Osterferienreise

We started off going to Paris. Because we waited a while to reserve train tickets, we had to do some silly things to actually get there. We were planning to leave in the morning on Friday, but all of those trains were full. So we ended up leaving at about 9:00 pm on Thursday and arriving the next day, after five trains and three hours in the cold in some train station, at about 10:00 am. It was an experience. But we got to Paris and just seemed to accidentally find our hotel. It was not our first choice place to stay, but by the time we got around to booking rooms, it was the best thing left. It was a two person room with a bathroom included. Not bad.

Our hotel in Paris. Not our first choice, or second or third choice, but it was good nevertheless.

Once we got checked in to our hotel, we saw quite a lot in the first day. We went immediately to the Notre Dame cathedral, saw a little, really famous, English bookstore called Shakespeare and Company, took the subway to the Eiffel Tower, walked to the Arc de Triumph, walked around till we ended up in Montmartre, which neither of us recognized, and then took the subway back to the hotel. Notre Dame was interesting, really big, kind of neat, but mostly disgustingly commercialized to the point that it should not be considered a church anymore. They kind of desecrate it with all of the machines to buy Notre Dame coins and various things. The bookstore was not much better. It seems it is mostly just a gathering place for noisy American and British teenage girls, thinking they are deep because they like the look of bookshelves packed with books they will never read. The tower was pretty cool, although at this point we did not go up into it. It was also, of course, very touristy but it isn't such a problem with such a beast.

Notre Dame cathedral. Although it almost hurts to call something so for-profit a cathedral.

We wandered past the Arc de Triumph and decided the admission was too much. I'm not exactly sure what it gets you anyways since we could still go right underneath it. I was not too disappointed though. We wandered for quite a while until we got to this hilltop. We saw a neat looking church from several streets away and decided to go to it. When we got closer, we realized that it was on the top of a big hill. So we climbed up and found perhaps one of the largest, most expensive tourist traps I have ever seen. It was still interesting to walk around a little bit and see the little restaurants that have salads starting at €18. Paris is certainly a place for the rich.

From the Montmartre. It gave a pretty good view of the Eiffel Tower at night.

Right after seeing the Eiffel Tower sparkle at 9:00 we went to the hotel and to bed.

The next day we decided to go to Versailles. It was not so bad, just more expensive than usual because supposedly there was some special event going on that day. Because of this, we only saw the palace itself and not the gardens. It was very ridiculous. After Versailles, we went past the Louvre to check the hours; we planned on going there on Sunday. When we got there, we saw a big huge line and also saw that the first Sunday of each month was free. From there, we decided we wanted to find the poor/middle class part of Paris, everything we had seen so far being only for very rich people. We decided to go South. We did, found it was still full of places like Gucci, and got a little bit turned around. We went back to the hotel to eat, and then wandered East. We ended up walking past the border of Paris, but I think we found middle class areas.

The next day, we went to the Louvre. We planned to get there a half hour before opening so as to avoid a super long line. What we found was a super long line, but it only got longer as we waited. We ended up not waiting for very long, so I think we timed it alright. The Louvre was far too massive to see in even a week, so we just saw a few select things. Of course, everyone has to see the tiny Mona Lisa, so we went to that first, before it got disgustingly crowded. From there we went on to other parts of the Louvre, mainly Northern European parts. These were easy because they are very small compared to everything else. We decided to leave after just a few hours. It was free and, after all, one can only take so much of art at a time, neither of us having especially high tolerances for the subject.

The Louvre. Notice, neither of us are taking that stupid posed picture with our finger at the top of the pyramid. It is apparently so popular that there are boxes for people to stand on to make that picture easier.

After the Louvre, the plan was to go to the Eiffel Tower. We were going to do that on Saturday, but it was cloudy out. Sunday, however, was very nice. So we went there at around 2:00. There was an electronic sign there announcing a two hour wait time because of a broken lift. Apparently this was only to get up to the first or second levels, however, because we bought tickets and immediately walked right up. It was pretty cool, so we spent quite a while up there.

Me at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Yeah, and some jerk decided to walk into the picture too.

After the tower, we went back to eat and so Jake could leave. He had booked a tour of the Normandy area for Monday, so he also got a room in some little town for Sunday night. When he left, I walked around for a while. I initially noticed that he had forgotten his water bottle, so I was going to bring it to him. However, about halfway there on the subway, I realized that I wasn't sure which train station he was departing from. So I ended up just walking around Paris. This is when I found the really poor Paris. This was the Paris that it felt like if I identified myself as not from there, someone would most likely come and mug me. This was the Paris where people were selling large amounts of tobacco illicitly on the street corner. It was interesting, but I did not stay after dark.

