Tag: food

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Passau

We docked in Passau this afternoon. We walked around the city, as we were walking some of the stones were painted and apparently they show where art galleries can be found, and we went to where the three rivers converge as Passau is also called the “City of Three Rivers.” For lunch we went to a little cafe looking out on the Danube where I had some typical Bavarian food: juice with sparkling water and a sort of strudel with spinach, egg, goat cheese, and yogurt. We visited St. Peter’s Cathedral which has the biggest organ in a cathedral, and then I hiked up to the fortress Veste Oberhaus. On our way back to the ship we stopped by a local beer festival.

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Hitting Amsterdam’s High Points

We visited the Anne Frank museum, and got there right when it opened so it was not as crowded and it was very powerful, then we went to the Pancake Bakery for breakfast. They are well-known for their very strange pancakes, with many options ranging from sweet to savory. I got the Dutch pancake with Stroopwafel chunks (a traditional Dutch cookie), cinnamon ice cream, chocolate flakes, and whipped cream; it was soo good, but also soo sweet and large that I could not finish it. Then we explored the Van Gogh museum, and did the Heineken Experience which had a “ride” sort of thing to make you experience what it is like to actually be the beer. We took a boat tour with Those Dam Boat Guys, where we got to see some of the smaller canals. We also took a (quick) visit to the Red Light District, you know, just to say we did.

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Hopping Around Amsterdam

We had a couple of delays with our flight getting to Dallas yesterday, but our flight to Amsterdam also got slightly delayed so we were able to still make it to Amsterdam mostly on time. We were successful with our first Amsterdam adventure: navigating the train station and getting to our hotel, which has an amazing view of the city. After a quick nap to recharge, we explored Amsterdam with a Hop-On-Hop-Off boat tour on the canals. Amsterdam has about the same amount of water as Venice, but far less bridges.

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Exploring Athens

We had a great breakfast this morning, there was actually normal Greek food instead of just soggy hotel eggs and such. We went up to the Acropolis which was really cool, and we had a great tour guide, Thanos. He was very informative and interesting, and talked a lot about things that weren’t necessarily related to exactly where we were or what we were doing, but more about Greek life and traditions and such. From the Acropolis we could see an ancient theatre which was really huge and cool. We also got to see Mars Hill where Paul gave a speech that’s in the Bible. Thanos took us on a walking and bus tour where we also saw the first modern Olympic stadium, a statue of Harry Truman (thanks to Mrs. King I actually remember the Truman Doctrine), and the grave of the unknown soldier. Our guide was talking about how Lord Byron loved it here and was buried here; this stuck out to me because we visited his castle in Switzerland, and I really enjoy being able to learn about and see these connections across different places. We went out to dinner and got a really delicious cheese ball (reminds me of the hunk a chunka cheese I got in Mexico) and there was a band playing traditional Greek music the whole night. Halfway through dinner a few dancers came out and started folk dancing, and then later they brought up some people (including me) to dance with them. It was a really fun night, and now I can brag to the theatre company about being a part of a real oppa.

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Exploring Rothenburg

We had a very free day today, and we had done a lot last night already, so we just walked around all the shops. We visited the Christmas shop which was actually pretty cool. We had our last concert in the square and then after dinner we played exploding kittens in our fancy balcony. Since it’s most people’s last night in Europe, we had a celebration thing where we all just gathered together to watch the slideshow from all the bus cameras.

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Drive to Rothenburg

On our way to Rothenburg, Germany, we made a stop at the Dachau Concentration Camp. It definitely gives you a different perspective actually being over where the war was fought and seeing the places from it rather than just hearing about it or watching videos in history class. I think I also got something more out of it after learning more about the Holocaust from the play And A Child Shall Lead.

Rothenburg is a really quaint town; it still has its medieval feel to it, especially with its surrounding wall and towers. We took a night watchman tour, and the guy was pretty funny and made it really interesting to learn about the history of the town. Then we walked along the top of the tower wall which was really cool.

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Venice

Drove like 5 hours to get to Venice, Italy, and we only got to spend a few hours there in the very hot weather, but it was still fun. There are no cars there and has around 340 bridges connecting the 180 islands that it’s made out of, so it has a lot of small alleys to walk through, and they’ve had to put tiny bridges in between some of the buildings so that they wouldn’t squish together. Saw and sung (shoutout to Little Women) in front of the Bridge of Sighs, got some gelato and pizza, and saw the choir perform in the St. Marks cathedral. We also saw a glass making demonstration that was really cool. We had another 5 hour drive back, and got our first bad  weather driving through the rain.

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Innsbruck

We went to the Wilten Basilica and the choir got to sing in there. Then we went to the Olympic ski jump place (the Olympics have been held here twice) and actually got to see someone jump which was really cool. In town, we saw the golden roof and looked around Swarvsky in which there is a exhibit of everyday items like cereal and laundry detergent covered in jewels. We also got an Austrian apple strudel. We came back to the hotel pretty early, so we played cards before going to our concert.

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Lichtenstein & Austria

Drove about 3 hours to get to Lichtenstein from Crans-Montana, which is only about 14 miles long and 4 miles across. We had a couple more hours to drive to Austria, but the trip was quite entertaining because, little did we know, the German word for exit is Ausfahrt. The town of Seefeld is very quaint and cute and so we explored it a little before dinner, and after dinner we went to the Olympic sized pool and hung out.

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Matterhorn

We drove and then took a train to the town at the base of the Matterhorn, Zermatt, and then took another little train to the Matterhorn viewing place. It was a very beautiful and a clear day, so the mountain wasn’t covered at all. For dinner everyone got together where we had played our concert and had cheese fondue and some of the locals performed for us. They had a normal little band and classic Swiss dances as well as the classic long horn thing. There is also the tradition that if you drop your bread in the fondue, you have to go around the table and kiss everyone of the opposite gender on the cheek, so that was entertaining because a lot of people had to do it.

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