Munich Part 1: From A New Traveler's Perspective

So today I decided it might be fun to have a guest blogger - my dear friend Heather.  Back in October, she and I took a trip to Munich for Oktoberfest, and while we were there we went on a tour of the local area.  As this was her first international trip, I thought it might be fun to hear about our trip from her perspective.  Special thanks to Heather's family for letting me steal her away for a few days!  So without further adieu, here's Heather.

The gardens in front of Schloss Linderhoff

Where to begin with our trip to Munich?!  It was so incredible and amazing!!  Now, after being back home for a while, I really miss it and I really miss hearing German being spoken everywhere.  I now have a fascination/obsession with castles and old cathedrals after visiting the castles and cathedrals!  Getting to go and tour the castles was my absolute favorite part of the trip!  Being able to step back a hundred years and see and experience the castles was so incredible!  Between Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Linderhoff I still can't decide which one was my favorite.  There were so many amazing things about each one....

Linderhoff was remarkably breath taking with it's Baroque inspired architecture from the Palace Versailles.  Gold was absolutely everywhere (just like you would see at Versailles), and where the walls were a solid color it was actually velvet!  The frescoes adorning the walls were actually painted on canvas and then placed upon the walls so they looked like they were painted directly onto them!  The entire palace was so extravagant and absolutely exquisite!  Even the gardens and the fountain surrounding the palace were done with the most intricate detail!  

Schloss Linderhoff

A beautiful fountain behind Schloss Linderhoff

The gardens at Schloss Linderhoff

At Neuschwanstein it was like you stepped back into the Medieval ages, which is exactly what King Ludwig II wanted!  Neushwanstein was gargantuan compared to the small size of Linderhoff.  At Neuschwanstein you had to trek up the mountain, which was a 45 minute walk but we thankfully were able to take a bus!  The day we went it was pouring rain and absolutely dreary outside and was quite apropos to the architecture of the castle.   The size of Neuschwanstein was astounding.  We were only able to see a very small portion of the castle because King Ludwig II mysteriously died before he was able to finish it.  

We had to walk up at least 3 flights of stairs to get to the first part of our tour.  Everywhere you looked there were frescoes painted all over the walls.  Even the beams had the typical painting on them that you would have seen in a castle built during the Medieval Ages.  There was a different story painted on the walls in every room.  Most were inspired by Wagner's operas, others were Biblical inspired frescoes.  I still cannot get over the amazing and intricate detail that you saw with every turn!  It's no wonder that Walt Disney used this castle for his inspiration in Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and even the castle at Walt Disney World!  I would have loved to just explore on my own through the entire castle!  

Schloss Neushwanstein from the gatehouse - photography wasn't allowed inside.

Schloss Neuschwanstein - so many floors!

A closer view of Schloss Neuschwanstein

I feel so blessed to have gotten to experience this with my Best Friend as the two of us got to have our childhood fantasies come true!  I just wish I could put into words just how astounding the whole experience was!  I had so much fun exploring Munich with Brenna!  Getting to see, in person, all of the old and various styles of architecture and buildings that I had dreamed about seeing was an absolute dream come true!  I love, love, love architecture, primarily from the Medieval Ages and the Baroque period and I fell even more in love with them after getting to witness them in person!  

We did a lot more while we were there, but I'm afraid that this post would become incredulously long if I continued on about it!  So, with this I will leave you with dreams of Munich and castles and I bid you auf weidersehen!

International Hermit and the Last Crusade (Petra)

I've gotten into the very bad habit lately of only writing about my last trip when I'm about to take another.  Well this time is no different.  Actually, I've already been to Munich for Oktoberfest, so naturally you're just now hearing about my trip to Jordan this past May. Better late than never! Enjoy!

