Excerpts from Germany & Austria, 2002

Posted by BLD in MT March 04, 2025

Excerpts from Germany & Austria, 2002

I went to Europe in 2002 with my high school French Club. Below are excerpts from the journal I kept while in Germany and Austria (with a pitstop in Liechtenstein). Plus, pages from the photo scrapbook I made when I came home.

6/3/2002

"Most of today was spent on the bus. ...we stopped in Liechtenstein...and I got my first stamp in my passport. I slept the whole way between Luzern and Liechtenstein, but afterwards we all sat in the back of the bus singing and telling dirty jokes...The singing was inspired by Mark (who has a beautiful voice). He sang us traditional Scottish songs. It was awesome. Then we went through a small section of Austria (and got our 2nd stamp in our passports) and were finally in Germany. We got a horse/buggy ride up a mountain to Neuschwanstein Castle and toured that. It was built by Leopold II. He even had a manmade cave built right in the middle of it. Mark forgot our tickets however so before we could go in he had to run 1 mile down and back up. ...We had pork and potato dumplings for supper. Neither of which were real good. Actually, the dumpling had the consistency and appearance of a Nerf ball. I ordered a beer only to discover when it arrived it was 1/2 liter. That's one damn big glass of beer! We went to our new hotel which has a sweet window seat although it sounds like it's next to the freeway. We saw the episode of The Simpsons where Marge become a cop, all in German. It was a riot... The boys all got yelled at because [the chaperones] think it was their fault [that one girl] got wasted which seems really unfair to me, but oh well. I bought some German cigarettes called Ernte 23 and played cards with Alli until we went to bed."

Notes: Ahhhhhhhhhhh, the infamous Nerf Ball-like dumpling for dinner. Alli also recalls this incident vividly. It is a "Europe Story" that I have told many times. The fact I snapped a photo of it (when I had a limited amount of film for my camera) illustrates how remarkable (remarkably unpalatable) I thought this dumpling was! It felt like chewing through foamrubber. This interests me now because I can't imagine disliking potatoes in any form. I was a very unadventurous eater back then though. Also, a half-liter beer isn't really that big. I was probably comparing it to a 12-ounce can, however, so relatively speaking, I guess it was big. Again, it is all about what you know, your frame or reference. Reading about the German-language Simpsons in my journal inspired me to look up which episodes I could watch in German on the DVDs in my collection. There is a photo of a German ambulance (der Krankenwagen) in my scrapbook because my friend Josh was an EMT so I was trying to "collect" foreign ambulances for him. We hired a horse and wagon to drive us up the mountain to Neuschwanstein because we were tired of walking and the idea of steep walking was just too much. I didn't do a lot of walking as a 19-year-old. Europe was full of walking! I remember being a little worn out and footsore. Neuschwanstein was pretty mindblowing. The level of opulence was dazzling. I remember being absolutely astonished by the fancy four-poster beds with gold and velvet and elaborate, polished wood carvings all over. The fixation on stamps in our passports is interesting to me...I mean, we visited a lot of fabulous places...that happened regardless of whether or not there was "proof" in an official document.

6/4/2002

"After breakfast, we got picked up by Nancy our city guide to Munich. ...we went to the Marienplatz, this square, and watched the clock strike noon and it was like a giant cuckoo clock. All these little people danced and a horse rode around and music played. We went to a market and Alli and I got some food and sat by a building to eat. A woman came up and interviewed us for TV. She asked what superpower we would have if we could and if had a superhero. We took the bus to Dacahu and watched a film on the holocaust and saw the crematoria and gas chambers. There was also a really interesting museum with actual items the prisoners had. It was very sad. Afterwards, while everyone else was shopping, Mark, Bev, and I went on the German U and got my train ticket to Marj's. I have to change trains twice by myself and I don't speak German! Although, when Bev and I were trying to get above ground after getting my ticket I was the one who knew where to go. All because I knew the German word for exit "Ausgang." Bev said it was one more word than she knew. ...Bev and I saw this awesome guitar duo playing on the street. They were really good. For supper went to a traditional German show with a live polka band and dancers and bell chimers and a yodeler. Everybody got really into and and started dancing. The band played some American music, like Country Roads and some Elvis. It was fun!"

