The thing about having your blog posts linked to facebook is that people actually read them. Which is good in that your family can keep up with you without having to go through the trouble of actually going to the blog page and checking periodically, but bad in that people that you didn't necessarily expect to read your blog, do (read your blog).
Like this post. Anyone here in Germany knows that I actually went to Neuschwanstein a week and a half ago, and that it's pretty sad that it's taken me this long to post about it. If it wasn't exciting enough to post immediately, why even write about it?
If my blog were not linked to facebook, I wouldn't have this problem. On the other hand, if my blog were not linked to facebook, my own mother probably would not read it.
Annie would, though, because she's too cool for facebook.
Another embarrassing thing about facebook is all those ridiculously addicting farm games. As much as you tell yourself you're not going to get addicted, you always do. And since everyone else is addicted, you all become neighbors. This should make me feel better about it-- after all, I'm obviously not the only one who partakes. But it gets bad when other people who play the game start commenting about how nice my farm looks and how fast I'm leveling up. Like, "Not only does Ingrid play stupid farm games on Facebook, she plays them so much that she levels up faster than other people; furthermore, she obviously spends time rearranging her farm."
It's terrible. Especially when orphaned animals wander on to my farm. I want my other farm friends to be able to adopt them, so I let Farmville post the announcement on my wall. And then the second the poor wild turkey, black sheep, or ugly duckling gets adopted, I erase the post and pretend that it never happened.
There is far too much self-deception in my life. I wish I believed it.
On to my post:
The Saturday before last, a few friends and I went to Neuschwanstein, the famous fairytale castle built by the crazy King Ludwig that was supposedly the model for Disney's Cinderella Castle. The town that it is in is absolutely beautiful; surrounded by mountains and containing at least two picturesque lakes. I can see why King Ludwig and the royal family decided to build their castles there.
The day started with me being late to the meeting point. I hurried out of the elevator and ran into my friend Liz, who informed me that two of the group had just taken the other elevator up to my room to find me. Very nerve wracking, since I had cut things close and if they didn't come down from my room soon we would all miss the train. They came down with two minutes to spare, and because we ran, we made it.
The train ride to the town of Füßen lasted almost three hours. I don't know why, since the train ride back only lasted two hours, but it was fun. I read most of a play and talked to my delightful travel buddies. The only problem is that the train conductor kept telling us to take our feet off the seats. Whenever we heard anyone coming, everyone would jump a bit and rearrange themselves. There's just no comfortable way to sit on trains without putting your feet up.
We got to Füßen and took the bus to the village where the castles are. Basically, it's a valley surrounded by crystal clear lakes and forested mountains with castles on them.
The first castle was nice, and we had a little over an hour before the next castle tour, so we decided to get lunch. We knew we were going to be cutting it close, but were hungry. The map said it would take a half hour to get there (it's an uphill hike), but we figured that we were young and all, and that it would really take fifteen minutes. . . (here I am again, lying to myself)
Well, it took us a while to find a restaurant. We didn't want to eat at the closest one (mistake #1) so we wandered down the hill, farther from Neuschwanstein (mistake #2). When we found a restaurant that suited us, we decided to eat there, even though it was busy (mistake #3).
Unfortunately, there was only one waitress. So even though we ordered relatively quickly, by the time the food got there, we only had about 25 minutes until our tour. We ate so fast. Even though the pizza was burning our tongues. We ate a meal in about 5 minutes. While I helped Ana chug her Radler, Elizabeth went up with the two others to pay. We rushed out the door, and then found that in the hurry and cultural confusion, we had only tipped the waitress a little less than one euro ("I thought we were just supposed to round up to the nearest euro!" "For small bills-- for large ones it's supposed to be about 10 percent" "Well, shit")
I was pumped full of adrenaline: "Okay guys, we have 20 minutes. If it takes normal people 30 minutes to get there, we can definitely make it!" And we started charging up the hill. There was a horse carriage in the distance that I eventually caught up to and passed. After about 10 minutes I noticed that I could only see Emir (one of the group) and that we had lost the others. I back tracked a little to try to give them words of encouragement, but was met by frustration ("INGRID WE'RE GOING AS FAST AS WE CAN").
Unfazed, I kept going up the hill. It took Emir and I 18 minutes. "Damn," I said, "that would not take a normal person 30 minutes." It turns out that we had misread the map, and that it actually recommended allotting 40-45 minutes to hike up the path to Neuschwanstein, so we did pretty well.
We missed our tour. A man who worked there took us to a room to check when the next tour we could join was. The next English tour was in half an hour. Or, we could just join the German tour starting now. Excited, I said, "Können wir?" and a worker sort of chuckled at me and complimented my German. In English. I guess that's life.
It was pretty cold out but we were all stripped down to our t-shirts and tank tops because of the work-out we just had. The Germans stared at us. Germans stare at everything, but especially humans that they think might be cold. You have no idea what it's like to be me on the train every morning. I almost exclusively wear flip-flops, and the Germans just stare at my feet. Occasionally one (usually male) will ask if I'm cold. Come on, people, it's still over 50 degrees outside. If it's not raining, why bother with shoes?
The rest of the day was very slow and relaxing. All in all, I had a very good experience.
Unfortunately, now my friends are afraid to hike with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment