Munich, Bavaria, Day 2

Our second day began at 7:30 AM. We rolled out of our little bunk beds and ate some breakfast at the bar while we watched rugby or cricket, can't remember which, on TV. Breakfast was pretty familiar (eggs, cereal...) except for the whole non-refrigerated-milk thing they like to do in Europe.
Right at the entrance of Hbf, we met our guides for the schloss tour. The whole idea seemed kind of sketchy at first, but we had a referral from the hostel people that they were legit, and as we got to know them, we learned a great deal more than we would have if we'd tried to get there on our own. On a side note, right before we left for the tour we randomly ran into a Tech alum and his wife who were on vacation, and of course, that was a photo op. His name was Bill, and he graduated with an ME degree in '72. :)

One of our guides was a history student from Liverpool, and the other was a young-ish guy from Barcelona who rolled his own cigarettes on breaks. They were happy to give us tons of travel advice for our upcoming trip to Barcelona.

Neuschwanstein has quite an interesting history, apart from the whole Disney thing. It's a sad kind of story about Ludwig II, who was simultaneously very Catholic and very homosexual (conflict, anyone?), may or may not have been crazy due to syphilis or depression (possibly from said conflict), and who loved swans and beauty with such spirit that he would hire out full orchestras to play Wagner as he watched attractive men row giant swan contraptions across the lake in his backyard. Oh yeah, and he had a castle for a house too.

The castle was built to mirror medieval architecture on the outside while serving as an extremely elaborate house on the inside. Unfortunately, Ludwig didn't get to completely live in his dream home because the government had him arrested for his high accumulation of debt supposedly due to insanity.

He died mysteriously by drowning --his and his doctor's bodies were found, both drowned, on the property where they detained him for a thorough check on his mental health. Nobody knows if it was suicide, murder, or an accident from a failed escape-attempt because there was never an autopsy (violating the king's body was taboo). It's still a mystery, and I think there's a controversy going on about digging him up to find out.

The neighboring castle that is right beside Swan Lake is where his brother Otto lived. We didn't get to go inside it, but it was nice to see nestled on its hill with the tiny village houses sprawled out in the valley below. This one was actually built to be a defensible castle, and it has outer walls around it.

After we got back from the tour, we headed over to the Augustiner beer hall for dinner. I took Julian's advice and tried kasespatzle, delicious noodles with cheese and fried onion sprinkled over the top. Mmmmmm it was tasty.

We met some nice people back at the hostel, a guy on leave from the Coast Guard and a student between undergrad and grad school, and we had an interesting chat and then hit the sack.

Continued...