Gorgeous.

We took a train from Munich to Hohenschwangau. On the train I tried to sleep, but for some reason I couldn't. I think I have gotten three hours of sleep each night on this trip. From waking up early and going to bed super late, I haven't slept much. And when I do sleep, I twist myself in the bedsheets and apparently talk in my sleep, so I know that I am not fully resting. But also, I have not been tired at all. So, on train rides and down time, I have tried to write in my journal about all of the wonderful events of this trip.

Anyhow, today, first we went to Hohenschwangau castle where Ludwig grew up. We took a tour of the castle and then walked over to Neuschwanstein. And when I say walked, I mean climbed a mountain. As I have mentioned before, I am from Florida. Florida barely has hills. And a hill is classified as maybe ten feet high. So for those who wouldn't call walking to Neuschwanstein climbing, I beg to differ. Anyways, about fifteen hours after the climb, we made it. We took the pictures that everyone takes. We went on the tour and through the gift shop. It was absolutely gorgeous and much like a fantasy. It was really cool to see something that is so famous in person. It was so amazing too because it had snowed before we arrived so there was fresh snow everywhere. It was like a winter wonderland. Everything was so picture perfect that I didn't want to take any pictures, I just wanted to stare at it all.

On the way down from the mountain, we took a different path. This was a more direct path down but not paved. So we basically walked in the snow, making footprints the whole way down. It was so cool. I saw, for the first time in my life, yellow snow. Pretty funny because they obviously tried to write their name. We couldn't make it out that well. We had snowball fights the whole way down. And we also hit branches to have the snowfall on each other. I felt about 10 years old, but it was so worth it.

After we came down from the mountain, we wanted to go back to Munich so we could have our farewell dinner. The next day was a trip to Salzburg and our professor wanted to give us time to pack and get ready for our departures the following day. So we were all starving and cold. Apparently, snow is made from water. Water, just like in Florida, gets jeans wet. And wind blowing on wet jeans in below 25 degree weather is even colder than just below 25 degree weather. Needless to say, I was miserable. I was so tired but couldn't sleep on the train because I had a seat close to the door. The door that opens to the outside, where the wind is, the cold wind. I don't think I have ever been colder.

But I survived. I made it back to the hotel and took a warm, scalding shower. We got dressed, went to dinner, and had a great time celebrating the trip. We talked about places we had seen, things we did, and jokes of the trip. It was quite fun.