germany day 10.....

day 10....(part 1)

today we spent the entire day playing tourist. which is completely acceptable when you go to a foreign country. you need to check things out. even president obama took the time to visit yellowstone when he was in montana.

first we headed to dachau. now, this isn't a place that everyone got all excited about. in fact, i'd say that when you go to germany, feel free to not mention: world war II, hitler, nazis, concentration camps or anything related to said topics, at least to the locals. they really would prefer to forget that part of their history. but for me, because of what i learned in public school, i felt the need to see things. (all the kids in germany go on field trips here, they really don't forget or pretend that it didn't happen, they are all very respectful.)

dachau was a very interesting experience. i felt no need to take pictures during my time there. not that you couldn't take pictures, i just really felt like it shouldn't be a place where you take tourist photos. i did buy some postcards, because i felt the need to support what they are doing there. (and the postcards had all the pictures that i would have taken on my own.) they have taken a very sad, somber place and made it full of educational things. so full that you'd have to spend 2 days there in order to read it all and take it all in. we did not spend that much time. they don't sugar coat things, so be prepared for the truth. they also don't make things sensational or hollywood-style. if it didn't happen there, they will tell you. and if it did, they will tell you that also. there are no embellishments and no censors. i wouldn't bring little kids. wait until everyone is old enough to understand that yelling, screaming, crying or playing isn't something that is acceptable here, at least to me. i don't remember anyone out of line. and personally, i'd recommend that they are old enough to deal with some of the emotions of seeing pictures of the dead. sometimes i didn't feel old enough to be there.

a couple of things really shocked me about dachau. first was that there is a city of dachau. lots of people live there. and the camp isn't in the middle of the city, but it isn't outside of the city either. i fully expected dachau (the concentration camp) to be out in the middle of no where and its not. it is very much in the middle of things. but as soon as you walk through the gate that says "arbeit macht frei" (roughly translated into "work will make you free") you aren't in the middle of a bustling city, you are in the middle of no where.

the second thing that shocked me (and hans and evi) was how much information is there. 20 years ago when evi and hans went there, they said there wasn't nearly as much.

the third thing is how big it was. this place wasn't small. not by any means. not compared to anything. and there were 100s of concentration camps. i thought there were only a few, the few big names that you hear about. but there were so many. when you see a map with all of them listed, it shocks the hell out of you. at least it did me.

after we had completely worn out our eyes from all the reading and learning, we walked around and wore out our legs. like i said, the place was huge. and emotional exhausting.

when we could no longer take any more, we left and headed to munich. because munich seemed like a different day, i'm going to post that separately. also because i took 98 pictures while we were in munich, the first day.

germany day 9

day 9......



the best way to start any day is with breakfast. and apparently in germany, breakfast is catered to kids, just like here. only here we have sugary cereals with cartoons and marshmallows. they don't eat cereal for breakfast in germany. you get rolls and cheese and cold cuts. marshmallows are not allowed. but this is completely acceptable:



teddy bear meat. it was pretty much like bologna, only in the shape of a teddy bear.









he looks cute enough to eat! hehe!



tante baerbi and onkle franco left after breakfast. we missed them immediately. but we were off to sight see!




we headed to the ettal abby or kloster ettal, depending on where you are from. and the cheese factory behind the abby.





this was a mural that i saw from the parking lot. just on some one's house. i thought my dad would like it. actually, i think that if my dad didn't have a house with plastic siding, he should put these all over the outside. dad? what do you think?









so here is a little history of the abby. for those of you who don't read german, just check out the numbers. the abby started in 1330! it (i think) burned down a couple times and is currently a school. pretty impressive.

here's the view just as you step into the courtyard. it is beautiful. and if the day had been clear, you would have seen some pretty impressive (even by montana standards) mountains.

this is the inside. i'm going to take a big guess, since i'm not totally up on my abby-language and layout, but this seemed like the main alter.

much more exciting to me was the ceiling. it was so amazing. really, really beautiful. and i'm sure that if you were to attend mass, it would be quite acoustic. but the coolest part was the fact that the bavarians had their own style. and when they did big mural type painting like this, there was always one part that they sculpted. there was a leg that stuck out on this one. and i thought the style was called baroque, but when i googled it, i didn't see where it mentioned a painting and a sculpted piece. (apparently, i was not an art history major) anyways, it is pretty neat because unless you are looking of the part the isn't painted, you don't notice it right away.












