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Mickey- We spent last night walking around the city after having our bike tour cancelled because of the weather. It was a lot of fun and we got lost and found lots of cool monuments and statues and such (with lots of pictures!). I was on the hunt for a German restaurant so I could enjoy one of my favorite foods, bratwurst. It took a long, long time because surprisingly there are a lot more Turkish and Italian places in Munich than German ones! We eventually found one in a touristy region of the city (could have guessed that...) and enjoyed some bratwurst and spaetzle. :P We met some interesting people on our little adventure as three different people all came up to us and asked if we needed a picture taken of both of us when they saw us taking pictures. Another girl asked us if we needed help when she saw us looking at a map... in general people seem really, really nice here. We also saw a group of older (fat...) men in matching short (very short) jean-shorts and white tshirts. We have no idea why and we didnt ask, but it cracked us up! :) We went to bed early(ish) so we could make it to the tour of Rothenburg we wanted to take the next day (today). The morning was a little stressful since we were both super tired and we had to check out and hope to find another hotel since we´d only booked Dolomite for 2 nights. Luckily, we found a hotel close by (actually a pension) for cheaper and took it for the night, with time to drop off our bags and run to the train station to meet our tour guide. Our tour guide was a little, bald man from Switzerland named Mian who is an retired history teacher. He was dressed in matching greens and browns with many interesting accessories such as a scarf, sweater that he never actually wore but had tied around his shoulders, a hat with little ear flaps turned upwards, and a ear muffs to finish off his look. He reminded me of a fashionable elf. We traveled on three different trains for about 3 hours until we finally reached Rothenburg (note: Joseph slept on my lap 2 of these hours and wouldnt entertain me, so I was extremely bored and resorted to looking for freckles on his scalp). :)
Joseph - I go pee and come back to this extensive blog by mickey. (girls amiright?) Well all that is left to talk about is the gorgeous town of Rothenburg. To give you a visual, this town is sorrounded completely by a stone wall with towering towers towering over the walls at certain points. We started the tour with the lovely fact that the specific enterance we entered was where all the executions took place. Mian asked us to take a big whiff and asked us in his fashionable swiss accent "kan zou zmell de blud?" ... we smelt it (not kidding, it was quite eerie actually). Unfourtounately, that was about the last fact he told us. The rest of his "tour" was him walking and telling us what we were looking at. Not much history for a history teacher. Anyways (Mickey-thats not a word), (joseph -- can you say Grammar Nazi! (appropiate joke seeing that we are in Germany), so ANYWAYS, we spent the first part of the tour walking on the great wall of Rothenburg (we had a chinese guy touring with us as well). Beautiful sights, great view, and sparked the imagination of how life used to be. SO mickey feels my blogging is insufficient so on to the great blogger herself
*drumroll*
:) Joseph may call me a grammar nazi but he has me edit his blog everytime!! WAPPA. So, all I wanted to add is that I loved how our guide told us the story of General Tilly (a Swede gone bad... taking a bribe to join the Catholics in the 30 years war against the Protestants)
(joseph- FUN FACT- the 30 years war was actually not 30 years long)
trying to invade Rothenburg while we were standing in the very spot where the Rothenburgians (?) were trying to defend it. It made it very creepish and interesting. He explained about how Tilly tried for four days and failed to get past the giant tower so he snuck into the town through a gate in the middle of the night and conquered the city. But then he failed at keeping it, I guess, since he dared a guy to drink a 3 1/2 liter boot´s worth of wine to save Rothenburg and the guy did it. But now this is turning into more of a history lesson than a blog... so back to Joseph and his "majestic words about the towering towers of Rothenburg". :)
J.J.- Majestic my words are indeed. I learned of a law I actually respect, The Law of Architectual Preservement. This law denies homeowners in the town the right to change anything from its orginal medieval design, only restoration is allowed. Which was cool for us because we got to see a house that was 900 years old (and still strong!). We then proceded to the famous criminal history muesum! Here we saw all the fun torturing devices and punishments bestowed on anyone who even breathed the wrong way.
Joseph favorites- The witchchair (which was a chair filled with spikes), The Pig mask (we have pictures, but for now it is a mask for people who acted like pigs, for example my beagle megan),all the different limb stretchers and benders and twisters oh my.
Mickey´s favorites: The tickle-torturer! They would chain you to a wall and the rule was that anyone passing could tickle you. They also put salt on your feet so people could let their goats lick it off... hilarious! Also the chastity belts were pretty funny... oh, and another shame mask that had huge ears and mouth and eyes for gossipers who saw and heard everything and then told everyone afterwards. (This was only for women...) Also for women was a piece of wood that held two people together (neck violin) for when two women were fighting. (It forced them to stop since they were stuck together for like a week). Aaaaah, if only the laws were so funny now :D
Joseph- To sum up the rest of the day, we explored the city and ate the local delights called snowballs. This pastry has been around and invented in Rothenburg dating back to the medieval times. (ehh, it tasted medieval) We are having a great time together and hope to have many more adventures before ultimately heading to Sweden around the 9th.
Mickey- Next is Austria, we´re hoping to check out some of the smaller towns and the places my grandparents and Joseph´s dad recommended. We leave tomorrow morning for Kitzbuhel! May or may not have wifi for a while.... we shall see :)
J- Ü - looks like a smiley face :D
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