The next day, I went walking around. I went to the bookstore again at opening to see if it would have anything interesting that I could see without throngs of teenage girls (I figured correctly that they like to sleep in). So I went there and found that, no, there is not much extremely special besides lots of books. It was a lot of fiction and some philosophy-both things to make someone feel profound when it is there in a large quantity. After that, I wandered towards a park that we had seen from the tower the day before. It turns out it was much farther than I predicted, and I did not actually end up getting there. I did, however, find another neat little area, meant, of course, for the very rich, that had a cool little garden and something that looked like an old city (yet clearly was not). From there, I went back to eat lunch. After lunch, I took the train to the park on the very West of the city. It is a very large park, but still it seems impossible to get away from traffic noises. Also, there were some people living there: one man was so established that he had chickens he was raising. I was about to take a picture, but then he saw me. From there, I walked back to the hotel: a large distance by European standards, but only took about 3 hours.

This is how the city of Paris cleans their streets: by bubbling water through the gutters. Not surprisingly, it does a pretty terrible job. They don't seem to realize this though, and shop owners sweep in front of their shops, not into the trash, but into the gutter.

Jake got back late Monday night and Tuesday morning we went to Salzburg. Our train out of Paris, being a French train, ended up coming an hour late. That was kind of irritating as we missed the trains we were planning to take, but it worked out in the end.

Salzburg was very cool. It was also fairly touristy, but it did not feel disgusting like it did in Paris. The first night, we decided to take a break from bread and jelly and peanut butter by going to a traditional German/Austrian restaurant. It was very good although kind of expensive. I think it was worth it. After that, we walked around Salzburg until decently late.

The next day, we got up and decided to go check out the fortress Hohensalzburg. That was pretty neat. We walked around some more after that, climbing one of the bluffs and seeing an abbey up there. That was pretty much it for the day. That night I ended up getting pretty sick.

The next morning I was still feeling very sick, so I did not accompany Jake as he climbed a mountain in the area. That is very disappointing. I spent most of the day feeling sick and walking around a little bit.

The final day in Salzburg we went to the Mozart houses. They were pretty cool and fairly interesting. We also talked a little bit with some other people in the hostel, and listened to some guy play his harp for quite a while. It was a good, relaxing day where not much happened.

The next morning we left for Munich. We planned to meet the Pilgram family there, and Paul said that he would meet us on the platform. We did and it worked out. When we got to their house, we ate some breakfast (that was good for me because I had run out of bread). We sat and talked with him till a little after noon. Then we went and saw a little bit of Munich. Because it was in the rain, however, we did not walk for very long. When we got back, we had lunch (it was about 4:00), and then Jake and I went out walking in the area with Kathy. She showed us some nearby things that were not big touristy Munich things. That night, we had some dinner, and talked with them, mostly Paul, for a while.

The Pilgram's house, Easter morning as we left.

We left them the next morning, Easter. The plan was to go to the Frauenkierche for the Easter service at 10:00. We made it there a little after it started, but that was no problem. Most of the people were standing anyways as it was very much overfull. We stayed through a lot of pretty good music and part of a sermon. Then we decided at about five to eleven to go see the glockenspiel at the rathaus. That was kind of interesting. After that, it was off to the train station to go to Bacharach.

The whole idea of Bacharach, planned early on during J-term, was that it had a castle converted into a youth hostel. I could not figure out how to reserve rooms there, however, so we just planned to go and see if there was anything open. After a four hour train ride, we found ourselves standing outside the platform (it really wasn't a station) at the foot of the bluff that has the youth hostel. Luckily, we happened to stumble upon a map of the town that led us up the bluff. It was an interesting climb that reminded me of Philmont, just with not enough trees and too established of a path and too many goats and some other things. But it was decently steep and not easy with luggage. We eventually got to the hostel, found the check-in place, waited in line, and told the receptionist that we had no reservation. Her words: "You guys are lucky. There was a cancellation." We got the one room open in the place: a six person room for the two of us at the cost of €20 for the night. I was not expecting anything even near that good. So we put our things in the room and went outside.

The hostel from the courtyard. Our room is the one with the open window. 

We decided to also buy the dinner, since it was an especially large Easter dinner buffet for €7,50. It was very good and well worth the price, although I ate far too much. After that we walked around Bacharach till after dark. It was kind of neat.

The next day, we discovered the very good included breakfast where I again ate too much. Then we stored our things in the hostel where the receptionist assured us she would watch them, and walked around the hilltops for a couple of hours. Our train did not come until later that day. It was a very nice, very peaceful place and good for unwinding after the busier cities we had been in more recently.

After a couple of hours, we went down to the train station and took a series of trains that eventually got us back to Münster. When we got back, we celebrated successful travels with a scoop of ice cream.