Life in Syracuse

It took much longer to post all of the Germany/Austria properly than I originally thought (going through some 800 photos and getting the stories right was a huge effort), and therefore the rest of my normal posts have taken a back seat. I hope to catch you up a little bit with some highlights.

In the second half of September, we spent some time hanging out in the orchard picking apples and getting cider with my sister and brother in law. I forgot how delicious the apples were in NY. There are a lot of varieties that are not available in GA because they wouldn't survive the trip which explains why I could never find them. Candid shots are always so nice. :)

I also briefly started grad school and then decided that would be the worst idea of the year with all that's been going on. I would rather plan my wedding and enjoy the holidays without worrying about having passing grades. So my trip down psycho lane was cut short and I returned to the land of "normal".

In October, we made it out to an SU Football game with people from work. The game wasn't too great, but they dedicated the field as the Legends Field. Jim Brown was there and if I knew more about football history, I am sure I would have been more excited. As it was, they took so long that the marching band half time show was pushed until after the game was over, which was sad because all but a handful of people were left and it was the best part of the game! They did music from Michael Jackson including Thriller, which they actually did the dance for. It was fantastic! We don't own any SU gear, so we just wore the colors. :) Notice the UVA hat.

We spent a few weekends with family hanging out and enjoying meals. It's still weird they are all so close, but I like it. They feed us good. :)

Last Friday I got free tickets to the SU basketball game. It was only an exhibition game but they creamed Cal State. It was my first basketball game I have attended since high school. We even phoned a friend to find out how long the game was going to be. I sort of get the excitement of March Madness now.

I have also been enjoying watching the leaves change, although I know as the fall from the trees, winter is on it's way. Fall is probably my favorite season and I hate to see it go by so quickly. And of course if it's fall, it means that Halloween is right around the corner. Which reminds me, I still have so much to do!

Goodbye Germany!

The next morning we packed up and loaded the car for our final leg. Our host at the pension wished us well and even stood outside to wave at us as we drove away. On our way back to Munich we decided to stop in our arch nemesis town we were never able to navigate through - Mittenwald. Surprisingly, we didn't have much trouble in the car that day, just on foot. The Post was ever ellusive to us. We went back to the car and put it in as a point of interest to see where the heck it was. I think I take for granted knowing where these things are at home because they are not usually in obvious spots.

Anywho, Mittenwald is know for their history with violins. I think they make them here, although I am not positive.


The buildings in their town were painted with all kinds of things; flowers, people, decorated windows. The remarkable thing was how well the were upkept.


After spending our morning in the little town getting the last of our souvenirs and other memorabilia from our trip, we got back on the road to Munich.

Upon arrival into Munich, it felt familiar to be there after our prior visit just days before, but there was still so much we didn't see. We made the choice to try St. Peter's church again and were happy to see that the church was not in service so we could walk around.


This church was by far one of the more decorated churches that we visited on this trip. I am pretty sure this is the "main" church of Munich. Even with two other Catholic churches within a 10 minute walk of this one, I believe this one is the most popular. It could be because of their 3rd century martyr they keep locked in a box on the left side of the church. I wasn't entirely prepared to see a full skeleton hanging out in a glass box when we were reading the Rick Steve's description, but there you have it. I never knew how close relics and religion were until this trip.


From here we went in search of food for dinner. We walked around for quite a while trying to find food that interested in eating. We finally settled on an Irish pub off the beaten path. They did had some delicious food and of course good beer for our last meal. The picture of Mike below is capturing Mike in Germany, at an Irish pub, eating Mexican food. We thought it was quite funny.


