Munich & Neuschwanstein

Wednesday August 19th

We woke up in Munich, once again to Russ' snuggles. I slept great last night! Surprising since the bed wasn't great and Tom's snoring continues! 

By 10:30 we were out the door to check out the Innenstadt of Munich. Today was a cloudy day with a little bit of rain.

This big arch, "Karl's Gate" I think, is kind of the doorway into Innenstadt.

I liked this building especially for all of it's flower pots. So many buildings & houses here have that. I love it, so gorgeous! 

It's been a little it chilly lately and in Switzerland the predicted weather is even colder. I was (am?) a little worried about getting cold because I don't even have full length pants with me! Crazy since I'm always getting cold easily. We were going past a lot of shops so I figured what the heck lets go in and see if there are some pants for cheap. I figured I'd find some sweat pants or something. We went into C&A, a big department store with good deals. I found some sweats that would work. (I mean who likes shopping for jeans?) Then on a whim I grabbed a pair of jeans off the cheapest shelf. I didn't know my European size, just grabbed one that looked ok and said I'll give it a try. By now Chelsie & I were by ourselves, so it was an accomplishment just finding the changing room, luckily the word was slightly similar to Spanish haha.

I went in and tried the pants and what do I find?

A miracle! Wunder! 

The pants for me perfectly. I started laughing I was so surprised.That never happens! Someone was watching out for me today ;) Needless to say I bought them, changed into them before we left the store and haven't been cold today! 

The main thing we saw in Munich was Rathaus. The building itself is really awesome. This one has kind of a functioning cuckoo clock.

All of these figures move with music every half hour! 

We stayed and waited for the 12:00 bells, maybe it made us a little coo-coo!

Everyone was ready to video as they waited for it to start.

We also went into a big church. Frauen Kirche. The outside was covered in scaffolding, but this is the inside:

A famous thing with this one is this footprint. It's supposed to be the footprint of the devil because he was forced to leave the church & stomped his foot because he was so mad. 

Also in Munich there was this trio of greet performers playing very difficult music very very well. I was really impressed! 

From there Russ and I picked up our new rental car and it was back on the road. Today was a lot of driving. As our first leg we went a few hours to Neuschwanstein. Once again every bit of the drive was beautiful.

There are cows everywhere here.

Finally Neuschwanstein was in site! This is the famous castle that the Disney castle was modeled after. It was a little bit out of the way but totally worth. I would recommend it to anyone in the area! 

This isn't the main castle, but a small one just across the way. Hohenschwangau. Is that a mouthful or what?!

It's a short little hike up to the main castle, and you can go up on a bridge above for an amazing view! 

Unfortunately all our other pictures from this part of our adventure are on our camera. It was incredible though, one of my favorite stops.

From there it was 3 more hours of driving into Switzerland. I sound like a broken record...but the drive was awesome. We went through a lot of little cities, really cute. 

There were these May Pole type things in a lot of the towns.

A good chunk of our drive was on the "romantic road", how fun is that?! Rob & Ang had been on the road during their trip last summer so I was excited to be there too. 

Russ and I had a lot of fun on this drive. It was beautiful of course; but we also talked a lot about our missions, I love being able to talk about both our missions. The majority of the time was Russ giving me a long German lesson. It really is fun learning new words and phrases, I love it! And I can now say an entire prayer in German! 

Tonight we are staying in Gimmelwald, Switzerland. Which is a teeny tiny town up on a cliff in the Swiss Alps. We were going to get there at like 11:30 . . . But it wasn't until about 11:20 that we remembered you can only get there by a tram/gondola up the mountain (awesome, I know) but the last tram was at 11:45. It was a bit of a scramble to get there in time but luckily we made it! I was so bummed that it was dark as we rode the tram up because it will be a beautiful view! 

We stepped off the tram into a cloud! Literally, foggy. We are staying at Pension Gimmelwald, it is a cozy little place and I love the atmosphere of it all! 

Our cute little room for Chelsie, Russ and I:

This sign is down in the common area of

Pension Gimmelvald, what a cool area! 

Tomorrow we explore the Alps!