Notes: The traditional German show was at the Hofbräuhaus. It strikes me as funny that I didn't mention that specifically. Once again I was enthralled by the dancing and the music. This is where I was taught my only "beer trick" by some other patrons at a nearby table. The trick involves turning a big honking one-liter beer stein around the head in a specific pattern culminating in taking a big gulp of beer--ideally without spilling a drop. I can still do it to this day. Matt can, too. The waitresses at the Hofbräuhaus wear the classic dirndl dress and can carry an astonishing amount of beer at one time. I was so impressed. They must have arms of steel. Despite my erroneous description, the characters in the Marienplatz Rathus-Glockenspiel are not "little" whatsoever. The buildings all around the Marienplatz were beautiful. I don't know how I learned that "ausgang" meant exit. Perhaps there were labeled exits at one of the hotels. I remember being very proud of myself when I knew juuuuuuuuuust enough vocab to be useful in finding our way out of the subway. Visiting an actual site from the Holocaust was terribly sobering. Being in the actual place such an awful thing happened...egads, ya know? I visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC as an 8th grader. I'd seen piles of shoes and glasses, stacks of luggage. Dachau was similar but even more shocking. I have zero recollection of being interviewed for German TV. It is documented in my journal so I guess it must have! Matt found that astonishing. The fact I don't remember it happening.

6/5/2005

"Today we are on the tail end of our trip. It was a nice finale, however. We took the bus to Salzberg where a city guide walked us around. We saw cathedrals, monasteries, castles, and the birthplace of Mozart. We got to go in and look around. ...We saw a man playing the Beatles on his violin. ...We shopped a bit and then got back on the bus to go to the salt mines which was the source of Salzberg's name. Salz=salt in German. Our tour guide didn't speak any English so they had these pre-recorded explanations that played and Mark mouthed the words and acted them out. It was like a kung-fu movie. Funny as hell. We got to dress up in miner's clothes and wear belts with big leather flaps on the butts to protect us as we went down these big wooden slides deeper and deeper into the mines. They were so fun! ...we got some salt made from the mine and crossed an amazing beautiful underground lake with a 36% salt content. It was a really cool last group activity. ...I am starting to get nervous about the train now. I just with it was in Switzerland where almost all people speak at least a little English or France where I know more than six words! I'll be fine! I just got to keep telling myself. I wish I could talk to my mom...it will be better once I get to Marj's. Our last meal as a group was really good. Chicken and rice (my favorites) with wine sauce. Very good, but extremely rich. I just discovered that the cigarettes I bought, called Revels, are nonfiltered so therefore I am on the fast track to lung cancer. C'est la vie. Mark had another karaoke party on the bus. He's so damn cool. He also taught us that in Scotland instead of saying something is "cool" they say it is "brilliant," or "magic," so we're going to start that in Sidney. I think it will catch on. :)"

Notes: The details are not fully accurate in this entry. We went back and forth across the Germany/Austria border, and it must have been lost on me. We were in Austria, but the salt mine we visited was actually in Germany. Those wooden slides down into the mine were SO.FREAKING.FUN. Woooooooooosh! Best slide ever! I wish I could do it right now! We almost got kicked out of the Mozart house because people in our group were taking flash photos. I don't think it was intentional rule-breaking on our part. I think it was a language barrier. Everyone eventually got on the same page and all was well. I really, really liked our tour guide, Mark. He made everything so fun and interesting. I thought his stories about life in Scotland were fascinating. I am certain I had a little crush on him. He sang us silly songs to make the long bus rides better. I copied the lyrics to one of his songs (about not shoving your granny off a bus) in my journal. He went the extra mile and had a friendly, welcoming personality. I still think saying "brilliant" for "cool" is....well....brilliant. It did not catch on in Sidney, however. I inadvertently bought filterless cigarettes because I liked the color of the box. It was orange like the Ernte 23s had been. I didn't know any American cigarettes with neon orange packaging like that. It never occurred to me to learn the German word for filtered/unfiltered. That would have been useful! I was simply buying brands based on the name or package. I purchased this particular pack out of a vending machine which I found very novel and exciting. I think it is terribly sweet that I just wanted to talk to my mom when I was growing nervous about traveling on to Belgium by myself as the rest of my group headed home. Moms can solve any problem or make you feel better about anything, right? I didn't get to talk to her, but it all worked out in the end. I found a German "dad" instead. When I finally got on the train for the solo leg of my trip from Germany to Belgium I met a German school teacher (about the age of my parents) in the smoking car. He was very encouraging and kind to me--helped me review my train itinerary and even helped me find the right platform at my next stop. He was very calming. I had one train change with a short turn around and he assured me it would all work out fine. (Which it did. Though I missed that train as expected and had to jump on the next one to Namur.) He also generously offered to trade me his pack of filtered cigarettes for my pack of unfiltered ones. He said the brand I had chosen was what he smoked as a young man and so it would be nostalgic for him. I think he was just taking pity on me. I was so nervous being on my own in a strange country for the first time. It was a lot different than being ordered here and there by tour guides and chaperones. I don't remember his name, but I will never forget him.