On our last day in Munich we visited the town of Fussen, Germany. It is home to a couple castles. The most famous is Neuchenstein which was the castle in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (one of our childhood favorite movies). So for this reason alone we decided to take the two hour train ride out to see it. It was definitely worth it and the tours were fun. The inside looked nothing like what the movie made it out to be but that's because movies are always deceptive and shoot scenes in other places. The castle was really beautiful and weird (for example one of the kings hallways was made to look like a cave). We hiked up to a skinny bridge (it was a couple hundred feet in the air and a little wobbly) in order to get a better view. Unfortunately it was raining a bit and scaffolding covered that side of the castle.
On the way back to the train station we just missed the hourly train and decided to go get some food before the last train of the night to Munich left the next hour. We saw a sign for McDonald's so we asked some locals which way it was and they were nice and kept pointing us in the right direction...it seemed like it was close...until we realized it was about 800 meters away after having walked about 10 minutes. So we ended up walking about 20 minutes each way in pouring rain (I was lucky enough to have packed my rain jacket whereas Tim and Mike were in shorts and t-shirts) and wait in slow line in order to get some good quality food... We are soaked and cold by the time we got back to the train station and the locals looked at us like we were crazy (which I think may be an accurate assumption). But we did end up making our train, I just thought it was a good story to show our dedication.
On Saturday we arrived in Salzburg and met up with Gordy and Tabita. For those of you that don't know Gordy was our first youth pastor when we moved up to Washington and Tabita is his wife (she is from Austria). They offered to let us stay at their apartment with them. We went in and saw a little bit of the festival that is currently going on in Salzburg with them on Saturday night. On Sunday we went to church at the Baptist Church of Salzburg. That was a fun experience although it was completely in German and I didn't understand anything. I learned that God is Gott in German (or so I think...). But in all seriousness it was great to be there and we felt welcomed and there was definitely life in the church. After church, we went with Gordy and an Afghan guy to get some food. It was good talking with him as he understood some English and just hearing what life is like for him.
We have really enjoyed Salzburg...and we haven't even gone on the sound of music tour (I didn't want to make my mom jealous...)! A lot of why we have enjoyed it is just because we have been able to hang out with Gordy (unfortunately Tabita was only able to hang out with us for the first day due to a women's retreat). I am finding that the places I like the most are the ones where we meet fun people! Anyway, for those of you that don't know Germany is known for their board games (and Austrians speak German). Gordy has Settlers of Catan which we played a lot (hours and hours!) with him in the apartment. Today we got a new game called Zug um Zug (or Ticket to Ride in English). It's another cool game that basically involves making train systems across Europe. But don't worry we did manage to get out and enjoy the city and nice weather! Although we maybe should have stayed inside as I managed to slice my finger open at the park...but it's fine enough that I can write this update so no need to worry.
Tomorrow we are off to Frankfurt and then on Wednesday we fly home to Seattle!
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