Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Dear Grace,

At the moment I am sitting on the plane that is taking me home, and so far I’ve managed to keep myself entertained for five hours. Now I just have five more to go! So, I thought I might as well update my blog, as the plane we are on has an outlet for me to keep my computer plugged into, so I’ve been busy editing my photos and putting together one last video for this trip.

So, the last few days of our trip: first off, we drove up to the French Wine Road, which is a road that runs along the border between France and Germany. Here we stopped to walk around and take pictures and just enjoy the scenery.

I don’t know why, but I’ve never had a strong desire to visit France or Paris, and as we were walking around I found myself resenting how pretty these little villages were. When Mom asked me why I wasn’t freaking out about how pretty it was like I normally would, all I could tell her was that the villages were prettier than anything I’d seen in England, but I didn’t want to admit it. She then suggested that it was probably because I’d feel like a traitor if I admitted to that, and I believe she is exactly right.

I am basically British, and since the French and Brits hate each other, that would explain my general disinterest in France, as well as my sense of British pride and strong desire to defend my beloved island against anything that dares to be prettier or better in any way.

But I digress.

Anyway, these villages are set in the middle of miles and miles of vineyards that stretch and roll way as far as the eye can see. I admit that these villages were indeed the most picturesque I’ve ever seen, but Britain is still better.

Next, we drove over to Paris (well, just outside of it) and rode the train into the city, where we went to our first stop: The Louvre.

 

Holy freaking crap. What a mob. We seriously couldn’t get close enough to the Mona Lisa to get a decent picture! Still, it’s cool that I can now say that I’ve seen the real Mona Lisa.

Next, we shoved our way through the crowds of Asians (if you don’t believe me when I say that like 90% of the mobs consisted of Asians, I will prove it. I have video evidence) and went to see Venus de Milo, who is supposed to have been the pinnacle of beauty for centuries.

I was surprised when I saw her face and her figure and realized that she wasn’t what would be considered a classic beauty today. She had a rather masculine build and plain features. I guess it just goes to show you that beauty is entirely cultural.

Next, after a lunch at a little French Café, we took a bus and headed on over to see Notre Dame. It was so cool to get to see that cathedral, and my only regret was that I didn’t get to climb around on the towers or make any gargoyle friends while we were there ;)

Next stop: The Eiffel Tower!

Dad was SOOOO excited because last time he and Mom were in Paris they hadn’t gone up inside, but this time we actually got in and got to ride all the way to the top. My favorite part of the whole experience was that it got dark by the time we reached the top, so all of the city lights were on. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized the charm of Paris.

Then the lights of the tower itself came on, and when we got back down to the ground and stood underneath the tower again, I learned something; it sparkles!

Day two of Paris consisted of us hauling ourselves over to the other side of Paris to pick up my big suitcase, which Rose so kindly took care of for me while we were trekking around the continent, and then we headed on over to see the grand palace of Versailles.

Holy mother of monstrosities. Poor Crazy King Ludy’s Herenchiemsee was dwarfed in comparison with this place. I’m telling you, it was ridiculously huge, and even more ridiculously crowded with – you guessed it – Asian tour groups.

  

When we were told that there was a two hour wait just to check through security, we opted to go exploring the gardens first instead.

The gardens were HUGE, as I’m sure you’ve been able to deduce from the photos, but we seriously walked and walked for at least 30 or 40 minutes to get out to Marie Antoinette’s little getaway house clear out on the far northeast end of the estate.

  

We didn’t spend much time in the palace itself, because it was so crowded that you literally couldn’t move your arms most of the time, and you had to go down the hallways by awkwardly shuffling your feet and throwing hate-daggers with your eyes at people who would purposely bump and shove you, even though you clearly had nowhere to go. So yeah, when it got to the point that both Dad and I were ready to start throwing punches, we got out of there and headed into the city to see a certain famous film site:

I felt rather duty-bound to visit this site #1 because I once danced the lead part in Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend back in junior high, and #2, because my darling bestie, Lyssa, recently discovered it, and I felt I should go pay homage on both of our behalves.

Random thing I’d like to throw in here: the metro station signs are mega creepy in Paris!

Seriously though! The signs look like something straight out of a horror movie or something that point down into a dark hole in the ground, as if to say: “Monster pit, enter at your own risk,” and the farther down you go into the tunnels, the creepier and sketchier and dirtier it gets!

