Day Five: Road trip to Praha

Frequent readers of my travel blog have probably noticed how I say we've had an exhausting day, but it has been great.  The repetition of my words is not out of laziness, but instead it is because of how true the sentiments are.  Consider, if you will, that we departed our hotel in Munich at 8:30am and we did not check into our Prague hotel until 10:30pm.  Not everyday is like this, but each presents a variety of methods that make the day exhausting.  Many of today's hours were spent on our bus, but does not mean we didn't have an amazing day.

Our fist stop was Nuremberg.  I've been to this beautiful city before and was excited to return.  I was very surprised when we pulled off of the highway and began to pull into a large brick building.  Inside, there was a giant open courtyard.  It looked absolutely huge.  Ele explained to us that this was going to be the Congress Hall of the Nazi party.  The size of the building is twice the size of the Colosseum in Rome.

A poor panoramic view of the Congress Hall.

If I remember correctly, the hall would have had capacity for nearly 300,000 people.  They didn't finish building it because they began losing the war.  Nuremberg was the party headquarters throughout the twelve year Nazi rule and the Congress Hall contains a Documentation Center showcasing the rise of the Nazi party.  I'll touch on that in a second, but before we entered, Ele took us to visit the parade grounds of the Nazis.  This location was instantly recognizable for me and most of the kids.  It was at this location that Hitler would have inspected those marching and would have delivered some of his messages to the thousands of assembled Nazi Party members.

I took a picture of a plague that showed the area before World War II

The enormity of the location was almost too much to grasp.  It was very eerie to know that one of the world's most evil men had stood where we currently were standing.  I've mentioned several times to the kids that traveling gives them a sense of history that you cannot feel from a book.  I would think we've had several experiences so far where the sense of history was all around...Today was most definitely one of them.  The field is known as the Zeppelin field because the Zeppelin's used to land there before the war.  Surrounding the grounds would have been over 100 anti-aircraft lights.  The light illuminated from these lights would be visible as far away as Prague.

Zeppelin Field monument today

Some of our group standing where Hitler stood.

After the Zeppelin field, we went to the documentation center.  We were each issued whisper-devices and embarked on our self-guided tour.  The experience was very well done and most of the kids I spoke with were amazed at how much they had learned.  One thing that caught my attention was how focused our kids were at different spots throughout the museum.  I remember Kristina sitting by herself listening to a segment about the Holocaust.  After the audio segment concluded, I showed her a picture of Auschwitz that was on the wall.  I told her that it looks pretty much the same today and that we'd be there in a couple days.  This trip is amazing that way.  We are seeing things in museums...learning about them...and then seeing them in person.  Our trip motto is "One Must Travel To Learn."  This quote comes from Mark Twain, but it is still true today.  The late and sleepless nights are totally worth it when we consider the experiences we get to share with our students.

After the documentation center, we headed to the "old" section of Nuremberg.  It is one of my favorite places in Europe and perhaps my favorite German city.  The city is so beautiful and it feels old.  We walked down from the castle and into the city center.  There we went to find some authentic German food for lunch.  I know that Steve S. had a traditional German sandwich called the "McChicken."  Other students munched on Gellato.  I had one of my favorite foreign dishes...the Pork Knuckle.

 
It was very good, but when finished, I realized I needed something sweet for dessert.  Off I went to find the perfect end to a great meal.  As I walked atop the cobblestones of Nuremberg, something caught my eye.  It was orange.  It was pink.  It was rectangular, but flat.  It was a box of Dunkin Donuts.  Instinctively, I began to seek out the local Dunks.  I knew there were a few in Berlin, but had not figured there were any in Nuremberg.  Down Koninstrasse I walked...eyes fixed to the stores abutting the road.  Finally, on the horizon, emerged a recognizable sign.  In I went.  Ordered, I did.  Sipping perfection...it had been nearly five full days since I had tasted a Dunkin Donut Iced Coffee.  One word describes it...Yummy.

Smiley faced Donuts mimicked my expression!!!

We hit the road to Prague after rendezvousing at the Fountain of Youth.

The drive was long.  We watched a large portion of Schindler's List along the way as we entered the Czech Republic.  We drove straight to our hotel and dropped our stuff off in a locked room.  We headed to The Templareo Restaurant for dinner.  This place had a special place in my heart because I have long been involved with a youth group named DeMolay.  He was a Templar and his portrait adorned the restaurant.  For dinner, we had the Czech version of Chicken Cordon Bleu.  It was a chicken breast topped with a slice of ham and a slice of cheese.  Our side was French Fries.  The meal was a big hit.  Some of our group was fortunate enough to sit outside with the band playing some of their favorite tunes.

