Neurishawnstien and Munich

We started the morning off with a 2 hour drive to Schwangau in Bavaria. There is the "Disney Castle" that Ludwig II of Bavaria built. He was born in Munich in 1845 and was the heir of Maximilian I, King of Bavaria. During his childhood he was educated as if he was already King which caused him much stress (poor kid...NOT). He became King of Bavaria at the age of 18, which all of the educators in our group agreed was WAY too young to be in charge. He didn't care much about running the country (shocking) he was more interested in building things and the musician Wagner. He built the castle to look like a fairy tale castle. He was suppose to marry Sophia (sister of Austrian empress Sissi) but he backed out at the last minute. It is believed it is because he was a homosexual. Because he had no heirs and had not done much to help the country other than build castles the court decided to declare him insane. The commission that was developed to determine this fact never actually met him but they did indeed declare him insane. He left Munich and disappeared and later found dead under suspicious circumstances in 1886. Some believe he had been assassinated by drowning while traveling with his psychiatrist. It is interesting how different guides describe Ludwig. I've always heard he actually was insane. Carla seems to believe that isn't the case. This is why I love history!

Side note -- apparently there is a very good old movie about her the sister of the jilted bride...Sissi, 1955.

Now to the adventurous part of the day...first we have Randy's bathroom adventure. Randy, who for those that don't know is married to Dad's 1st cousin Jamie so this is a family trip in a way. Randy has been most worried about the bathroom situation since we planned this trip. I have told him to not worry that Go Ahead caters to adults and know we need bathrooms! Well today along a winding road Randy tested out guide (he has learned 2 cups of coffee is not recommenced at breakfast). Randy told Carla he needed a bathroom stop. After a convo with the bus driver she told him she had a solution that he could go to the back stairway of the bus and use the bathroom. Randy thought she meant to use the water bottle in her hand and said "no way"!. What he didn't realize is there is an actual bathroom in the middle stairway of the bus. Buses are built different in Europe and the bathroom is actually under the middle section of seats. Randy before the realization:

Randy realizing the bathroom exists:

Our group was tested today with our trip to the castle. In 2008 I walked up the mountain. Today we road a bus since there was no ice to prevent buses from running. We crammed twice the amount of people that should fit on a bus in and lets just say a few of us felt places of each other maybe we shouldn't have! Once we reached the top we actually had to walk quite a bit down a long path to reach the castle which proved rough from some. To quote Ron "damn that was fun"! The tour of the castle also included quite a bit of stairs. Though I think we all enjoyed the castle we were all ready to get back to the bus. Most of the tour group chose to ride the horse and buggy down but 4 of us, including Wendy and I, walked it down. Once back on the bus we all took our turn at snoring.

We had quite a bit of a rough check in at the hotel with half of our rooms not being documented. Long story but it ended in free drinks for the group and Wendy and I (after walking in on 2 other group members room) even got our mini bar for free! Traveling with this group is fun even when there are snafus!

For Lee:

Breakfast: Too much coffee, bread, bacon, eggs, fruit, and I walked around town to get a Coke Light

Lunch: bratwurst, weird hot dogs with no buns, pork knuckles, potatoe soup, cabbage and black forest cake

Dinner: a weird combo of German buffet and Chinese buffet with a dessert table to salivate over