My European Invasion: Es war einmal

September 16th

Once upon a time, there lived a king of Bavaria who was thought by everyone to be mad- maybe for the fact that he was. In his lifetime he envisioned a castle, so bizarrely designed that it was a first of its kind. The construction of this ingenious structure began in 1869 and ended unfinished after King Ludwig II’s death in 1886. Today the Neuschwanstein Castle still stands high in the foothills of the Alps, inspiring the creations of similar castles seen in Disney’s Cinderella and Snow White.

My adventures began this morning as I went for a run, and when I came back it took me sadly 10-15 minutes trying to figure out how to unlock the front door with the house key, hopefully I didn’t arose too much suspicion from the neighbors.

Bettina and I trekked on another road trip, this time to the popular tourist attraction, the Neuschanstein Castle (literally translated ‘The New Swan Castle’). Well Bettina had me navigate our way to the castle as she drove, and let’s just say she became quite the accomplished driver when turning around to reposition us on the Audubon- I swear those directions are tricky!! And so far I cannot pronounce the German word for ‘right’ to save my life, so another three left turns there, eh Bettina?!

Finally making it to the parking lots below the castle, Bettina and I walked up to take some pictures before our tour began around 14:10. The vast structure is definitely candy for my eyes, as my dreams from when I was little of becoming a princess were about to become true- at least for the duration it took to go through the tour.

Everywhere around us I heard mostly French and English being spoken; luckily for me I can speak both, though my French is a bit rusty. The valley below the castle was breathtaking with little villages situated on healthy green fields and gorgeous lakes; one of them was unfortunately the place of King Ludwig II’s mysterious demise- but that doesn’t halter the beauty of it all.

The castle itself was definitely like walking to Cinderella’s castle, I was wondering if I was going to find a missing slipper somewhere about its many staircases. Down below the steep hillside runs a nearby river and waterfall.

As the time of our tour finally approached, Bettina and I entered the doors of the enchanted castle, winding our way up the spiral staircase which was starting to compete with the number of stairs for Alter Peter’s Tour. Seeing the completed rooms of the castle was utterly amazing. The elaborate detail of it all was almost overwhelming, but exquisite. If only more kings were crazy enough to have such taste in design as King Ludwig II. For that moment, from the King’s Throne room to the Kings living room, I could not tell you which part of the castle I loved most. He had a hallway built as a manmade, very realistic, cave. His bedframe itself had a fully carved village it seemed of towers and church tops. Many of the themes of his rooms were inspired by operas and medieval love stories (one of which also inspired William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Julliet). I could tell some of the walls had secret doors, but unfortunately I was unable to break away from the tour to investigate further. At the end of the tour, within the Hall of Singers, Bettina and I unfortunately got stuck between the one family who could not train their kids to be well behaved- in other words crying toddlers and bouncing around kindergarteners- and the one person who did not follow the rules and had their cellphone ringing off the hook. Resulting in missing out on what the thickly accented tour guide was saying, but we got to see how well the room’s acoustics were. The majority of the interior was decorated with vast murals by students and teachers from the School of Arts in Munich.

Stepping out onto the sunny stone walkways of the castle, Bettina and I decided that our adventure was yet to be finished. We wandered up to the Marienbücke, which was overflowing with tourists, managing to squeeze by and snap some photos before heading on to the other side where by chance we started a hike. Drabbed in an outfit almost fit for a princess, I embarked the steep slopes with a skirt and open toed shoes… saying ‘Hallo’ and ‘Danke’ to the hikers coming down that were obviously knowing that they were going for a hike. Mustn’t worry though, because I climbed the mountain with finesse, maybe next time I should try this in high heels.

As we managed our way back to the car, Bettina and I decided practicing our French so we could fit in with all of the people around us. Without any I love Lucy moments in my directions for the way home, Bettina spent a good part of the drive coaching me on how to pronounce ‘Recht‘, with results of us laughing our heads off at how I just couldn’t quite get it despite my efforts... so far my pronouciation makes it sound like a weird version of ‘Rex‘. I have another 8 days to figure it out, no pressure.

Back at home, Bettina’s mother made a Bavarian dinner, consisting of meat with some yummy jelly/marmalade to put over it, and a bread/potato balls (I really don’t know what they were made of, I just know that with the sauce they tasted delicious). Bettina’s brother, Thomas, joined us for dinner today, and I spent the dinner hearing German, picking words here and there. Bettina’s mom saw some of my reactions to some of the body language and words, laughing knowing that I probably hadn’t a clue of what they were talking about; and you know what? She was right! I just knew that he mentioned at some point: ‘American‘, ‘Tokyo‘, and according to Bettina I probably was perfectly fine not knowing that much since he was talking about a gruesome documentary involving footage of fatal accidents. Some days it is good to not understand, especially when this is over dinner.

Well this princess must go to her royal chamber and follow suit to sleeping beauty.

Guten Nacht!