here's the view as you are leaving the courtyard. which we did and headed around back to the cheese factory.







on the way to the cheese factory, i saw this. and i took this picture because it was funny. and i think that you don't need a translation to get the meaning. very good advertising. but i also took it because i thought it looked like dewey from malcolm in the middle, which is one of my dad's favorite shows. and i thought he'd like the picture.



the cheese factory was an amazing place, full of decadence. it is a fairly new place, so the building just looked like a regular building that you'd see anywhere. and they have special monk cheese. and they have cheese that monks put bacteria (the yummy kind) on everyday for three months, by hand. we got to watch a movie on it, in english.



we indulged in the best yogurt i have ever had, super stinky cheese (but it was soooooo good) and cheesecake. the funniest part about the stinky cheese, was that the cheese factor had a pretty strong odor, so there was no idea how stinky the cheese was until we unwrapped it the next day. holy moly! stinky enough to about knock you over. but it was probably the best cheese i've ever had. darn monks know how to make cheese!

then we headed to murnau to see tante petra and her two boys. we saw the school were tante petra teaches art. we had a nice italian dinner with her and the boys. and just had a nice evening visiting with them.

excuses, excuses....

so my computer broke. the mother board went out. that is why there was (yet, another) huge delay in posting.

and while i probably should just give up on posting about germany (because it has been so long since i was actually there) my excuse is that it forces me to go through my photos. which means that i delete the bad ones and edit them so that if i ever wanted to make prints or something i actually could do that. and so by blogging, i get it done. its my excuse. maybe not a great one, but it works for me!

if you are completely tired of germany, well, then you are just silly. i mean, i haven't even gotten to the best part yet!

germany day 8

day 8.....

this was the day that i spent the most time taking photos of caesar.

it was just kind of a family day, hanging around, visiting, all that good stuff.

i do have some photos of places around oberammergau.

so here you go:

this is the house across the street from where we were staying. if the clouds weren't so low, you could see the view we would have had.

o'gau is in the valley, so there are mountains all around.

i'd say a very small valley. its quite cozy, or claustrophobic, depending on how you view things.

this is a random house that i snapped a photo of....i just liked it.

this is a mural that i liked. i actually thought that my dad would really like it, so i took the picture for him. (hey dad! you like it? its pretty sweet, huh?) o'gau is the city of murals, just like whitehall....crazy!

these ducks were just chilling by the water when we went on our walk. and since i was taking photos of caeser, i had my camera out and ready.

and i caught them as they took off...

and as they flew away....

and as they landed.....what you don't see is that as soon as i focused on the ducks, caeser did too and chased them into the water. he would have probably jumped all the way in if hans and i hadn't been yelling at him. later, we found out that it would have been no big deal if he got all wet (he was wet from the snow anyways) but i didn't want to have to explain why the dog went swimming when he was back with us during the walk.

this could be my favorite thing in o'gau. except oma, of course. this is the o'gau castle. i'm told that someone built it just because they liked castles and that it isn't all that old, like the rest of the castles in europe. but i like to think that it is old and that it was a castle for the royal family of o'gau and that there was a beautiful o'gau princess who lived there. and then my story goes all over the place, from the princess being held captive or being free or being hidden in o'gau for all sorts of reasons but it all pretty much ends with her falling in love with a very handsome man, who, oddly enough, looks just like hans. *sigh* the end.

germany day 7

day 7.....

was one of those days.

we woke up to this......snow....lots of snow.....lots of snow falling from the sky......




it was like christmas everywhere......




but what do you expect from the country that invented christmas....i mean, just look at all those christmas trees, no wonder!

but despite the nasty weather, we decided to take a trip to Schloss Linderhof. which just happens to be a castle. its a little one, but it still is a castle. in fact, its the only castle in which king ludwig built, finished and actually got to live in.

you aren't allowed to take pictures of the inside. such a bummer. so i can only show you pictures of the outside, in the snow.



here's the castle. that's the whole thing! see those people, they are standing right next to the castle waiting to get in. most people think of a castle as being excessively large. i think this one makes up for size with everything inside it and the grounds around it. apparently there are some really amazing gardens and fountains and such all around this castle. but in the winter, there are just piles of snow. so if you'd like the full experience, go in the summer.





