Haaallooo!
Currently on the 5 hour train to Zurich (then another train to Bern, then another train to Interlaken.. Day gone!) so I thought I'd give you all an update!
We had a busy week visiting my cousin Brenton in his German home town, Ulm. A small, but big enough, town in Southern Germany with a very tall Church. Brenton showed us around Ulm, introduced us to lots of traditional German food, some I've put photos up of, pork knuckle being my favourite and Tom loving the Barvarian breakfast..white sausages and pretzel ( the big kind, not the crappy packet type). We had a day trip to Munich, where we sat in a gigantic beer hall and had our first 'mass'.. 1 litre of beer. Munich was a busy city and definitely one we would return to one day. They have a gigantic park called the English Gardens, which I could have sat in all day if it was warm enough.. But instead we watched people surfing the artificial wave and strolled back out.
We were also lucky enough to be in Germany during Stuttgarts Frühlingsfest which is there spring beer festival. Brenton organised the traditional clothes for us which you've all seen and we headed into Stuttgart for the day. It's kind of like the Melbourne show..but smaller.. And there are gigantic beer tents set up where you can drinks mass' all day and eat amazing roast chicken straight off the rotisserie. We made up up for not being in Germany for Oktoberfest, 3litres of beer for me and 4litres for the boys.. Making new friends with whoever sat on your table, dancing and singing while standing on the tables.. After 5 hours in the tent, We were done and took our drunk German butts home. Monday, as you can imagine, was a complete right off where we enjoyed the comfort of our bed. And water. And nurofen. But it was all worth it.
After 6 days of beer and food.. I don't think we ate one vegetable while being in Ulm.. We were ready for the next stop..Austria. We had trouble deciding whether or not we would go, but in the end, we figured,why not! So we decided on Salzburg for a couple nights. 4 hours on the train and we were there, our Eurail passes have been amazing, it feels like we get to go everywhere for free because we paid for the pass so long ago!
Salzburg gave us some really shit weather in the end.. We figured it was Austrias way of saying, you should have just gone to Switzerland ya big idiots.. But anyway..it was still a beautiful city to visit. We climbed up the fortress to see the view..which the furthest we could see was the town due to all the clouds..and the alps that normally surround it were completely covered. Wondered the streets of Salzburg and tried to find coverage from the rain most of the day.
Today we're off to Switzerland, which by the time I post this we should be there. Takes 3 trains to get to Interlaken, the city for extreme sports through the alps (don't worry mum, bungee jumping isn't my thing)! Our first train was 20 minutes late though.. Which means we miss our next train that we planned to get..which means we then miss the next train after that.. So it's looking like a long day ahead of us. Lucky I have fresh Vegemite rolls too look forward too (thanks Maaa!!).