Well, on to my very last thing to tell about my amazing adventures in Europe, and I’m extremely glad I got to end this trip on such a high note (no pun intended): I went and saw the original Paris opera house!

Childish and silly, though it was, I couldn’t keep myself from singing a little Phantom of the Opera while I was walking around, and then of course snapping a few photos of myself using my hat as a mask (I was insanely disappointed to learn that none of the souvenir stands in the vicinity sold any kind of Phantom paraphernalia).

What an incredible experience. I’ve always been terrible at writing endings to things like this or saying goodbyes, but I guess the point in having endings is to give way to new beginnings. Although this semester is over and this fairytale has finally come to a close, my life will go on, and the memories I’ve made on this journey are treasures that I’ll carry in my heart forever. This experience has also taught me this: my life doesn’t end today because this adventure is over. No. My adventure is just beginning. Every morning that I wake up there’s a new adventure waiting to be had, no matter where I am. All I have to do to find it is to set foot out the front door.

Rockin' On Top Of The World

Dear Grace,

Oh so so much to write and oh so so so little willpower to write much about it, as my brain has decided to shut down for the rest of this trip it seems.

So here you go.

We checked into the absolute cutest little hotel in Garmish, Germany which I can sum up for you in three photos:

The place had a flipping piano in it. I can’t tell you how nice it was to just sit and play and sing for a little bit while we stayed there.

The morning after we checked in, we got up early and set out for a long day of castle touring. First, we started with Hohenschwangau Castle, where Crazy King Ludwig was born (Ludwig is famous for the amazing castles he built in his lifetime).

It was such a beautiful castle, and very different from other palaces I’ve toured in the past, which was refreshing. Next, we saw the one and only Neushwanstein.

I have to say, Neushwanstein was without a doubt my favorite castle! All my life I’ve gazed longingly at pictures of this fairytale castle perched on a hilltop in the mountains, white towers glowing brightly against the forest, but I could never have imagined that one day I would get to see it in person – let alone walk the halls of this beautiful treasure. I felt like I had stepped straight into Beauty and the Beast the moment I set foot on the castle grounds, and as we toured the inside the whole time I kept thinking, “I can’t believe I’m really here…”

The view from the balconies was just as stunning as the castle itself. I think it’s such a shame that this castle was never completed and that no one really ever lived here. I felt like the stories of those who could have made this their home were the only things missing.

The last stop of the day was Linderhof. The smallest of all the palaces I’ve seen, but perhaps the most beautifully landscaped.

After seeing all of his castles and the grounds of this last castle, I suddenly realized what all of Looney Ludy’s palaces seemed to cry for: escape. Although every surface of the palace was lavishly decorated and painted and gilded, I suddenly realized that each place Ludwig built was like a page from a storybook. Neuswanstein was dedicated to bringing the works of Richard Wagner’s operas to life. Herenchiemsee was like stepping straight into 17^th century France.

At Linderhof the inside of his tea house was like stepping into an Arabian lounge straight out of Aladdin or something. Ludwig even had a special underground cave with a lighted lake and sea-shell boat constructed at Linderhof simply for the purpose of imagining himself into one of Wagner’s operas. The man literally had servants row him around in the shell-boat in his opera-hole.

You can’t get much crazier than that.

The next morning we got up and rode the funicular up to the top o the alps, where we were greeted by this sight:

 

Admittedly, it was a bit discouraging when we couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us for a while, and we worried for a bit that we wouldn’t get to see anything while we were up there. Fortunately the cloud cover changes as quickly as the sea at that altitude, and soon enough our patience was rewarded with this:

Snowboarding Mecca, I’m telling you. So that was awesome to get a view of the Alps and the valley from all the way up at the tallest point in Germany. After that we went to check out the town of Oberammergau, which has a lot of awesome wall paintings on the buildings. My two favorites were the story of Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel.

We visited another town called Mittenwald, which we liked better than Oberammergau because it was waaaay less touristy and a lot cooler because the town was originally established because of a violin factory or something. A town founded because of music? Say no more. It’s awesome.

The next day we got up and headed out on the long drive down into Switzerland to see the valley of waterfalls: Lauterbrunnen. We checked into our awesome hotel room in Interlaken (just down the road from Lauterbrunnen), which I’ll give you a video tour of:

For dinner, we stopped into a hotel restaurant and had a lovely little dinner of cheese fondue.

Served with bread that was divided up like a chocolate bar:

Which was delicious, but I don’t recommend making cheese fondue with alcohol (which the chef apparently did); it gives it a very bitter taste that nearly drowns out the cheese flavor.