The next morning we were up early and to the airport in plenty of time for everyone's flights. We were so early for our flight that our ticket windows weren't even open yet. That was interesting in trying to form a quasi line while waiting for the real line to open. Not much different than being in the states. We got our passport stamped one more time as we went through their customs check point and went on to meet the Pennock's who were already on the other side. I was quite proud of the fact that even without cell phones we managed not to loose one another during the course of the trip. We used up the last of our Euros on breakfast, Kinder Eggs, and a book. My Kinder Egg prize was pretty kick ass. The little dude on top of the turtle turns blue in the sunlight. :)


We settled into our seats and buckled down for a 9 hour plane ride back to the states. We at least got to watch The Proposal which was a good use of an hour and a half. :) We filled out our little cards for customs and managed to mke it through the Philly airport without much trouble. After a 3 hour layover and dinner, we were on our final leg to Syracuse.

We really had an amazing trip and saw a LOT. I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything and was glad to share it with friends. I know that if Mike and Amanda hadn't been with us, we wouldn't have seen half of what we did and their knowledge and experience with the German culture was a huge help in making the trip a success. Especially when we got to the pension and our host didn't speak a lot of English. :) A lot of great memories were made. But even after such a wonderful trip, it never felt so good to be home.

The Final Days

From Leutasch Valley, Austria

With two days left in our journey, the clouds rolled in and we all admitted we were pretty worn out. Not for nothing, but climbing a mountain probably contributed quite a bit. :) We went down for breakfast that morning and pondered our choices. We settled on popping into the nearby town of Seefield for some shopping followed by lunch and then came back for reading, town meandering and other such things.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria

I really enjoyed having a day to kind of relax even though we were hoping to go to Salzburg for a day. I have come to the conclusion that Europe has way to many cool places way to close to one another. Italy was only 2 hours away and the same with Switzerland. I wanted to see it all! But we recognized being popped and it raining wasn't really the time to go on another lengthy adventure so we hung around the pension and read and played cards and such.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria

I was enjoying watching the clouds. Normally you don't get to see how they hang in the mountains. You are usually in the thick of it or can't see the whole mountain to get the full picture.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria

This was our tiny road to our pension. Again, supposedly a 2 lane road, but not really. I have no idea what they do when the snow falls. The domed building is a tiny church. It had room for about 12 people. The Pennock's told us we should have just gotten married there. :P

From Leutasch Valley, Austria

At the pension we found a pretty good map of the area and where we hiked to. We hiked the red line that goes through the R in the upper left corner from Lehner. In fact, I think we got to the dot to the left of the R before you reach the I and then turned around. I think we figured we did about 10km. The Pennocks made it to the ridge where the red trail goes to a Y and then a little bit further from there.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria

We ended the night with happy hour and dinner on the porch. It was a little chilly, but still nice. Tomorrow we head to Munich for a night before hoping on the airplane back to the US.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria

"Mad" Ludwig's Castles

After our monstrous hike in the Alps, we decided to take things a little easier and start the morning in Oberammergau. This town is known for their wood carvings and made for a nice morning poking around into the shops before heading off to see some more castles.

The castles on our hit list that day were the castles of "Mad King Ludwig". He became King of Bavaria at the young age of 18. Of course with the title of King he inherited access to the treasury (money) but since he was so young, no real responsibility. Sounds like the Germanic dream doesn't it? Of course all that power and wealth can go to ones head and make them a little... eccentric to say the least.

We started our castle viewing tour at Linderhof, otherwise referred to as Ludwig's "hunting cabin". He had plans for 7 castles and began work on 4 with this one to be the only to be completed. Remember, The Residenz - the opulent family palace, wasn't enough of a home and so he commissioned these others to expand his portfolio.

This castle was the smallest of the ones he had commissioned (and hence why it was finished) paid homage to King Luis the Fourteenth. All of the family portraits on the inside were of the French noble lineage and King Luis's family. The castle is surrounded by fabulous scenery and lavish gardens with fountains and surrounding buildings.

From Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles

My favorite part of the tour was our guide explaining Ludwig's trip to Versailles for inspiration in building his own castles (modeling after Luis XIV). Upon arrival, he found the Versailles had been turned into a museum and thought that was the most appalling thing to see King Luis XIV's home being toured by the public. His visit would have been different being of noble lineage. Upon his return he made a special note in his will and made it known that if he were to pass, his servants were ordered to fill the castles with dynamite and blow all of his castles to high heaven. As we can see, this did not happen. He died a mysterious death at the age of 41 and 3 months following his death, the castles were opened to the public to help repay the money he has spent building them because he had basically bankrupted the country.

The craziest thing on the grounds is the grotto he decided he wanted to have. Apparently he wanted a cave to host operas (for an audience of one - himself) and so he commissioned one to be built out of plaster and mesh and wood framing in the side of the mountain behind his castle. I guess when you have that much money, you can do whatever you want.

From Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles

After we had wandered the grounds for a bit, we said goodbye to Linderhof and got on the road for a little while before making a pit stop for lunch along a creek. We got pretty familiar with the grocery store in the Leutasch Valley and had packed a picnic lunch of meat and cheese and bread which was pretty much our staple foods in Germany.


After being fully recharged, we were on our way to Neuschwanstein! The castle that inspired Walt Disney in creating his own. It's really a must see stop if you are in Germany.

From Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles

When we arrived, it was still blue sky, but about 300 yards from the car Mike and Rob noticed the sky up ahead was pretty splotchy with dark clouds. They ran back to the car for rain coats and umbrellas. This was quite possibly the best idea of the day.

Neuschwanstein is located on the opposite hill from his family's castle Hohenschwangau, which we didn't have time to visit, but spotted it in the distance on our way to Neuschwanstein.

From Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles

This is quite possibly the hottest toursit spot in our whole trip. About every 15 feet there was a little stand trying to sell you something. Our favorite scene was of the Asian tourists taking pictures of the pictures on the calendars. Classic. The view from the top were pretty nice though.

From Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles

While we were waiting for our timed entrance, we had some picture ops we took advantage of.

From Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles

When our time came, we were shuffled into the lines and zipped right through the castle on their fast paced tour. They have it down to a science to get you through the castle as fast as possible (the whole tour took 15 minutes, maybe 20 at most) only to hurry you on to their two gift shops on the way out of the castles. Not one, but two!! Disney has some more lessons to learn from this place.

Upon exiting, the rain started. It was more annoying than really troubling and made taking pictures a little more interesting. I still managed ok though.

From Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles

We were pretty well pooped at this point and decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. We found a tasty Italian restaurant the night before and liked it enough (and we were tired enough) to go back again. We didn't realize how delicious the Italian food would be there because we had forgotten we were only 2 hours from the Italian border. It was marvelous and a lovely way to end the day.

A Hiking We Will Go!

The following morning, the weather was nice and we decided we wanted to hike while we were there (how could we not hike in the Alps?) and so that was our chosen activity for the day. Mike's blog really covers the day in great detail and so I will post a link to his blog here for people to read. Here I will add my commentary on "our hike" which was pretty close to the Pennock's, but as he points out, they move much faster than Rob and I. Some "excuses" for this lag include Rob and I are not in the shape that Mike and Amanda are and in conjunction my heart acts up if the physical activity is intense. With those disclaimers, this is my tale.

We spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what hike we should go and on what map would actually have the information we needed (length, difficulty, etc). It would have been easier if we could read fluent German, but alas, it is a skill that we didn't have. We headed out with backpacks loaded for a jaunt around the valley. Like the Pennock's mentioned, we thought we would not be able to hike into the mountains there so we planned for what we thought we could do. Even given our ultimate route, we faired a little better on planning than the Pennock's, but kicked ourselves for forgetting things like sunscreen which we packed in our big suitacses, but didn't make it to the hiking bag. We had a camel back with water, another full water bottle, a granola bar, and 7 crackers.

