Germany Log 3

Day five Trip to Nurnberg
6/26/2009
Friday

Day five of our trip was my birthday! We decided to go to Nurnburg. When my father was 17 he took a trip and stayed with a family in Nurnberg as a exchange student for 3 months and was very excited to return. He felt that this place held a lot of great memories and is where he really learned to love to travel, which is now such a major part of his life. The Hauptmarkt is a market in front of the amazing church, Frauenkirche, and the Gothic Schoner Brunnen (beautiful fountain). The fountain was originally supposed to be put on the church as it’s steeple but the architect was never paid and so he left it in a square and turned it into a fountain.
After we went to Albrecht Durer’s house. I was extremely excited for this because I have wanted to go ever since my freshman year german class when I did a huge project on Albrecht Durer. I love his work and it was great to see his house. He lived in this house from 1509-1528. On the three-hundredth anniversary of his death the town bought his house and it has been slightly reconstructed. It was still great to see a printing press from that town and a woman who demonstrated how he would have engraved things.
While in Nurnburg we also went to Kirche St Sebald, one of the oldest churches in Nurnburg built 1230-1273. We also drove past Dkumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelande (say that 3 times fast) a unfinished building from the Nazi era. Nurnberg was beautiful fun and for the first time since i’ve been here warm!

Day six car ride to France through Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
6/27/2009
Saturday

On our way to France we drove through many places. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to stop long at any of the places such as Neuschwanstein. Neuschwanstein is the magnificent fairy tale castle built in 1i869-86 by the crazy Bavarian Kin Ludwig II. It is located halfway up a amazing mountain looking out over the Schwansee (Swan Lake). I’m glad we were able to see it but I had really wished to go in.
We also drove past Dachau the concentration camp. It brought up a long conversation about how the Germans reacted to Hitler and WWII and such. Dachau was hardly on the outskirts of town and people would have walked by it everyday. It’s hard to think how it would feel to live so close to something so horrible and not know how or what to do and believe.
We also drove through Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. It’s so beautiful and here. The mountains remind me of Utah and the forests remind me of New Hampshire. I love it here and the drive, although very long, was miraculous. It felt as though two weeks was plenty enough time here but it feels as though I’ve hardly seen anything. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to see it now even if it feels like no time at all.

Germany Log 2

Day three trip to Strabing
6/24/2009
Wednesday

This day my mother’s hip was hurting her a lot and so we decided to go the the Staubing Zoo. It was lots of fun. As we went through my mother was very excited to see the tigers. We were about 3 feet away from them and when they went inside to eat one put his paws up on the glass and pawed it at us. I got to pet some of the goats and do the falamaco with the flamingos. It was a good relaxing and fun day.

Day Four trip to Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen.
6/25/2009
Thursday

This day my mother and sister were feeling sick and so my father and I decided to head out by ourselves and go up to Wurzburg (one of the three places on my list to go). Unfortunately, we never quite made if because we spent too much time im Dinkelsbuhl but it was still a great trip. Dinkelsbuhl is a old Fraconian town and one of the best preserved medieval urban complexes in Germany. There are walls that surround the whole city. They have many towers but the 4 most famous are Wornitzer, Nordlinger, Seringer and Rothenburger Tor. Dinkelsbuhl also has an amazing house called the Deutsch Haus which is across from St. George’s Church dating back to 1500. This is an amzing and picturesque town. Before we left, my father and I stopped into a small cafe for lunch and a street dog ran in and came running up to us. Eventually the owner came over and took him out, but not before we could give the wet beast some love.
On our way home we decided to stop at Nordlingen. It was a free town during the Middle Ages of the Holy Roman Empire and is in the Reis Basin, which is an immense crater formed millions of years ago by a meteor strike. My father and I walked around the intire fortification walls that surround the entire city. It was 15 towers, dating from the 14th to the 15th centuries. It was a blast but I especially loved spending the day alone with my father.

Germany Log

I am going to be updating my blog about everyday with the places I've gone and things I've done in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria. It's more of a travel log than blog posts but I really want to share it with you guys. Some are kinda long and most are dull and I do not expect anyone to really read them all. I'm more posting them more for myself. I'm going to start with the first couple of days and move from there to now. I hope you enjoy!

Germany-Bavaria

Day one trip to Passue
6/22/2009
Monday

Passue is surrounded by tons of old Gothic walls. It includes and amazing tower called Schaiblingsturn, build in 1250. The town of Passue, like most european towns, are busy and modern, but everywhere you go you can see remainders of old churches, houses, bridges and more. My family spent the majority of our time at the amazing Dom St Stephan, or St. Steven’s Cathedral. It was built by and amazing Italian architect Carlo Lurago to replace the original Gothic structure that was destroyed in the 17th century but a fire. I find it very sad that many of these great buildings were destroyed, at least partially, by either fire or bombs. We also visited Altes Rathouse, the old town hall dating from 145h-15th century with it’s large Neo-Gothic tower. It was a great town to start my trip with!