The following morning we woke up to the most beautiful thing ever: sunshine.

I couldn’t get enough of the tinkling of the bells on the sheep and cows there – it was absolutely charming! Thanks to the mostly-clear skies, we took the funicular up to the tallest peak. Apparently one of the James Bond movies was filmed up at the restaurant/lookout point at the top, and the minute the tram car started to move, to my delight, the James Bond theme started playing. It made the experience ten times more epic for me :)

On our way to the top, we passed through a discouraging blanket of fog and clouds that hid everything from view, but at last we broke through the clouds and saw this:

Once again, snowboarding Mecca.

Another plus I hadn’t counted on was the James Bond interactive museum that was up there. So we had quite a good time getting pictures with Mr. Bond and playing with the video and photo machines there.

Last stop for the day: Trummelbach Waterfall. It is literally a waterfall inside of the mountain. We took a lift up most of the way into the mountain, and then we walked up into the tunnels the rest of the way. You seriously walk through tunnels inside the mountain to follow the path of the waterfall through solid rock.

When we got out of the waterfall, we decided to take the trail down instead of the lift, where I finally got the view of Lauterbrunnen’s breathtaking valley.

Switzerland is everything I ever hoped it would be. I always looked at the pictures and postcards of this view and thought there was no way it could really look like that in real life – but it really and truly does.

Well that’s all I’ve got energy for today, but here is my latest video. Cheers!

The Hills Are Alive

Dear Grace,

Breeze-through summary once again, as I have to get to bed for my adventures tomorrow! So I loved every minute of Florence, of course, and after waving goodbye, we headed on up to the incredible city of Venice!

Venice fulfilled every exquisite detail I had ever imagined in my mind of what that beautiful city of canals would be and more. Everything there seems to be forever suspended in a perfect state of preserved decay, as though the city had begun to wear away over time but was somehow stopped, and has remained frozen ever since.

Highlight of the day: I got to ride on a gondola! Also, it was Easter Sunday, and it was an absolute mob everywhere. We tried to get into the church for mass, but they wouldn't let anyone in unless they had a reservation, and by that point it was too late to make it into any of the other churches for the Easter mass, which was extremely disappointing. Still, we made up for our need for spiritual uplifting by listening to a few conference talks in the car the next morning.

(Crossing under the Bridge of Sighs - the bridge prisoners walked over as they were being taken into the prison to await their fate, and it was the last time the saw daylight until then)

 After our last day in Venice, we drove up to Salzburg, Austria and went on a Sound of Music tour! Oh my goodness, can I just say that me, as well as my fellow nerds all around me were singing our hearts out on the bus to the soundtrack they were playing? 

I got to see a bunch of the sights where the film was filmed, and I was especially excited when I got to visit the gazebo where the 16 Going on 17 scene happens (if anyone recalls, I played Leisl in my junior high's production of the musical).

We also visited the church where the wedding scene was filmed, where I got myself a bottle of holy water as a souvenir, haha.

Then last night we hiked up to the castle on the mountain and went to an amazing music concert up up up in the highest room. THAT was awesome. Afterward I couldn't resist running around to the other side of the mountain to take a peek at Nonnberg Abbey, just to say I had been to the abbey where the actual Maria Von Trapp was training to become a nun.

Today we got up and drove out to the quaint little town of Hallstatt. I LOVED this little village! This was exactly the sort of place I imagined the Germanic countryside to look like - like something straight out of a fairytale.

It was here that we went to visit the Bone Chapel. Back in the day, there wasn't a whole lot of room to bury the dead in the cemetery, so the practice was to bury someone in the cemetery, and then seven years later their bones were dug up, their names written on their skulls, and their bones were placed in this chapel so that the grave could be freed up for someone else to be buried there. I think the chapel is no longer really used, as most people decide to be cremated nowadays in Hallstatt, apparently.

After that we drove over into Germany to see the GORGEOUS castle, Herrenchiemsee. I was particularly tickled about this castle, because this was an important setting for the first book I ever wrote.

I seriously couldn't get enough of the hall of mirrors in this place! I wish I could have had a little more time to see it. However, I did get to stand in that hall totally alone for an entire minute, and that's more than I ever dreamed I would get to see in my lifetime - let alone get a tour of the entire castle!

And now it is very late, and I must get to bed, so here is my video for the day, and I'll hopefully get to update you with the lodging we're staying in for the next few days tomorrow!