this dude is on top of the castle. check out that detail! i mean, everyone knows who's castle it was, but unfortunately for the artists who built it, they just don't get the credit they deserve.




check out this carving....its so beautiful! (and bonus, boobs!) come on, what would a trip to europe be without some boobs? this won't be the first pic of boobs....

see? but this one is just one boob. because, well, i'm not sure why you'd just have one boob hanging out of your dress... either way, boobs are beautiful, even if we don't display them as prominently here in the states.

babies are always a favorite. actually are these considered cherubs? either way, too cute and so artistic! i mean, the detail is amazing...and its a white building with an amateur photographer taking pictures in the snow! so you know the detail has to be there, otherwise it wouldn't have shown up at all in the photos!

this guy has a tough job. i mean, just look at him! his face looked the most pained, that's why he got his photo taken.

ok, one more statue. this one is my favorite. (i could have shown you all of the statues on the castle but then you wouldn't need to go over to germany and see it for yourself.) so what exactly is he doing with his hand?

hey! that's not very friendly! crazy germans, show us boobs and then flip us the bird. (ok, so technically he's probably not flipping the bird. his other fingers have just 'conveniently' broke off and that one stayed. but it is funny!)

speaking of birds. check out this cute lil guy. he was trying to get out of the snow.

and this guy too! i have no idea what this bird was there for. but it was a great way to get hans to smile. and check out that snow! i mean, it is really coming down! it was not so great for the camera. i attempted to hold an umbrella over the camera, but it takes two hands to shoot, so you really only have a shoulder and your head to hold the umbrella. i recommend an assistant.

here's a cute pond. there were swans at the other end of it. swans are the royal symbol in germany, i think. well, at least that's the impression that i got.

this is a hotel near the castle. i didn't go inside but i had to include it because this is what i think of when i think of germany. this style of architecture. and maybe the snow.



i mean, if someone showed you this photo and asked where it was taken, wouldn't you say germany? could there be any other place that this represents? well, to me, this is germany.

and look how much it is snowing! but i do love the way this building looks. even if you have to squint through all the snow to see it.

the rest of the day wasn't nearly as cool as schloss linderhof. (schloss = castle)

germany day 7 & 8 part 1....

day 7 and 8 were spent doing various things, but one of the things i did was take lots and lots of pictures of Caesar. caesar is a german shepard. of course, in germany they call them shepard dogs, not germany shepards. it cracks me up. but that's just me. dogs don't get complexes like people when you take their photo, so they are easy targets for people like me. plus, onkel franco asked me to. i'm not sure if i got any that he liked, but it was fun and probably was good practice for me.

meet caesar, he's a cutie. and actually he lives in italy. so technically, he's not german....

look how sweet he is....he was like a big teddy bear....

and look how cute...hairy little feet...

he was very comfortable in the snow....

hans played with him, by tossing him snowballs...caesar loved it...and i thought this was a neat action shot....

but this one is even better....he was really good at catching....

and this is what caesar would look like, right before he ripped your face off.....i even think it would be all blurry like that....

just kidding. he'd never do that.

i hope.

(blogger isn't working with me on formatting tonight, so sorry about the lack of spaces...)

germany interrupted again....

yesterday was the 4th of july and while i know everyone is dying to see more photos of germany, i just have to share my fireworks pic.

i'm only going to share one. my favorite one. i think it is super-duper awesome.

we just watched everyone else's fireworks from our house. we watched from our living room, from our screened in porch, from our balcony (when we were snapping pics) and from our bed. the fireworks when until midnight here. it seemed that many people traveled outside the state to bring in the biggest and the best. hans and i were just glad to have so many to watch. (and that our house didn't burn down.)

there are probably 100 ways to get photos of fireworks, i went with this method. its too bad the 4th of july only comes once a year. because i feel like i could be a professional fireworks photographer and be happy the rest of my life. it was just so much fun.

i'm really proud of this one. what do you think? sweet, huh? (maybe i don't want to know if you think that it sucks.)

i took a whole bunch of pics....a bunch! and i think i have several to pick from that are good, but this one was my fav when i went through them this morning.

hope everyone had a good 4th!!!