We took a brief walk through Downtown Prague and took some night time pictures.  The city is really cool and you will see even more pictures tomorrow night!!!

The Powder Tower

The City Centre

Upon arriving at our hotel, we were greeted with complimentary wi-fi.  Undoubtedly, our student travelers have spent the last hour face-timing with home and sharing all of their exploits with you...if not, then at least you have this blog, lol.  Thanks for your time.

Mr. Lavoie currently in one of my favorite cities in the entire world and hoping the kids feel the same way about it by the time we leave.

Day Four: The Hills are alive with the sounds of Salzburg

Guten nacht!!!

It is just about 11pm and I am finally sitting down to write another blog post.  We have had an extremely busy day filled with a wide variety of activities.  Let's start at the very beginning, because it is a very good place to start.

We woke this morning and congregated for breakfast.  The hotel's spread is pretty good.  There is a mix of cold cuts, pastries, and some hot items. The kids have been raving about the hot chocolate, but they are not really fans of the spreadable sausage stuff.  I am seeing many of them eating heartily and today that was a good thing.

We boarded our bus and began our journey to Salzburg, Austria.  It is was my first time to Austria and so I was experiencing it alongside the kids.  It was about halfway there when someone told me that the Sound of Music was filmed in Salzburg.  I guess I had blocked that movie out of my mind since I was made to watch it as a young boy.  I had no idea that it was a popular with the kids today as it was.  Even before we arrived, they began practicing some of their favorite songs...including Some of their favorite things.  We left the bus and were welcomed with a beautiful day in Austria.  It was very warm and even as I type this I can still feel some of the heat upon my skin.  I don't think I'll develop a sunburn, but I might get a slight tan.  There was a Garden right in front of us and it was spectacular.

In the garden, we met our local tour guide.  She was an expert on Salzburg and on all things associated with the Sound of Music.  She mixed her tour with information about both and I think the kids liked it.  At one point, they all seemed to randomly skip down a vine covered path singing a song from the film...it might look familiar.

We made our way across the river and into the older section of the city.  A few us stopped for some pictures across from a church.

It also was Melissa's birthday.  We tried to surprise her with a cake.  This is the second year in a row that Melissa has shared her birthday with us on tour, but I feel like she will remember this celebration.  Ele, our Tour Director, purchased a traditional Austrian cake and we celebrated outside of the modern art museum.

Melissa having another birthday in Europe!!!

 After her birthday party, we walked around and found the birthplace of a musician named Mozart.  His house is the yellow one in the pictured below.  With that, our tour had ended and we had a chance for some free time.  Some of us ran to the local Starbucks and paid a pretty penny for a cup of Joe.  Some of us went back into Old Salzburg to buy souvenirs for family members back home.  Some of the stores sold toy Mozarts and some had these lovely chocolates named Mozartkugelns.  They are chocolate covered pistachio balls.  They melt in your mouth and are music to your taste buds.  I sampled one.  I also had a strange sandwich for lunch.  It was a double hot dog and it was all wrapped in bacon.  I had mine with spicy Dijon mustard.

We met by Mozart's house before departing Salzburg and the birthday girl asked to borrow my camera.  I included a sampling of her photos below.  As you can tell, Melissa has a knack for picture taking and Gianna seems to have one for modeling.

We left Salzburg and headed back into Germany to visit a Documentation Center.  As far as I can tell, the Documentation Centers are places where the German government has documented World War II activity.  Today's stop was on Obersalzburg.  A mountain about 12 miles away from the beautiful city we had just visited.  The mountain top hosts a bunker known as the Eagle's Nest.  Many people believe this was Hitler's summer home, but we found out that he actually preferred a house lower on the mountain called the Berghof.  Hitler was afraid of heights and was claustrophobic.  Both of these issues would make frequent visits to the Eagle's Nest unlikely.  The Berghof, however, was his mailing address for nearly all of the years he was in power.  The Berghof was destroyed by an Allied bombing mission on April 25, 2945.  Most of the mountain was hit.  The view Hitler had from the Berghof was of a mountain in Austria.

A view of the Eagle's Nest...the road up is still impassable.

Our hike down the mountain to the Berghof remains.