I firmly believe that when one is about to embark upon a journey to a place featured in a movie, the best way to start your trip is by watching said movie.  In this case, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".   You may have never heard of Petra (I know I hadn't until I went to Jordan the first time), but undoubtedly if you have watched the Indiana Jones movies, you'll recognize it as the temple where the Holy Grail was hidden.  Its real name is "The Treasury at Petra", Petra being the nearby Jordanian city.  I could spend this whole blog and more relating the history of the place, but since this is about my trip and since I am no archeologist, I'll stick to what I know and leave the rest to the professionals.

So on my first trip to Jordan, my company put us on a little local airline called Jazeera Airways.  It was everything you'd expect of a small airline, and some of my co-workers were less than enchanted with the service, but there was one BIG plus in my opinion: online check-in for carry on only.  With any other airline, you have to go through an extra security checkpoint just to check-in - even if you have no bags to check - which can take an extra hour.  So yes, I chose Jazeera.  Plus, their rates are by far the most reasonable between Kuwait and Amman. 

Upon arrival in Amman, I had a car service pre-arranged to take me to my hotel in downtown Amman.  If you're traveling to Jordan, I recommend this option simply because its at least a 30 minute drive from the airport to the city, and you can never tell when taxi services will try to rip you off.  My driver's name was Shadi, and it turned out he was my driver for my tour to Petra as well. (Let me know if you want his contact info to arrange your own transportation.)

Now, when I book hotels in unfamiliar areas, I typically turn to Travelocity.  They haven't let me down so far and with a lot of other discount travel sites, they'll list any and every hotel without discrimination.  Well once again Travelocity had my back. I took a chance on a hotel that I knew next to nothing about except that it was one of the cheapest deals for Amman at the time, and it happened to be a 5 star hotel: The Kempinski, Amman.  

Yummy!

The Kempinski actually had security scanners and metal detectors at the door, but it wasn't painful like at airports.  Needless to say, if I didn't feel safe traveling on my own in the Middle East, that made me feel a million times safer.  The staff at the desk were all polite and helpful to the point that I felt a little like a celebrity.  It didn't help that on the way to my room, the attendant that was carrying my bags asked if I was with the United Nations here for the conference.  I think my jaw literally dropped before I laughed and told him that I wasn't.  Yeah, that was awesome.  The cherry on top of this hotel was the room itself.  Mint on the pillow? Oh no, they went a step farther and had a platter of little treats waiting for me - yum!

View of the Petra canyons from above.

After a great night's sleep, Shadi came to pick me up for my tour at 7 AM.  It was a really long drive down to Petra - almost 4 hours I think.  On the way down we stopped at a little gift shop/café for a rest and a bathroom break.  Aside from that most of the drive was through barren desert lands - not sandy, but nothing really to see - so I slept most of the way.  As we got close to Petra though, the road started winding more and trees started to appear.  There were a couple of little villages a few minutes away.  When we got to the edge of Petra, Shadi pulled over to let me take pictures of the Canyons where the ruins at Petra are hidden.

Ancient Guard Reenactment

 
At the entrance to the ruins, I met my tour guide, Josef.  Josef actually grew up in Petra, so he knew a LOT about it.  At the entrance of the caverns a guard reinactment takes place every few minutes, so I stopped to take pictures.  

 The walk down to the Treasury, which is the iconic image associated with Petra, lead through a long and winding canyon.  Lining the edges of the pathway were excavated remains of an aqueduct system, and all along the walls were carvings of a wide range of ancient gods made by several different generations and vastly different cultures that had occupied Petra at some point in history.  There was even a sacrificial site where Josef explained that animals were slaughtered in a cave above the idol, and the blood was allowed to run down to the idol.  Looking at what remains, I can almost picture that... almost.

Walking down to the Treasury - aqueduct lower left.