After spending some time wondering if we could really hike through a farmers gated cow posse 5 minutes into our adventure, we were off! Shortly after that we found this sign which we were trying to decipher when the nice German came up and explained in good English what to expect.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

Mike wanted to know, in not so many words, if we would die trying to hike this and so he asked the nice German man if it was difficult to do. "Difficult dangerous or difficult hard?" "Difficult dangerous." "Oh, not really, only a few small narrow spots, but kids hike here without a problem." I think we collectively all shared the same thought, if kids can do it, we are so going to do this and kick this mountain's ass. This is what the "difficult" trail looked like to start:

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

Feeling positive, we set out. For about the first hour, it was like hiking stairs on loose gravel. I had to stop every so often and let my heart wind back down, but we slowly made our way up and enjoyed some of the views through clearing in the trees.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

We finally made it to the clearing where the Pennock's were enjoying the views and resting. Right up until that moment, I was questioning my sanity, but the moment you pop out up there, it is 150% worth it. I know that pictures will never do it justice, but it was just breath taking.

Gorillapod was handy to have so we could get a nice group shot. :)

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

Our view from the bench:

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

The trail onward:

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

We continued to poke along lagging the Pennock's by a decent distance, but still within radio range. As we moved along, we started to theororize about what the hut in the far off distance contained. The hut is in the middle of this photo to the left of the dip in the mountain.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

We were starting to feel the toll that the hike was taking on us. Even though we still had enough energy to get back down the mountain, it was getting questionable how much more up we could go and still go back down ok. We radioed up to Mike and made a deal, we would poke along and they would venture on to see what the hut contained. If it really was a hut with food, Rob and I would continue upward, get lunch, rest, and head back down. If it was empty, we would just call it a day and go back. Mike accomplished his task and gave us the disappointing news that it was just a cow hut. Then he went on to say that he was being attacked by a cow. That crazy Mike.

So we started to head back down and just enjoy the views.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

Gorillapod really came in handy! I am glad I brought it with me.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

It wasn't too long before the Pennock's caught back up to us and passed us.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

Mike also wasn't kidding about the heart stopping moments on the hike back down after leaving that meadow. It was treacherous!

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

It was the best hike I have ever done and I am sorry we didn't have more time to recover and hike some more. Of course if we were in better shape, that would have been nice too. :) The weather turned to rain the next few days, so we were lucky to do our hike when we did. Truly an amazing experience.

Leutasch Valley, Austria

The second half of our trip was base camped in the Leutasch Valley in Austria. It was absolutely beautiful. Of course, getting there was another matter. We ended up stuck in traffic for 45 minutes plugging along only to find that this was the source of the major back up.

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

Moving on from there we were smooth sailing until we got to Mittenwald, one of the gate keeper towns before arriving in Leutasch. We had a GPS system in our car that worked great throughout our whole trip until this town. She failed us miserably. We think the roads were so close and her somewhat spotty directions on curved roads caused most of the trouble. We finally made it through that town and crossed into Austria only to find ourselves on the craziest mountain road ever with a Porche who wanted to drive much faster than Rob parked right behind him. We are talking one and a half lane roads with pull offs for traffic in the other direction. Rob managed to do that drive well, although it was nerve racking. I think our destination more than made up for the crappy drive in though.

View from our room:

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

View from our pension:

From Leutasch Valley, Austria - Hiking

The next fews days we spent around this town were fantastic. Stay tuned!

Dachau Concentration Camp

After we left Munich, we went to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp, the first concentration camp and model for all others. It was something that Rob and I felt was important to see. I don't know how exactly to describe the experience, but it was a very somber place of remembrance and history. They documented the rise of Hitler and the concentration camp evolution in great detail within their museum. Most things were in German and English so we could read along. We were able to watch the English documentary short film on the camp as well.

From Dachau Concentration Camp

I have a new appreciation for how the war turned out and what those people went through. We do not have those kinds of sites and therefore the ties to World War II as they do. We do not see the scars of bombs or the sites where such awful things took place. Reading about it in a book and being there really are two different things and really sheds a new perspective on things.