I snuck a few in. Every room is basically a display of luxury, in stark contrast to the monastery that shares the grounds. The castle has around 500 rooms, lots of marble walls and floors, and a ballroom (I think there might be more than one ballroom) that people can rent out for 20,000 Euros.

The Monastery

Day 6, Of Munich

Time for an out of order post! (Also a long post, reader beware)
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Day 8 and 9, Of Rain and More Rain

Not much happened here yesterday, because it was Sunday and lots of places were closed. My roomate and I went out to dinner and drinks, but other than that we mostly did homework to get ahead on work for when we travel on the upcoming weekends.

Things in the train station are open 24/7 so I walked over there to go to the grocery store therein. I actually wanted to get some milk, but they didn’t appear to have any so I left with a Pretzel and a wonderful invention called quarkini from the bakery instead. I don’t actually know what it is (I know quark is a weird, super soft cheese that’s almost yogurt-like in consistency because I was at the grocery store Saturday and bought some to have with crackers for lunch) but they were kind of like a cross between donut holes and indian sweets one of my friends has made me before. Definitely going to eat more of them.

Anyway, it rained pretty much all day. I went out a couple times, once for the train station and once just to take walk in the Altstadt before we went to dinner. I went down to the Donau to see the flooding and I wasn’t the only one; despite the rain, there were lots of people on the stone bridge. The whirlpools in the river seemed even stronger than before, and the two separate streams have combined. Since yesterday was pretty uneventful, the below before and after pictures of the Danube are pretty much the only things of interest I have to show. I tried to take a better picture of the Dom to post too, but it didn’t turn out. Maybe when it stops raining.

Before

After

Today, I have regular class so I don’t think there will be anything exciting to report. I’ve stopped buying tea when we go to the cafe for my lit class, because 2,90 Euros is too much to spend on a cup of hot water and a tea bag. Everything here is fairly expensive. I think tomorrow for the culture class we are supposed to ride a bus around Regensburg, so look for an update about that.

Bis später!

Day 3-4 and Of Eating in a German Restaurant

Tuesday, the 28th, classes started. There are only three of us in the German lit class that I am taking, so instead of meeting in a classroom at the local Gymnasium (high school) like the others, the three of us are meeting with our professor in a cafe close to the hotel for class. I am good with that. :)

The second class will sometimes be at the Gymnasium and otherwise will consist of activities in the city. Today, we had a tour at the local BMW Fabrik as our ‘class’ and saw the process of how BMWs are made. We unfortunately weren’t allowed to take pictures. The tour was in German and I’m not that into cars, but I understood most of it. It was very long though, and I’m pretty tired. I’m not used to walking this much. I’ll get better eventually. I just hope it stops raining soon! I also didn’t speak any English until around 3pm today; I had a bet with a kid in our group that neither of us would speak any English or we would have to buy the other a drink. We both got tired of it around mid-afternoon though and decided to relax a little. We’ll go for longer next time.
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Day 1-2, Of Sightseeing and Bad Weather

It’s cold here. 40 degrees F, rainy, and a little windy too. Yesterday, everything was closed because it was Sunday, so the streets were wet, dark, and empty. It was really odd to see so few places open and so few people out.
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