That´s right, we´re in Germany.Not in our itinerary, but when a tour of the lavender fields in the south of France fell through, we headed over to Germany for a whirlwind visit and will spend an extra 2 days in Paris. Let me tell you, though, side trips are exhausting. We didn´t have any idea what was in Munich, besides beer halls, and had no idea how to work anything at all. We made it, though, and we´re going to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle tomorrow (made famous by crazy king Ludwig who built it, then even more famous by Disney who was inspired by it). I´m pretty excited to see this fairy-tale place, and it will also be really nice to spend almost a week in one place. We were lucky enough to be able to basically extend our reservation at our Paris hostel. We have done some Internet searches and I think our castle visit will be fairly smooth... all in all, a successful side trip.
On a different note, the more we travel, the more I realize that Sarah and I really stand out from the locals (as well as from the Asian tour groups, who often outnumber the locals). In Colmar, where we were last night, a lady pulled up in her car and asked us where some Rue
was, in French of course. I thought she was crazy for thinking we were locals, but decided to take it as a compliment. Of course we couldn´t tell her where to go, but we answered politely (in English) that we were from out of town. It was nice... sort of. Ten minutes later we were standing helplessly in a self-service cafe, looking absolutely helpless. A table of young men were not even trying to cover up the fact that they were laughing at us.We really do seem like barbarians sometimes. I´m wearing two shades of navy that do not work together at all--and one of them is a sweatshirt. We picnicked on the train on the way here... we had a baguette and some salami, neither of which did any favors for the leather.
My time is up... more later!
