Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, sieben, aucht, nuen, zehn

This should be quick because it’s late and I haven’t even posted the blog I wrote yesterday yet because I’m waiting for internet access! We had dinner in at the Augustiner bierhaus in Munich tonight…currywurst, pommes frites and I ordered their Augustine “Schnitt” which are waitress said meant “small beer.” For those who don’t know, I really don’t like beer, but I felt that when sitting in a bierhaus in Munich, I had no choice but to order one. Fortunately, the Schnitt was not only small, but tasted like they’d mixed it about 50/50 with water, so not even much beer taste…I’ll take it! All the people reading this who actually enjoy beer are just groaning, I can hear it now! :)
Today will mostly stick in my mind as a lot of riding on a train (about 4 hours), but we actually saw some really cool stuff in between the train rides (and besides, where else does the view from your train window include village after village built in the valleys of green-forested hills with ruined castles standing on the hill above the red-roofed homes?) We got to see a real castle today…Wartburg. It was built in the 12th century and some of the structures are still original!! It stands on a large hill overlooking Eisenach and is built right into and onto the living rock of the mountain. It was largely refurbished and renovated in the 1800’s so that a more modern ruling family could live there comfortably, but even in the early days it was a remarkably comfortable castle with convenient latrines and even a system for heated floors! I’ve seen the Tower of London, but this was the first castle I’ve seen that I really felt I could get a feel for what it might have been like to live in one. This one happens to have been occupied by St. Elizabeth in the 13th (?) century and Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German while in hiding there in 1522! Another nice thing about the visit to the castle is that we got to hike up the hill to the castle through some lovely woods…about a 30 minute hike, I think.
Eisenach is also famous as the birthplace of Bach…so we went to see the home where he was born and the church where he was baptized and where his family were church musicians. I’d love to come back for their Bachfest in July…they even have concerts in the old concert hall of the castle for that!
After a lunch eaten at the foot of the Luther Monument in town, we caught our high-speed train to Munich. Man, those things move! When one goes through a train station, they create this crazy vortex of wind…they set the “safety line” in stations a good four feet from the platform edge so you don’t get sucked in or knocked over! The fastest speed I saw our train hit (they periodically post the speed) was 201 kph! That’s just upward of 120 mph by our calculations!
We bought a German phrase book in Erfut and have been studying German…. Today, I learned my numbers and we tried out a few phrases like “I have a reservation here.” “My name is…” etc. It’s tough because I don’t know the rules of pronunciation, but people seem to appreciate our efforts and it’s kind of necessary in the smaller towns, because the older population doesn’t speak much English!
Well, it’s very late in Munich and I’d best get to bed. We’re hoping to visit Dachau tomorrow.