The blood idol

The lower entrance to the Treasury

When we were just around the bend from the Treasury, Josef stopped me so that I could take pictures of the slow reveal. It was epic!  The Treasury itself was so much bigger than I imagined!  The main entrance must've been almost 20 feet high! At the base, a cave in a few months earlier had revealed that there was actually an even lower entrance in front of the steps leading up to the big door.  It hadn't been fully excavated yet, but I got a picture through the grate over it keeping people out.  Also, because of this and probably also in order to preserve the Treasury, I wasn't able to go inside.  That's alright though.  This way, I can still manage to believe that there's a huge temple inside leading to the Holy Grail, rather than what is actually just a large carved out room that was likely a tomb.  Yeah, the grail bit is definitely better.

The Treasury

Sometime later I may go into the significance of all the details of the Treasury, but that's a history lesson for another time.

A Treasury-style tomb without a facade

Admittedly, I didn't know much about Petra when I signed up for the tour. As I mentioned before, the Treasury was likely a tomb of someone very very important, and its not the only such structure at Petra.  Josef led me further down the canyon past many many more tombs.  This wasn't just a city of the dead though as evidenced by the amphitheater midway down.


 

Roman Temple

Finally the canyon opened up and it became overwhelmingly clear just how many different cultures were represented here.  There was a Roman temple ruin and road.  There was an Egyptian temple, and a Byzantine chapel with a mosaic floor.  And of course there were dozens and dozens of caves that Josef told me may have actually been used as dwellings, or as stables for livestock.  Awe is the only word to describe how I felt.

Roman Road

Egyptian Temple

Mosaic Floor in Byzantine Chapel

Cliff Dwellings?

Shadi had mentioned that I had to be back by a certain time so we could depart for Amman and at the time, I was thinking all there was to see was the Treasury, so I thought nothing of it.  Ha! I realized that I could've stayed at Petra for at least another full day, and there were still a couple things I didn't get to see, but I had to get back.  Josef offered to take the back way getting back to the main entrance, so I agreed since I had already seen everything on the way down.  It was quite a little hike, and stupid me wore sandals.  Not my brightest moment to say the least.  There was a little bouldering on the way, but we made it.

Shadi was waiting at the entrance as promised to take me back to Amman, and I'm not ashamed to say I slept the entire way back.  Note to self - expect the unexpected and wear shoes next time!

This was a very short trip - only 2 days - so I didn't really have a chance to get out and see anything else in Jordan this time, but I think I've hit the high points so if I do go back to Jordan, it will just be to relax.  Maybe at one of the many spas and health resorts at the Dead Sea? Hmmm...

Anyway, the next trip (which I've already taken) is to Munich for Oktoberfest!  After that its looking like I'll be going to Ireland, and I have a few small 2 day trip ideas... Cairo, Muscat, Rome... though Jerusalem is probably the most shiny of the bunch.  Until then!

Now Boarding...

Hi there everyone!  I'm sorry its been so long since my last post.  The summer and early fall tends to be the busiest time of year for me, so I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on International Hermit.  The good news is, I'm back!  Thanks for being patient and hanging in there.  

Just a little update here since its been MONTHS since my last post.  My entry on Petra is complete save a few photos that I want to add, so that should be up within the next few days.  Also, I've begun recounting my trip to Munich, so you should see that around the beginning of November.  

Meanwhile, I've been busy planning my next trip... or three. With Petra and Munich in the rear view, Ireland is on the horizon.  I plan to follow this Ireland in 10 days guide, and for now, I'm going it alone, so fingers crossed that I don't get lost!  There may or may not be a Christmas/New Years surprise trip, and then I have a selection of Cairo, Oman, Rome, and Jerusalem sketched out to choose from for my first couple of 3-day weekends in 2013. 

Lands of My Ancestors - Part 3

So I've made it my mission to finish this series before I head out on my next adventure. Today I'm tying up Eurotrip 2012. In my last post, my brother and I had missed our bus back to Vienna (AU) and were hoping to get to Villach (AU) in time to catch the last train.

