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Nuremberg!! The land of Christmas and Nazis.....ok more Christmas than Nazis, but Hitler spent a lot of time here, so I had to include that somewhere. We went this time, at first to just hang around the Christkindelsmarkt all day, but then to go and see the Nazi buildings and such that are still left in Nuremberg. Well, our trip to get to Nuremberg was quite interesting in and of itself. To begin, we had to get a train from Mainz to Aschaffenburg at 6:49 am. This time and the ride itself was not bad at all. We met up with one of the girls from our "Schiller" class and talked to her for a bit before she went and joined her group again since they were going to Munich. Now, at Aschaffenburg is where the situation got a little intense. When we unloaded and prepared to get on the next train, we realized that it was going to be a little full since Würtzburg is THE connection point for people going to either Nuremberg or Munich. In any event, Isaac and I were able to secure a seat, after standing for about 15 minutes of the trip. This, my friends, was NOTHING compared to going from Würtzburg to Nuremberg....OMG! When we got to Würtzburg, Isaac and I decided that we better stand close to the edge of the train platform so that we could essentially rush the train and get seats. This, we did, but a lot of people didn't get a seat anywhere, even the group from Mainz going to Munich was SOL. Then, we kept picking up MORE and MORE people each town that we stopped in, until they basically said that the train was too full. Well this is where the problems started. When we got to Ipenhole (or something like that) the train kinda skidded along the tracks. Afterwards, the conductor made some announcement about too many people or something, but nobody got off the train b/c there was some sort of Soccer match in Nuremberg, and all of the soccer fanatics wanted to get to the stadium in time. So then the train proceeded to go to Nuremberg. Now when I say this train was full, I mean there was NO movement b/c of all the people standing as well as the large amount of people sitting. Anyways, when we were about 10 km outside of Nuremberg Hbf, the train went to brake to slow down, and then it slid along the tracks, then stopped, then slid some more. After this happened, the announcer came on the intercom and said that the train could not go any further b/c of technical difficulties, and that nobody was to exit the train. This announcement, my friends, did jack. People saw that the road into the city was quite close, so they started just getting off of the train in droves. Isaac and I waited b/c I didn't want to get off and take a chance of getting hit by another train or something, but after sitting there for about 30 minutes and having the announcer come on and say that he didn't know how long it would take to get another train to come get us, we decided to hop off too. Luckily we hopped off when we did , b/c as we were walking away, the police showed up and more than likely stopped the others from getting off of the train (we don't know b/c we left and booked it to the metro station).
After arriving at the Hbf, we walked across the street and went into the tourist office so that I could buy a guidebook along with asking for directions to the Zeppelin Field and the Kongresshalle. We found out that we had to take the train from the Hbf out to the outskirts of the city to get to the Kongresshalle, which is where the museum about the rise of Hitler is located. After reaching the Kongresshalle, we went inside and toured the museum. It was really cool, but it took FOREVER to get all the way through. Afterwards, Isaac and I struck out to find the Große Straße and Zeppelin Field. We found the Great Road, and then later found the field with the remains of the Grand Tribune--well what was left after the Americans blew up the Swastika in '45 and then the Germans blew up the Colonnade in '67. It was really cool to see, and Isaac and I both went and stood on Hitler's podium and looked out onto the field and imagined 100,000 people standing there listening to what I had to say.....it was intense.
After seeing the Nazi buildings, Isaac and I made our way down to the Christkindelsmarkt, which is basically the WHOLE city, and looked around for a bit b/4 heading back to the train station to catch the train home. If we thought it would be better going home, we were wrong. IT WAS MORE FULL! We had to stand the WHOLE way from Nuremberg to Würtzburg. Luckily Isaac got us a seat from Würtzburg to Aschaffenburg, but there is where the problem came up. I though we had to transfer in Aschaffenburg and not go all the way to Frankfurt, but I was wrong b/c by the time we got to Aschaffenburg, the last train to Mainz had left, and when we realized this, the other train had left too.....so we had to wait for a half an hr to get another train to Frankfurt. Then in Frankfurt we had to wait and Hr to get one to Mainz!!! CRAZINESS!!!
In any event, the trip was awesome, and I'm totally going to have to go back so that I can see the rest of the city that doesn't involve National Socialism. There are some AWESOME castles and Albrecht Dürer's house.....and I really wanna see those......
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