Charlie's Thoughts

Well we’ve passed the halfway mark for our whirlwind tour of Europe! (And now even further since it took me so long to get internet to post this) It’s been pretty taxing running around frantically trying to see all the sights, but we’ve been doing pretty well thus far. Today is a bit more relaxed as we have to take about 6 hours to ride to Paris. Why would we go so far away from the motherland you might wonder? Well weather.com, the source for moderately accurate meteorological predictions, claimed that we could see this fabled celestial body called the sun there. Thus far on our trip we’ve only glimpsed it for a half day in Berlin so we’re off in search of better weather.

Munich (München) was a fantastic city. We only spent a day there, but it was enough time to find my apartment, my office and to orient myself with the area. We arrived in the morning following an overnight train, and had just enough time to pickup my orientation information, see most of the city, and lose my orientation information again.
Perhaps the most enchanting thing in Munich was the line of 8 butchers in a row, some of which featured Pferdfleisch, literally translating to Horse Meat. I have yet to try this, but am intrigued nonetheless.
Also intriguing are the square pillows which are quite prevalent throughout Germany. I simply don’t understand them…why are they square? It makes sleeping very awkward without folding it over. And how are you supposed to spoon with a square object? I suppose there are still a few cultural differences that will take getting used to.

One thing I’m totally used to is eating Döner Kebob everyday for lunch. Döner is, in theory, similar to a Gyro, however it is a Turkish based sandwich which has been adapted to please the German palate. In Berlin, we literally had to travel across town to the Turkish district just for lunch so that we could have some good döner (I was having withdrawal symptoms). This magnificent dish is created my scraping/shaving the meat off a lamb shank and into a waiting piece of bread/roll. Usually lettuce, onions, tomatoes, red cabbage and possibly other things are then added to the mix. Finally, the all-important special sauce is tossed into the mix. This sauce is usually what makes or breaks a particular döner shop.

Back to travel, after Munich we took a day and visited Würzburg and Nurnberg. Unfortunately, it literally rained the entire day which made walking around miserable. It was however very nice to revisit some of these towns I’d seen a few years ago. We also visited the Residenz in Würzburg, which was absolutely stunning. It’s essentially a very large, very old mansion with amazingly ornate and opulent decorations and a wonderful garden in back, definitely a sight to see if you’re in the area. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow pictures so I can’t show you!

On the picture front, I’m still having trouble getting internet over our travels, but I did manage to put up a picture on our photo challenge blog for the summer. I’ll be posting most of my pictures there instead of on my gallery over the summer (Or maybe both!). Be sure to check out the photo challenge which will feature frequent photos from myself in Germany, my friend David in China, and suitemate Jared covering the states. Should be a pretty cool, so check it out:
http://photochallenge.tumblr.com

Currently we’re speeding across the countryland at 280 km/h towards Paris. (Which I'll tell you all about later tomorrow!) It’s still dreary outside, but there’s a ways to go yet, still hope for the sun. Till later ICE, ICE, baby, baby.