This page contains blogs from the Felt family trips during the study tour time. That is, while the UWSP students are on study tour with Peter, the Felt family is off having fun by ourselves.
20Sep2007: This is our last full day in Munich. Craig came home yesterday with a violin. It seems his music teacher somehow learned (this is no small feat, given the language barrier) that Craig has been playing violin for eight years. This music teacher also happens to be the orchestra director, so he told Craig he could sign up for the orchestra. Craig was excited about that, so I went in to his school and read a poster that told the kids when to show up to orchestra. Craig went, and his teacher gave him a school violin to use. Craig played tonight in our room. It was great to hear him play again. In addition, John left his guitar in my care while he's on the study tour. So, we now have more to entertain ourselves with.
21Sep2007: We left half our things in Munich in the hotel basement, and started our trip to Wallduern. Wallduern cannot be found in the Lonely Planet guides. We chose it, because it has a "family friendly" youth hostel, and because we thought we would want to get away from big city life and see rural Germany. We found it. The trip from Munich involved four legs, each successive leg on a coach of lesser quality. First was the ICE (Inter-City Express) from Munich to Wuertzburg. The boys were excited to ride on one of the fast trains they had seen at the Bahnhof. Then came a "regional express," a normal train, to Osterburg. Then an S-Bahn to Seckach. Then (and we didn't realize this when we bought the tickets) an actual bus from Seckach to (ironically) the Wallduern train station. The train station was all boarded up, and a big sign announced that it was being fixed up. If you go someplace in Germany, and it isn't reachable directly by train, you know you're in the boondocks. We hiked around a bit to find the youth hostel. The hostel turns out to be very nice. Our room here is nicer than the one in Munich. We have our own bathroom, and it's more spacious and clean. It has a skylight, and Craig was excited to get the bed underneath it so he could sleep under the stars.
22Sep2007: The hostel is on the edge of town. This is not saying much, because we are about eight blocks from the town center. Across the street is a trail head that leads into the forest. We took the trail today in a strange mix of biking and hiking. I saw later on a map that we hiked about 50 feet from an old Roman watch tower, and there are many in this area. So, tomorrow I hope to go back there and check those out. We also walked into town, where they have a swimming pool. We swam there all afternoon. There are only about 20 people staying at the hostel this weekend, and I think by Sunday evening, it will be deserted. The rest of the people are all part of the same church group, from what I can gather. For some reason, we got a different (and better) dinner tonight than they did. Everyone was seated in the dining room. One table had four bowls, while the others had small plates. The kitchen Frau brought in some platters of meat and cheese, and everyone started helping themselves. Then the Frau came in with a large bowl of goulash, and pointed to us (the Felts) and said, "You eat this. Others eat that" (pointing in turn to the goulash and then the cold cuts). I asked one of the men eating cold cuts why we had a different dinner. He didn't know. I still haven't figured that one out.
23Sep2007: The special treatment continued at breakfast. We arrived in the dining room to find our table (and no others) had been set. The others had to take their rolls from a common basket at the food table, and, even though the rolls were the same type, ours were in our own special basket on our table. After breakfast we hiked to the Roman border, where we saw two old Roman watch towers. They were actually just the base stones, but it was still pretty cool. The trail we hiked along was straight as an arrow, and the towers are spaced equal distances apart along this line. It was fun to think of a Roman soldier running with a message from one tower to the next along the same trail. After lunch we walked a great distance on a trail through the forest to a playground. The playground turned out to be very cool, with a huge slide, zip line and water sluices.
24Sep2007: Last night we were the only patrons at the youth hostel. This morning, Craig and I checked out two bikes and set off to find an old Roman castle. We finally found it after a bit of searching. While we were gone, two busloads of school children arrived. They are staying at the youth hostel for three days. It certainly is a different atmosphere than yesterday.
25Sep2007: We travelled from Wallduern to Nussdorf to visit Judith and her family. On the way to Munich, our ICE hit 301 km/hr. That's almost 190 mph. It was very cool. Nussdorf is a very nice little town.
26Sep2007: Craig and Tom went to school today with Robert and Felix in Nussdorf. In the evening we went to Robert's Bavarian dance practice.
28Sep2007: Nussdorf has a cool aquaduct that was made in the 16th or 17th century. Between ten and twenty different workplaces used the aquaduct to power their work, e.g. tanner, sawmills, oil presses, blacksmiths. Even now several workplaces make electricity from the aquapower. They sell excess power to the town.
29Sep2007: A German birthday celebration (like all German celebrations) is large. Judith made two cakes for my birthday, and we all drove to Austria and did a roller sled down a very steep mountain.
30Sep2007: We all went to Chiemsee, to the island castle Schloss Herrenchiemsee, Ludwig II's last (and partially finished) castle. Then we had an authentic Bavarian FEAST (think Thanksgiving) at Gudrun and Andre's (Gudrun is Judith's sister). After dinner, they gave us a shot of pear schnapps made by a farmer in Nussdorf. We made the train with 1 minute to spare.
1Oct2007: Everyone is back in town. The students started German classes, and Tom and Craig went back to school. We got a letter in the mail saying that Tom isn't allowed to attend the school he is attending, but we're choosing to ignore it because his school hasn't said anything about it. We all went to Oktoberfest this afternoon.
You may find my email address in the following directory.
Page author: Andy Felt