(oh...and just an FYI....this is without major photo-shopping! (i only took out a couple really loud noisy spots) how cool is that!)

germany day 6....

day 6

we slept in. we were just so tired from the day before, that we took it easy and didn't rush.

we had lunch with oma and opa (grandma and grandpa).

i had the brook trout...this was so yummy...and really beautifully presented. i didn't eat the red hot peppers though!

we played cards with Tante Petra. i was busy playing, so no pics....

we wandered around O'gau (Oberammergau) in the rain. i didn't want to get my camera wet...

and then Tante Baerbi and Onkel Franco came up from italy. Baerbi made us an amazing dinner that included fresh buffalo mozzarella....so fresh that it was still warm when she bought it that morning! no pics to share, sorry....

sorry day 6 wasn't very exciting, at least it was easy to blog about!

germany day 5.....

....so we've been back from germany for months and months and months...and after being sick and getting better and being sick and being sick and having surgery and being sick....i'm FINALLY feeling pretty darn good! but with feeling better, you have to play catch up on everything you've been neglecting....and it seems that blogging gets neglected the most....

so, if you are interested in our germany trip still....feel free to read on, if not, just skip this post and hope i have something more interesting to write about later....

day 5

we got up and headed out of Ammerthal and to the 'german ranch'. (before we left the states i googled and searched and emailed people in germany to try and find a german angus ranch that was somewhere near where we were going to be.) one of them wrote back and were more than happy to have us stop by.

not only do they ranch, but they have a hotel, restaurant and sell their beef to local places....lots of work!

this is what we saw on right outside of the town the ranch was near. seriously....it looks spooky....people live CLOSE to this thing! well, too close for me!



we got to check out a bunch of cows....notice how their cows are in a shelter? they baby their cows a whole lot more than we do here. i think they put their cows in at night, every night...but they don't run 100's and 100's of cows either.


the babies are cute there too!


even a ranch dog. i think there was two running around....


we chatted...well, i should say that they chatted. most germans speak really, really good english but they get nervous. so there was a lot of german spoken. i think that evi learned more about ranching from having to translate than she knew from talking with hans. but that is kind of the way ranching is here, people just expect you to know things. i like to explain things to people. every time i talk to my grandma, i explain what we do, how we do it and why we do it. mostly because everything is new to me and i like to know things. so i explain them to my grandma and she really likes it because she's never been on a ranch and all of the terminology is new to her too.


this is a great photo to show you a little of germany...notice the sky, this might have been the best weather we had. and the semi in the background, a very rare sight in germany....and flat...here anyways, i'll have more pictures of mountains for you later. :)

these girls were curious...they even licked me....

i thought they had such cute faces....to me, a cute face is an important trait in cattle, especially females. no one wants bully looking cows!


this is one of his fields where a few of his cows were and one big bull. flat, flat....nice soil...not rocky like ours.


oh yeah...i know you've all been waiting for this....after we were done looking at the cows, we went back to their restaurant to chat. this is what they served us as a snack....holy moly...it was so amazing! i finished mine and our host promptly got up and got me another....i could have had a third, but i declined. it was soooooo good.....his wife made them. nothing beats homemade yummy-ness in germany.


and then after our chats and photos, we left....drove past the creepy nuclear power plant and saw this. it was just too crazy to pass up, so we stopped and snapped some pics. i think it was an artist's sculpture garden, but it just looked like a radioactive accident. i would have got the nuclear plant in the background, but there were trees in the way.

storks! they must have already dropped the babies off....

here's my favorite sign we found in germany....frog crossing. so apparently, they put up these signs to warn people of the migrating frogs. (squished frogs are slippery??) and once they really start migrating, they put up a little frog fence to keep them from crossing the road. then someone come by and picks up the frogs on one side and puts them on the other side of the road, all safe and sound. there was no fence yet and no frogs but the sign totally cracked me up.

finally, we made it to O'gau. visited with the grandparents, stuck our stuff in the house we were staying at and went to grab some grub.

and here's a cell phone pic to prove that i didn't just eat dessert the whole time. but check out this salad....veggies, a little lettuce (not the crappy iceberg) and a little dressing. you don't get to choose your dressing, but it was yummy. germans don't eat a ton of fruits and veggies, but they sure know to stay away from piles of iceberg!