Our trip to Garmish (Part 1 of 3)

Well well well... I have been promising to write these posts for about a week now...but we got really busy last week. So please forgive me. haha! Julian and I had been wanting to do a little trip somewhere but had NO idea where. We were put on restrictions since I was 33 weeks pregnant at the time, that I was not allowed to leave the country just in case something happened. Well... that still means we have a whole country to explore! BAHAHA!

So last weekend Julian and I decided last minute(literally-we booked our hotel the night before we left....) that we were going to go to a town called Garmish-Partenkirchen. I really didn't know what to expect or really even where in Germany we were going...(for those that know me...my geography stinks...royally. haha) Its a good thing I trust my husband, right?! lol Come to find out when we arrived there that we were actually located on the southern border of Germany and Austria!

For a little reference, you can see down at the bottom the border of Germany and Austria and the Red A is where we were! (the blue dot is a dang advertisement from google...lol)  So anywho we decided we were going to make a trip down to Garmish and spend the weekend doing little tours around the area. Now let me paint a picture of what we saw when we got to the hotel. Julian and I got an amazing deal with the hotel we stayed at and although it was rated pretty well, we didn't know that what we were really getting was a five star hotel with amazing ammenities. What we didn't expect AT ALL was that our hotel backs up to what is called the Zugspitze-the highest point in Germany! They say if you stand on the top of this mountain( and its not foggy out-this is key. its always foggy there....) you can see into four different countries at the same time. Despite Julian asking once or twice, I told him that his pregnant wife was not going to risk going into labor to hike this mountain, but that I would take pictures from the bottom ;) It was beautiful and to think we could look out our window everyday and see this magnificent mountain. It was definitely one of those moments that makes you really realize your size and the magnificence of what the Lord has created around you. It was breathtaking. Now my pictures on my silly iPhone do not do this mountain justice. So you will have to either google Zugspitze to get a better idea of this mountain or just take a trip to Germany to see it yourself :) 

The whole area was just this forestry, green, mountainy area and it felt like a dream. It was utterly gorgeous! 

Well there is so much to tell about this trip as we had our fun little mishaps getting around Germany, we took two tours-First was to the Neuschwanstein castle (pronounced new-sh-fawn-stein) , which for those of you who don't know is the castle that Walt Disney designed Cinderella's castle around for Disney Land! The second day we went to what was the first concentration camp in Germany and it is called Dachau (pronounced doc-cow). That day was not nearly as cheery as you can imagine but was a great history lesson and I definitely learned a lot. So yes-this blog post will have actually three different parts to it. 

Part 1: this one! The overall trip! 

Part 2: Your own personal history lesson on Neuschwanstein castle and the king that built it(trust me, its actually kind of interesting :)

Part 3: Also a history lesson about Dachau, Germany at the time and all that stuff. Also interesting, and I will try and make it as non depressing as possible-but again-It wasn't a happy time in history. lol 

So for the rest of part one I will start with that morning we left. So I had a doctors appointment that morning and straight from there headed to the bus station. We caught a bus out of Bamberg around 1040. Now when you travel on train around here-they ask you:"Do you want the fast train or the slow train?" 

Julian says the proper response to this question is, "how much is the fast train?" 

They tell you 150 euro, 1 way. Julian's response to this: "We will be taking the slow train!!" 

The "slow train" cost us only 68 euro round trip for the both of us. So much much cheaper than 300 euro. haha. And although its the slow train, it really doesn't seem like that long of a trip. You tend to do a lot of changes and train hoppin (no not like the movies show where you are running and jumping on a passing train...haha) bouncing back and forth but its really not that bad. Not nearly as confusing as you would think it is. So we get on our first train that takes us to Nurnberg-this is about an hour away. Then we got on a train from Nurnburg to Munich. Lastly is from Munich to Garmish. Now inbetween Munich and Garmish, there was a bit of construction on the railroads so we also had the added adventure of getting dropped off in a town I do not remember and having to hop a bus to Garmish. haha but its an adventure right??!! Well going back, We get to Nurnburg, go to our next train, hop on and voila. Well halfway to Munich Julian asks the very daunting question- 

"Babe-Where is my wallet??" My heart stops. 

"What do you mean where is your wallet??!!" 

"Well I am hoping you have it because its not in my pocket or the backpack." 

Well come to find out, my husband fell into a deep slumber on the train from Bamberg to Nurnberg and it fell out of his pocket as some time or another. You all know me-I found someone on the train who spoke english and I was off chattin with her! I was sitting about 3 seats away from Julian and wasn't paying attention to his wallet! So to say the least we get to Munich and have our panic moments trying to call lost and found and talk to people who can't understand our English. Which is frustrating, because we are trying so hard to speak German but we are no where near good enough to communicate what the problem is. So we board our train from Nurnberg to Garmish and we are still trying to talk to Lost- And-Found. It was a MESS let me tell you! luckily-my husband is super smart and knows that when you pull out large amounts of cash/euro you divide it into different areas. So I had some on me, he had some and we had some in our suitcase. So LUCKILY! we had divided it up and Julian only had about 60 euro left in his wallet. So anyway:to make a long story short, we get to the hotel that night and Julian is reporting all of his cards and cancelling everything. I jokingly teased that "Well everyone says how honest the German people are, I guess we will see if its true!" 

So we wake up the next morning and begin our first adventure heading to the castle. On our way there, we get a call from Julian's sargeant. His wallet had been turned in! Not only to the lost and found at the train station but someone actually took the time to find it, bring it back to the military post in Bamberg and take it to the MPs(Military Police)! I could hardly believe it!!! It was amazing! Now-the money was taken out of the wallet but Julian teases that it was the finders fee! He didn't care that the money was gone, he was just glad to have his wallet back and get this: The darn boy was more excited to get the wallet back because of all his business cards he had aquired!! He didn't care that his US drivers license, his military ID and all his bank cards were lost: He was distraught that he had lost all of his business cards! Silly boy!

So that was our adventure on our way to Garmisch. I don't have much else to say in general. So give me a couple days to get all the pictures uploaded and the story written down and I will post part two for you all!! Thanks for reading!