Bavaria, Austria

I left Regensburg on Monday morning and decided to head down to Fussen to see the Neushwanstein Castle. This castle was the dream of Bavaria's King Ludwig II who ruled in the late 1800's. It's better know as the "Disney Castle" becasue it inspired Disneyland's Cinderalla Castle. Kind Ludwig was a interesting ruler and I really enjoyed learning about his life as much as anything while I was there. To say the castle was magnificent, breathtaking, or incrediable would all be understatements. The enviorment could only be best described as "surreal" while I was inside viewing the incrediable detail to the themed rooms of Ludwig's childlike immagination. He was an avid fan of the arts and has whole rooms painted with scenes from famous stroies like Tristan and Isolde and the mytholigical Swan Knight Lohengrin. He was actually known as the Swan King and many porcelain swans decorate the entire castle. Ludwig was also obsessed with the composer Richard Wagner and built a concert hall on one whole floor of the castle for performances. Needless to say, I became really interested in King Ludwig's life and stories during my visit.

After I caught the last train of the night back to Munich, I checked into a cool hostel called "the wombat" which had a distinct Aussie theme to it. I stayed in a dorm with a couple of kids from China and Japan, respectively, and had some really enjoyable conversations with the both of them about the Asian view of U.S. politics as well as the struggles China's economy is having through this tremendous growth period. They were genuinely fascinating and made me very envious of their extreemly fluent english.

Yesterday I woke up early, checked out of the Wombat, and caught an ealry train to Innsbruck, Austria. The train ride was great because about halfway through, the morning fog lifted and we entered the edge of the Alps. It's really hard to descirbe the size of these mountains. When you see them you actually have to take a second and realize that they really are that big. It's hard to compare them to anything else because they are much bigger than the largest mountains I have ever seen, which would be the Rockies. I want to put up some pictures but can't yet because I don't have my laptop with me. Innsbruck is a bustling town that caters to the high-end luxury ski crowd. There is a lot of history in the town which makes for a unique mix of new-money and old-tradition, all with the enormous Alps looming in the back ground. I walked around the town for several hours and took in as much as I could, but my exhaustion caught up with me and I crashed late in the afternoon.
I am heading to Zurich this afternoon to meet up with Änna tomorrow and spend a couple nights there. From there we are heading to Zermatt on Friday, sking on Saturday/Sunday and returning to Germany on Monday. I missed the train to Zurich this morning by five minutes, so I have a 4 hour wait till the next one... hence the large ammount of time to write this long post. I don't think I will be able to put up pictures until I get back to Regensburg next week, but I should be able to post at least once or twice more in between then. Until then, thanks for reading