Well luck was in our favor this time. Once we got to Villach, we went straight to the train station to check the schedule of trains leaving for Vienna. Of course, we had already missed our scheduled train after missing our original bus from Venice, but there was an express train to Vienna leaving in five minutes. Our tickets were open first class tickets, so we could hop any train we wanted. Score!

After a couple hours of riding on the floor of that over-booked bus, those first class seats were amazing! Porters brought us food and drinks, and it was on that train that I got my first taste of Schnitzel - YUM! Put that together with some amazing potatoes and, of course, beer, and you've got an awesome end to a wild adventure to Italy. I made it to my hotel at about midnight, and was more than happy to do nothing more than drop my bags and fall into bed.

Gordon's Finest Platinum at the Kangaroo Pub

I had a couple more days in Vienna, so the next night I took my brother and one of his friends from school out for beer and sushi. What can I say... I love that stuff!

Then they took me to a local bar called the Kangaroo Pub where they had over 300 different types of beer I think. It was there that I found the beer in the picture to the right: Gordon's Finest Platinum - a 12% ALC/vol beer! It was pretty cool. The whole place was made of distressed wood and lit by a candle on each table. Atmosphere off the charts!  



My last night in Vienna I went with my brother to a little restaurant on the University campus. I swear they had the best potato soup I've ever had. He also introduced me to Riesling - an amazing white wine made from grapes grown in the Rhine region of Germany.  Loved it!  After dinner my brother gave me a mini tour of the University and we meandered in the general direction of my hotel.

As my brother and I sat in the same pub that we visited when I first arrived, drinking Stiegl and philosophizing as only people do when they've had a few, a man selling roses walked in and asked my brother if he would like to buy a rose. I was waving the guy off telling him "No, thank you", but my brother stopped him and bough me one! Since he never reads my blog, I feel its safe to reveal this: my brother is a sweetheart! :)  

So what started with a red rose in Germany ended with a yellow rose in Austria. All in all, an amazing end to an amazing adventure! Thanks for reading!

Lands of My Ancestors - Part 2

I feel that I should start off by clarifying the title of these posts.  My family is mostly German, but I traced our lineage to an area of southern Germany very close to the Austrian border.  For all I know, way back in the day my great great great great great great.... well you get the picture... could've been from what is modern day Austria.  Also, my mother tells me that her father's side of the family had some Italian in them, though no one knew quite how.   Either way, I'm claiming both Austria and Italy as "Lands of My Ancestors".  Now that we've cleared that up, on to Italy!

My "First Class" Seat on the Train

Lets start with that fun 4 AM train ride from Villach.. you can't make this stuff up!  So we catch a taxi to the train station which is halfway across town from the one we arrived at the night before.  The place was completely deserted when we got there; no signs indicating when the next train was arriving or IF there was a next train.  When the train finally did arrive, we discovered that it was a fully booked sleeper train, so there were people standing, sitting, and sleeping in the gangways.  The only free space was outside a bathroom, so I tried to get comfortable for the 3 hour ride on my suitcase.  What we didn't realize was that the area was free because one of the passengers had gotten sick (a little bit in the hallway) and was holed up in the bathroom, and it was a little smelly and messy in that little area.

When we got to Venice, I once again lucked out because the first taxi driver I approached spoke English.  I probably got robbed on taxi fare, but we made it to our hotel in enough time to shower, grab some free breakfast, and take a quick nap (it had been a long night).  The view from our room probably wasn't much to most people, but I thought it was so cool.  If you've played the more recent "Assassin's Creed" games, you'll understand. 


Once we'd gotten a little rest, we wandered Venice.  I loved the architecture... my brother was less impressed after his trip to Spain he said.  I guess there's a medieval cathedral or castle on every corner or something (note to self: visit Spain!).  We walked over the Grand Canal and got harassed by street peddlers.  I walked through a couple museums, but we mostly window shopped.  The coolest things were the masks that they sell there.  I bought a few really gorgeous, elaborate masks, but since I didn't think to snap a picture, these are just examples.