Remnants of the Berghof.

Hitler's view of Salzburg from the Berghof.

We then entered some of the nearly 400 miles of Bunkers built inside the mountain by the NAZIs. This was really interesting stuff.  I cannot post pictures here because they've asked for us not take them.  Apparently, white supremacist groups have been using them for some purpose.  We were inside the place that would have been Hitler's last command center inside the mountain when we heard the "closing in 15 minutes" announcement.  We rushed out to see that our beautiful day had turned into a rainy one.

On board our coach bus, we began our descent from the mountain and our return to Munich.  We hit some really terrible traffic.  It delayed us by over an hour.  To help pass the time, Ele played the Sound of Music on the TVs in the bus.  It held the attention of most of us for about an hour, but we soon heard laughter and noise coming from the back of the bus.  Those wishing to watch the film had to strain to listen during the most important parts, but I think we all understood that the weather and the traffic added to some frustration.

Well behind schedule, we arrived at our restaurant.  It was designed in a typical Beer Hall style.  We all sat at large picnic tables and began to dig into our dinner.  It was German meatloaf.  I really liked it, but then again, I have like most everything I've tried here.  Our vegetarians received a spicy dough ball.  I was able to try it and I liked it too.  We were running so late that we grabbed our dessert and headed to the hotel.  Here is where we are now. Tomorrow, we depart for Prague and the Czech Republic.  Our trip to Munich is nearly complete and I think the kids had a phenomenal time.  We've tried new foods, practiced our German, and became acclimated to exchanging Euros in our head...That all starts overt tomorrow!!!

I am wrapping up tonight's blog and then heading out to do room checks.  It is now 11:40pm and we have a 7am wake up call.

Mr. Lavoie currently packing up his suitcase for tomorrow's short 6 hour drive to the Czech Republic.

Day Three: An Easter Market and Surfing a river...just a couple of things we saw today!!!

First a couple of housekeeping items:

1. All are well, safe, and accounted for.
2. Our new friends from Canada are pretty cool.
3. For the kids reading this tonight, don't worry.  I am using my slingbox to watch the Bruins game.
4. It is in fact Day Three. Our flight was Day 1, our really busy transport day was day two, and here we are.
5. It's 4-1 Good Guys


Let me start by thanking my readers for giving me some early thumbs up on my blog.  I appreciate it.  I am sorry for such a short post yesterday, but we were all a little jet lagged yesterday and the internet wasn't working that strongly.  Here is a brief recap:

We landed in Frankfurt without issue.  We said goodbye to Senora Morando's Bell' Italia tour and headed to our gate.  Our flight was delayed.  We camped out for the moment.  They changed our gate.  We made haste to our new gate.  We got there in time to camp out.  We boarded our flight.  We taxied.  We sat on the tarmac for a long time.  We took off.  We landed about 1.5 hours after we were supposed too.  We met Ele, our tour director, and Joha, our Bus Driver.  We also met 14 friends from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  We drove to downtown Munich and toured Marienplatz.  We went through the Victualmart (an open air market).  We stopped for a quick photo.

A photo of the whole group did not make it across the International Date Line, sorry.

The May Day Pole in the Victualmart

 Our brief jaunt through Marienplatz was meant to be an orientation visit.  Ele wanted us to get a peek at the square in preparation for the following day's free time (That is today, Day #).  The place was pretty busy as the weather was fairly nice.

Sunny Day in Munich

Some Bavarian Architecture 

After our quick tour, we headed off towards dinner.  We were told that dinner would be Goulash.  I described it to the kids as a beef stew kind of thing.  They seemed content with the description.  It was roasted pork on a bed of pasta drizzled with a brown sauce.  They were no longer content with my description, but, for the most part, they enjoyed the meal.  For dessert, a custard was brought to each one to their places.  They thought it was going to be ice cream.  Only a couple of kids admitted to liking it, but I think peer pressure may have contributed to some saying it was gross. After dinner, we headed to our hotel.  We brought our bags to our rooms and had a quick meeting.  Afterwards, we were informed that a local Greek Orthodox church was going to be holding a ceremony outside.  There was a communications issue, but some of us caught a bit of it.

From what I understand, church leaders light a candle and at a certain point, they begin sharing the light.  This continues until all of the candles are lit.  It was neat to see.  When we were headed back towards the hotel, it was nearly 10:30pm.  One really neat thing was that there were so many people there, that they had taken over the street.  It is not a small street...it is really busy (even tonight at 11:30pm), but the people owned it.  So much so, that many of the cars were driving along the sidewalks to make their way home.

