Saturday, June 26, 2010

Fahrten

It's been a week since I posted already! Well you didn't miss much, I've been pretty busy with school, but I'm making some plans for upcoming weekends with some friends I want you to know about. I still have 4 places I could travel to by my Flexi-pass.  So far, here's what we've got planned:

First weekend of July: Berlin
We want to see: The Brandenburg Gate, the wall, the Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, Topography of Terror, the Victory Column, Alexander Platz, Potsdamer Platz, the Jewish Museum Berlin, and if time, the Zoo and the "Museum Island" which has several museums (Pergamom Museum, the Egyptian Museum, Old Museum, New Museum, Old National Gallery, and the Bode Museum) all for the base price of 12 Euros.  The nice thing is that many of these sights are free, the only things we are paying for are museums, Checkpoint Charlie, and the Zoo. We found a hostel that's about 14 Euros a night right near the train station for easy access for us.

Price of Berlin (not incl. food and rest)42 Euros (Student pricing, and if we see EVERYTHING, the Zoo + its Aquarium being about 1/2 the cost)

Second weekend of July: Munich
Munich isn't as planned yet because we have so much to think about with Berlin coming up so soon.  What we do want to make sure we see for sure is the concentration camp in Dachau which is 45 min outside of Munich so it's not even directly in town.  The length of time we will spend in Munich may vary, we have it on a 4 day weekend, but I'm not sure how long we will want to stay.
(so far) Price of Munich (not incl. food and rest): 9.20 Euros (student prices + bus from Munich to Dachau)

Third weekend of July: Rothenburg ob der Tauber
This is the one I'm really looking forward to.  My must-see stop is the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum.  Another interesting thing to do would be the Night Watchman's Tour.  There is a man who dresses up in medieval clothing and holds a lantern and does a walk around the wall that surrounds the town at dusk.  He tells you all about what his job would have included and history of the town for about  6 Euros, so not a bad deal.  We also would like to stop at St. Jacob's Church, because it's supposed to be very interesting, as well as the Convent Garden (no link, sorry!).

The town is supposed to be the best in Germany for tourist shopping, so I plan to do a lot of my gift finding here.  I wrote down addresses to three shops that sounded particularly good: Friese Shop, Passage 12, and Werkstattladen Lebenshilfe.


We have also located a hostel here as we planned to make it a two day event. There is one place we wanted to stop for food and a drink called Trinkstube zur Hölle.  Which translates to the "Drinking hall/lounge to Hell."(The website notes that a "warm" welcome awaits you!)  There's a little devil outside apparently too.  It is noted for being especially touristy, but looked like fun anyway, especially since it was built in 900 AD.

Total Price for Rothenburg (not incl. Food and Rest): 7.30 Euros (all at student pricing)


My last weekend in Germany, I would like to visit Rose (a classmate of mine from WLC also studying abroad in Germany this summer as well) in Würzburg.  Hopefully we can meet up and talk about how our trips are going so far and use our newly furthered German skills. :)

Since I have no new pictures right now, here's a video of a street performer in Göttingen:
http://www.facebook.com/video/?upload#!/video/video.php?v=441139408967