Neuschwanstein Castle (11 October 2010)

This is by far the most famous and visited castle in the world. You may know Neuschwanstein Castle as the "Disney Castle," as Walt Disney took its design when creating the one in Disney World. And I honestly think he chose well, as it truly is a dream come true.

The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a refuge for the reclusive king. he was obsessed with "fantasy" and built this to be a true fantasy castle. We must admit that upon arriving at the base of the mountain on witch the castle sits we were underwhelmed. there appeared to us that there was noting to be seen as the fog was so thick we could scarcely see from one end of the tour bus to the other. After a short (but terrifying) bus ride up to a bridge that typically provides the best view of the castle we realized that the fog only got worse with altitude as we now could not only not see the castle we could not see across the bridge.

We toured the 16 completed rooms of the castle, the remaining 40 or so rooms were never completed as the king died, and while the rooms were ridiculously extravagant the most astounding room was a hallway that had been made to look like the inside of a cave. In essence the man had built a bat cave inside his mansion just like Bruce Wayne. The rooms were truly amazing, photos were not allowed inside so if you want to see the inside google it, or go see for yourself.

After hiking back down to the tour bus in the valley below the castle we had a nice lunch and met up with our tour group to re-board the bus just as the fog cleared and the truly awesome castle finally came into view. while we would have loved to go back up and see the views from up close in the clear afternoon sky there was not enough time, but we did get some great pictures from in the valley, and hell we got some nice postcards too.

Meersburg Castle (10 October 2010)

The Castle of Meersburg is germany's oldest castle, built in the 7th century and I do mean 7th century, there is no typo there! It sits directly in the town as just another building. It has a guard at the gate in his medieval armor, so of course we had to get a picture with him. We then crossed the drawbridge into the ancient castle, which brought us back to times where there were no glass in the windows and no doors tall enough for Nick. What is really interesting here is that the family still lived in the upper parts of the castle! Imagine that, how many people get to say that they live in an actual castle and a real one that is extremely old at that!

Monkey Mountain (10 October 2010)

If you want monkeys I know you most likely don't think about going to southern Germany but you'd be wrong, as there is an entire mountain filled with them; we call it Monkey Mountain (creative I know.) We went to Monkey mountain with Family on a gloomy Saturday morning not knowing what to expect. I expected 2 or 3 monkeys in cages, but I was wrong here we were Germany in a monkey filled zoo/park/place thingy. The monkeys that are there are all endangered species and the park is a wildlife reserve for them.

The coolest thing about monkey Mountain is that you can hand feed the monkeys popcorn. Thats right every visitor gets a handful of popcorn and you hold out your hand with 1 or 2 pieces of popcorn on it and a monkey will reach out and take the popcorn one piece at a time. It is awesome. There were 14 young monkeys (under 4) and 8 babies (under 1(and so cute)) and the oldest monkey was almost 30 (Nick's age). This place is best described in pictures so check them out there is also a video of the monkeys taking food out of our hands.

Cannstatter Volksfest (2 October 2010)

This is one of the biggest beer festivals in the world, well second largest anyway, and it is held right here in Stuttgart. The 165th festival opened their gates offering rides, entertainment, food, and most importantly, beer. As soon as you board the S-Bhan toward Bad Constatt many people are seen wearing dirndl's and lederhosen. And the closer we get to the festival the more the people pack on the train and the more they are dressed. Once we got there we could see the ferris wheel. Finally at our stop, we couldn't even move once out of the train; we were all packed like sardines making our way toward the festival. Empty wine and beer bottles lined the streets along with other sorts of trash, showing that it really must be one crazy party! Upon walking through the entrance I was taken aback. Droves of people were everywhere and music was blasting and there were an array of rides to please any carnival goer. And the games, they were around every corner. The best part however were the tents. It was like stepping into the jungle or a sauna it was so hot. Celebrators stood on the tables dancing, drinking and singing. It was a party unlike any other. I swear if they ever had anything this wild and crazy in the states, it would be one massive mob and fights would break out everywhere. Anyway, we had our liters of beer and half chicken while sweating and singing to songs like "Time Warp" and "I've Had The Time of My Life." We even spotted jesus there, dancing and drinking in his lederhosen; not to mention the fact that he was taller than I thought he would be, I mean he was about a 7 inches taller than Nick!

I believe this is what nick captured along the way:

Oktoberfest blog...
515 1 beer and jenny is tipsy...
525 so much cleavage
600 chicken yummy
645 even the cops are drinking
810 4th beer is yummy but I'm a little drunk....
Durndels are awesome
900 Jenny 2 beers nick 5 both drunk
955 leaving Jenny drunk quote after babbling incoherently " yes I can I can do what I want... I'm cute so I can do. What I want"
1045 home Jenny still drunk.... " phone what are you doing I didn't touch you there..."
1100 Jenny " you know what I want? I so wish we were in Philly and things were open cauz I want spaghetti"...nick: "and where would we get spaghetti?". Jenny: " tonnelies stupid, and cheese steaks.... Ummmm"
Oktoberfest rocks