Day two trip to Bamberg
6/23/2009
Tuesday

Bamberg is amazing! Our day started out at the Bamberg Cathedral. It was very large and very early French-Gothic. It was built in 1211-1237 but the cloisers were built between 1399-1457. It holds the only papal grave in Germany, where Pope Clement II (who had be the local bishop) rests. This cathedral holds a very famous statue the “Bamberg Rider”. It is a very simple statue of a man on a horse but is famous for being the first statue in German cathedrals to be 3 demential, an accurate size, and it was nature and realistic looking. The Bamberg Cathedral also housed the amazing Tomb of Heinrich II and Kunigunde. It has stories from their life carved on the outside of their sarcophagus. One tells of a time Kunigunde was giving wages to workers and one took more than he earned and it burt red hot in his hand and he was forced to give it all back. The Marian Altar by Veit Stoss and the Marienpforte (stonework that adorns the main enterance with images of the Last Judgement) are also amazing things in the Bamberg Cathedral.
In Bamberg there is the amazing Neue Residenz und Staatsgalerie built in 1695-1704 created by Johann Leonhard and holds amazing artwork by Melchior Steidl. It also has one of the most amazing rose gardens I have ever been to.
Bamberg also has many great ice cream resurants that have odd flavors like cinnamon and chili truffle. A great day and beautiful place.

Bamberg

I was born in Bamberg Germany on June 26th 1989. It has been 20 years since then and revisiting it was an incredible experience. As we entered the town I felt like I should experience some sort nostalgia or anything. I guess I wasn’t so surprised when I got there to feel nothing but excitement (as I do with every new European town I visit). In fact, it was probably my father, who has been to Bamberg before, who was the most excited and nostalgic. We had a hard time finding our way around (mainly because our GPS sucks) but we were able to make it to see everything we wanted to see. The Bamberg Cathedral beautiful and full of amazing sculptures and wood carvings. The most amazing thing to me was that there was history popping out everywhere. For instance on our way to find myself a necklace (a token of remembrance) we passed Hegel’s house surrounded by 3 churches. I’m so glad to have gone and checked off one thing off my list of things do to in my life time.

Woman vs World

(Thank you Warren for the title)

As most of you know right now I should be on a flight to Germany right now, but due to weather problems I was not able to make my connecting flight because my plane from Salt Lake to Chicago was 6 hours late getting into the air. I have been so stressed and freaked out (mainly because I don’t have a way to get in touch with family in England that I’m supposed to meet at the airport) but I think it will be okay. Thanks to a very nice travel agent I am staying in an amazing hotel instead of sleeping next to the hundreds of people sleeping on cots in the airport free. Also, thanks to Warren I am still going. Warren has been so much of a help and has been talking me through this stressful time. After my flight was delayed he stayed with me in Salt Lake for hours and made sure that my flight and everything was correct. He is my messenger to my family with all of my flight info and everything and really is my hero forever. If it wasn’t for him I think I would have got the next ticket to Salt Lake and come home. Thank you Warren and wish me luck tomorrow! I now have to go from Chicago to LaGuardia NY, to JFK NY, to London Heathrow and then finally make it to Germany on Sunday morning.

Oh My Gosh!

Oh my gosh! I'm leaving so soon! I am so excited but so worried at the same time. For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about it's my trip to Germany, France and Italy that I'm going to on Friday. I seem to have so much to do and really hardly anytime to do it. I'm leaving for 2 weeks and it seems so short but so long at the same time. There are going to be so many things I will miss but I'm also glad to take a break. Almost every day for the past month I have spent outside helping with sprinklers, cutting down huge trees and working on a flagstone path. I don't know if i'll be able to sit still for my 21 hour trip to Germany! In any case, goodbye and be expecting postcards!

Some of My Favorite Movies!!!

Favorite Horror Movie: Drag Me to Hell
Favorite Drama: Vanilla Sky
Favorite Romantic drama: The Painted Veil
Favorite Sluth Movie: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Favorite Comedy: Orange County
Favorite 80’s Flick: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Favorite Shakespeare Movie: Much Ado About Nothing & Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh
Favorite Play to Movie: The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
Favorite Action: Cowboy Bebop The Movie & Angles & Demons
Favorite Oldie: Funny Face
Favorite Cult Movie: Fight Club
Favorite “WTF” Movie: The Fountain