The Weekend: Sunday!! :)

Back to the adventure! :)

Sunday morning we woke up at 8:00 to the bell tower across the street ringing. I slept pretty good, but woke up a few time during the night. I was rested, but tired feeling. We requested to have breakfast served at 9:00, so we packed up and got down there. We went into the "Rezeption" room and ate. There were two tables set for us. One table had butter, jelly, cream cheese and NUTELLA!! Then there were some drinks and boiled eggs. The other table was set for us to eat at and had a large basket of different breads; some croissants, Kaiservrotden and some other small rolls. They also had some meat and fresh cheese that was really good. My cousins and I had hot chocolate to drink. My cousin Emily and I had 5 mugs full! I also had two glasses of apple cider and a glass of orange juice. Let me just say that for a couple of us... the rest stops were a much visited attraction during the day :)

We packed up and drove out of town, but then after looking at a book we decided to go back and go to the museum the town had on a crater. We drove back and found a parking spot next to the outer wall of Norlinden. We then walked through the city streets and made our way to the museum. Along the way we saw that people were setting up stands and opening up trailers for markets. I guess we happened to pick the lucky day out of the three market days they have a year to come and be apart of one. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but I have been taking a picture of almost all the benches I see on my trip and I'm going to make one or two posts out of the best ones. So far I have 45 bench pictures. It has been quite entertaining because every time we pass a bench everyone goes, "SKYLAR THERE'S A BENCH!!", which is funny to me. My cousin then picked up on my idea and has been taking pictures of doorways, which is actually interesting. She has taken some good ones! And it was also fun to tease her back and yelling at every door we saw.

We got to the museum and watched a short clip about the crater and how it was formed. We also got to see a lot of rocks and even a rock from the moon that was on permanent loan from NASA. If it was on permanent loan why couldn't they just keep it? haha

After we went to the museum it was around noon and we really needed to start moving to get to Schloss Neuschwanstein and see the castle. We then decided that we wanted to have more time to see it so we would do it next weekend when we wouldn't be so rushed by time. After making that decision we just relaxed and walked through the markets. There were so many different things that people were selling! After looking at a few I decided I wanted to up the bell tower of the church that over looked all the markets and the whole town. So I got 1, 40 € and started my climb while everyone else went through the market.

The tower, which looked tall, didn't take long to climb. The stairs were steep and curvy with a lot of names written all over the walls and stairs. There were also a lot of random wooden beams and very confusing walk ways and rooms. I'm not sure what has been taken apart though. When I got near the top I had to buy a ticket to go to the viewing tower. I had a little trouble communicating because the man thought I wasn't paying enough, but he thought I was an adult, but I was 16. I was able to point to the sign and then he got it. The view from the tower was super amazing! And the wind definitely took me back too! On two sides of the tower that the wind was blowing straight towards my clothes were plastered to my body. The other two sides I was fine. For a few minutes I just sat there and soaked in the view. Then I took some pictures and walked around the top. I then climbed all the way down the stairs again. Oh and I forgot to mention the pictures I saw. On one section of the tower stairs there were a lot of pictures of bible stories that kids had colored. Each bible story was summarized on the side in German. At least that's what it looked like!

I met my aunt at the bottom of the tower and went to catch up with everyone else, but a table caught my eye as we were passing it. The man was selling some cool knit hats. He said "They are reversible so you can where one side for 6 months and when it gets dirty, you flip it to the other side and where it for another 6 months) - except he said it in a heavy German accent. It was only 2 Euros so I bought it. I also bought some sugar coated almonds, which were really amazing! I met up with my cousins and grandparents at a small cafe and had some coffee and an Erdbeerschaitte (which was kind of like a giant strawberry pound cake). Once we were done we walked back to the van and then left for home!

On the way back home we took numerous photo stops. My aunt has been super nice in pulling over when ever I see a good picture to be taken. I'm really thankful for that. We passed through a small town that had some large Abbey ruins on a hill. I stopped and took some pictures of a bridge and then a large hill that was very blank with random bushes all over it. It was cool. We then stopped at a gas station where I had the most interesting restroom experience of my life. In this gas station you had to pay .50 Euro cents to use it. So I put the money in the machine, got a ticket (a ticket!!!) walked through the little 3 pronged turny thing and used the bathroom. THEN... I saw this weird button on the toilet and being the curious and adventurous (and sometimes mischievous) person that I am, I pressed the button. Immediately the toilet seat started spinning around in a circle and this little machine came down and cleaned it. I kind of stood there with a blank, "did I just see what I thought I saw", expression. Then I laughed and was completely surprised by the fact that I had seen a self cleaning toilet. So anyway, that was my most interesting bathroom experience so far in Germany!

We finally got home and it was super good to unpack and just relax after the super long weekend. We had some leftovers and then had some nice family time. We sat around the dining room table and sang some hymns and then read out of a devotional book and prayed. It was good to be back "home" again :)

So that was a condensed version of my weekend and if you thought THAT was long then be glad I didn't go into great detail - haha :)

My Germany Adventure continues with... Germany: Day 6... Monday!