One of the things that I really like to do when traveling to other countries is to sample the local cuisine. We stopped at a little restaurant for a dinner of lasagna, spaghetti, and vino!  I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't all I thought it would be.  The spaghetti kind of tasted like it came out of a can, but the wine was great.


The next day, we were on a mission since it was our last day in Venice.  I wanted a gondola ride, my brother wanted to buy a mask for his girlfriend (hopefully she doesn't read my blog or has already gotten the mask), and we both wanted to hit the hard rock cafe.  The gondola was great, and the gondolier was a wonderful tour guide. 


Third day in Italy we went to Milan - one train ride that went perfectly.  A few doors down from our hotel was a sushi restaurant, so we spent a good few hours there just eating, drinking Sapporo, and talking.  Good times.  The rest of that day was pretty much a lazy day.  We went back to the hotel for naps and later that evening we headed to another "Italian" restaurant for some pizza and tiramisu... Olive Garden and home cooking, you ruined real Italian for me.

The next morning we planned to do some sight seeing since it was our last day in Italy.  We thought about taking the city bus tour, but once we got to Duomo di Milano, aka Milan Cathedral, we realized there were really only two things that we really wanted to see while in Milan.  The Duomo di Milano (right), and of course Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper". The cathedral was one of the most beautiful ones I've seen.  The high windows made the main parts of the cathedral glow with sunlight.  If you're ever in Milan, I definitely recommend visiting.  Entrance to the cathedral is free, but security is tight.



The Last Supper was somewhat more of an adventure.We walked half the city looking for the monastery, Santa Maria delle Grazie where it was painted. During World War II, the monastery was heavily damaged and at one point, the room where the painting is was being used as a stable!  So, needless to say, after all the restoration that had to be done on the building and the painting, they're very strict about how many people can be in the room with the painting at once, photography, etc.  You have to buy tickets in advance, either online or at the front desk, but if you pick the front desk, be prepared to wait a bit for your tour.


Time to go back to Vienna.  On our way back through Venice, we had a matter of minutes to catch our bus to Villach, and we missed it.  We waited for the next bus in the train station McDonalds for 3 hours; drinking Heineken and watching the store manager walk around watching customers like he was afraid they were going to steal their trays - that was surprisingly entertaining actually (the beer probably helped).  We finally did get onto the bus, but it was fully booked, so we had to sit on the stairs and the floor.  We were just glad to be on our way back to Austria. 

Next time: Will we make it back to Austria in time for my brother to go to school the next day?? Thanks for reading! 

Lands of My Ancestors - Part 1

"Excuse me, madam," said the woman with a thick German accent.  I turned my attention from the book I was reading on my iPod to the flight attendant addressing me.  "Would you care for some complimentary champagne?"  Music to my ears after hopping an airplane out of a dry country (and when I say "dry", I don't mean the desert country of Kuwait that I currently live in).

It was just after midnight on New Years Day, and I was on my way to Austria (via Frankfurt) to visit my brother for the holiday. (For those of you who don't know, my brother is in Vienna studying German for a semester.)  I must say, that was definitely a great way to kick off the new year!  When I landed in Frankfurt for my plane change, the flight attendants were handing out roses!  That might have just been what Lufthansa always  does, but I still LOVED it.  I did not, however, love the discovery that European airports really don't have that many moving sidewalks (at least there was only one between my two gates in Frankfurt, and it felt like they were about a mile apart... and I only had a 30 minute layover).  Still, I made it to my gate in time and before long I was landing in Vienna. 


