Here's to Deutschland

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The castle charges for admission, but you get a guided tour along with it, which proves very helpful as the guides make the castle come alive for you. Gorgeous throne room, lots of swan decoration, and jaw-dropping views (my friend was absolutely drooling) from the castle windows. To get to Neuschwanstein from Munich, you have to take the train to Fussen first. And then from Fussen, it's a bus ride to the castle vicinity. To actually get to the castle, you have to hike to the top. It took me about twenty minutes, with a bunch of rest stops and several pep talks from this Texan girl I met climbing up. The pep talks were mutual, BTW!

I've been to the Frankfurt one four times (major hub), and all I can say is that it's humongous. One section was all brand new and modern - so much so you can still smell the paint. Another section was older but no less impressive. The Frankfurt has a McDonald's outlet - I know, I know, we don't exactly go to Europe to eat at McDonald's but when you're wanting a cheap bite, then McDonald's is nothing if not COMFORT food. Also has a good bookstore.

The Munich Hauptbahnhof is also pretty cool. Spent lots of time here. Also a bookstore, a few crappy food outlets. There is a Euraide office here - hallelujah! For the uninitiated, Euraide is an English-speaking train help center for poor, monolingual travellers like me. Seriously speaking, most Germans speak EXCELLENT English, but sometimes, it's just a good break to find someone who is a native speaker and who understands you easily and completely. It's very much in demand and lines are usually very long. They can help with all sorts, from train reservations to route planning. The Munich train station also has an internet cafe. Fast computers, rather expensive though.

As for places to eat, I don't particularly remember names. But I remember a place where we had brunch called Pendel's. Awesome food - gobs and gobs of them, so much so that the table couldn't hold 'em all. Highly recommended brunch place.

Something that drove me crazy though was how EVERYTHING would close on Sundays. Everything. Stores, groceries, bakeries, everything. If you desperately needed something, you had to go to gas stations to buy it at over-inflated prices. And if the gas station didn't have it, then tough, you go to Cologne to buy it. I suppose it is rather refreshing - a non-work-driven pace of life and all - but then it is just something I'm not used to.

Once you learn the basics, it's easy. Take, for example, how I order food. I progressed from mere pointing to pointing plus 'bitte' to saying a complete sentence - ein wasser bitte, ein bier bitte, ein salami bitte, or if I'm really desperate, I always resort back to 'Ein (frantic pointing) bitte.' It took me a while to learn the numbers, but once I did, HA, I'm all set. I could go, 'Drei wasser bitte,' and later, as I progressed to expert mode, it became, 'Guten tag, drei wasser und ein bratwurst bitte, danke schon.' Woohoo :)

After a while, you also learn the basics of the German language as it relates to train travel. The cute 'zug' means train, and sooner or later, you HAVE to figure out the 'ausgang' means exit and 'eingang' means entrance. My German friends encouragingly taught me a couple of other words and phrases - unfortunately, I cannot share them here as most of them are not for public consumption. So now I'm having this love affair with German. True, it is still harsh and guttural, and thanks to history and Hollywood movies, it also carries with it no faint undertones of Nazism and concentration camps and fanatical Hitler speeches and 'Sieg Heils' - yet, I can't help myself - I find myself utterly fascinated by the language now. So much so that I'll be taking German 101 this fall.