One thing I was continually impressed with throughout my whole trip was having a professional car service driving me to and from the airports, train stations, and hotels.  My first driver was Turkish, and he spoke only a little English.  He was fluent in German, but of course I knew about as much German as he did English, so we both spent the ride trying to decipher what the other was saying. I thought it was fun though; meeting new FRIENDLY people from all over the world is awesome. :)


Since I arrived so early, the hotel didn't have a room ready for me yet.  Luckily, there was free wifi in the lobby, and the lady at the front desk was seriously the nicest.  I was able to get a message to my brother to let him know where I was.  He took me out for my first meal in Austria, and you'll never guess what it was.  Good old McDonald's.

St. Stephens Cathedral

We hadn't really planned to do much that day, so we walked around the downtown area where I was staying, and hit a tavern to get some Stiegl - an authentic Austrian beer.  It was pretty good, but after not drinking alcohol for so long, I could only drink a couple.  We wandered a little more, I took some pictures of the amazing architecture, and my brother took me to a street vendor selling Bratwurst, my favorite!  We still had a lot of time to kill after all that, so we hopped a couple trains and my brother showed me some of the sites and the places that he frequents.  In one of Vienna's main  train stations we got some sushi from a Chinese vendor.  

The next day we planned to go snowboarding.  I had gotten directions and the train schedule from the concierge at my hotel, so we had everything planned. Well, I overslept so we didn't make it up to the mountain until close to noon.  Plus we found out that our directions were slightly inaccurate.  We stayed on the train one stop too long, but we both thought it was pretty funny.  We ended up catching a taxi back to the right town instead of waiting for a train.  When we finally made it to the mountain, it was super slushy in the sunny areas and straight up ice in the shade, so we only made a couple runs before we decided to call it quits.  Snowboarding always makes me hungry so we found a nearby restaurant.  We shared a pizza and a couple bowls of the absolute best chili ever... EVER.   And of course, as with every meal (except McD's), we had some awesome Austrian beer - Puntigamer.


The third day was supposed to be the day we got to Italy.  My travel agent had warned me that Euro Rail tickets could be tricky to schedule, but I couldn't really understand the tickets to start with, so I just trusted that they would get me where I was going... WRONG.  The car picked us up from my hotel as scheduled - again, I absolutely love this service!  We caught the train we were supposed to be on, but after that is where things started to go wrong.  We were supposed to catch a BUS (could've fooled me since the tickets had EURORAIL all over them) from a little town in Austria called Villach to Venice Italy.  It didn't really matter since the bus we were scheduled for had left about 2 hours before our train from Vienna even pulled into the station at Villach (tricky schedule!).  Fortunately, the customer service lady in the train station spoke English well enough to put us on a train leaving for Venice at 4AM the next morning - more to come on that.  The little detour in Villach actually turned out to be a good thing though.  As I said, the customer service lady was fantastic and she directed us to a cozy little hotel a few blocks down the street.  I was able to get an internet connection at the hotel to contact my agent and figure out our new travel schedule, and we got some of the BEST steak ever at a little hidden restaurant down a dark street.  I really wish I had made a note of the restaurant's name... darn.


So far, Austria, you're pretty darn awesome!  In Part 2, I'll recount my adventure in Italy as my brother and I visit Venice and Milan.  Thanks for reading!

The Bucket List

So during this downtime between trips I've been thinking of all the great places in the world I'd like to see.  Of course, the budget-conscious side of me popped up and said, "you should check where the cheapest places to visit are" (yes, I talk to myself, but not in a split-personality/i-hear-voices kind of way).  Google is seriously my best friend!  I was able to find all kinds of pages where people have analyzed the living expenses in countries all over the world.  The website that got me started on this kick: http://opentravel.com/blogs/the-cheapest-places-to-live-in-the-world-500-a-month/.

Now, this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the places I want to visit, but it is a list of the cheapest places I want to go:  Costa Rica, Belize, Laos, Bali, Nepal, Bolivia, and Egypt.  Right now, I'm planning to visit the following countries this coming spring:  Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines.

For now though, I'm biding my time until January; then it's off to Austria and Italy!

P.S. I haven't forgotten about the Kuwait pictures and post.  Its a work in progress!