At this time, we all went to bed.  We woke up this morning and headed off towards Dachau.  If you haven't already read about our visit there, please click here.

After Dachau, we went to the Market der Sinne: http://www.markt-der-sinne.de/

It was a quaint little market filled with food venders and trinket sellers.  The kids fell in love with a dessert item. Basically, it was warm bread dough, rolled around a stick, glazed with sugar and flavoring.  It was amazing.  Many of us had great experiences communicating in a place with very little English being spoken.  This was an authentic German market.  I bought a new wallet, but declined a subscription to a German newspaper.  The kids were more than willing to try my pommes (French Fries), but no one wanted to taste my curry wurst.  Maybe later on the trip, lol.  On the way out of the market, one of the boys came up to me and told me how much fun he was having...that makes it all worth it.  With the seriousness of Dachau, we needed the Market.  With the food I tried at the market, I needed Mike's Bike Tours. (BTW, Bruins Win!!!)

Not all of took part in the next part of the story...from what I heard, they had a great time exploring Marienplatz and climbing to the top of the tower included in a picture above.  We made our way to meet our new bestie, "Besty."  Besty is a native German who was raised in New Zealand.  He was a handsome young man who made more than one of our young ladies blush.

Besty unlocking our bikes.

We took off.  Well, we slowly started moving.  It was the first time, in a really long time, that many of us had ridden a bicycle.  I had to remind myself which hand controlled which brake on more than one occasion.  I loved ringing the bell warning people of my impending arrival.  Besty asked for a brave volunteer to help him with a dangerous mission...so, naturally, I accepted.  It became my job to stay at the end of the line to make sure that no one got lost or separated...more on that later.

 

Joanie, Colleen, and I needed a reminder on how Bikes work, but we pedaled like champs.

 

The bike tour was great.  Besty was really funny and he took great care of us.  We drove through the English Garden and he made sure to stop frequently.  Because I was at the back of the line, no one saw how winded I got.  We stopped at a waterfall...a man-made waterfall (All of the English Garden is man made).

We also drove past a subtle memorial to the White Rose Society of Munich.  During the rise of the Nazi Party, not all citizens of Germany supported Hitler. The White Rose Society consisted of several students from the Ludwig Maximillian University and their Professor.  They created pamphlets that openly criticized what was happening to their city and their country.  By the time the seventh pamphlet came out, they were caught.  One member confessed and took sole responsibility.  None of his classmates, nor his professor, would allow him to take the fall for the charges.  They all demanded the same treatment as their friend.  The Nazis executed them using the Guillotine.  It is a tragic story, but it speaks to the whole point of our trip.  Even if they didn't realize it at their time, their efforts made an impact.

The White Rose Society Memorial

As we pedaled through the Garden, Besty told us about how people surf in the river.  Many of us did not believe him, but he proved to be honest afterall.  Here are some action shots...many of the kids took video.

It was nuts. Besty explained that it was too early in the spring for him to surf, but that he does in fact do it in the summer time.  We moved on and soon found our tour had ended.  Besty called me to the front of the group and presented an award for my dutiful service to protecting all in our entourage.  I took the liberty of stealing a picture off of the Twitter:

I apologize for the cuss word.  We all got a chuckle.

We met up with the rest of the group and headed off to dinner.  I got a lemonade that tasted and looked an awful lot like Orange Fanta.  I also got some amazing mashed potatoes.  I will reserve comment for the main course until after I post this blog.  Most of the kids were really happy with dinner...except that it did not include dessert.  These kids have a sweet tooth and because I am a sweet group leader, I recommended to Ele that we go to an Ice Cream store.  I received my second round of applause of the day (see above pic for my first).

We finally made our way to the hotel and I scheduled a group meeting at 8:30pm.  Without the kids knowing, Mrs. Alongi and Mrs. Mottola had secretly arranged with the German Easter Bunny to scatter some genuine plastic eggs throughout the hotel lobby and the outside grounds.  I made some brief remarks about the upcoming day and told them of the magical visit from the Bavarian Bunny.  Off the kids went, in a scramble, to find their quota.  I saw one kids poach an egg from the hands of one of his peers (I guess we could call him Eggs Benedict)...another one fried the competition and found all three of her eggs in a flash.  With hard boiled determination, one devil-ish student said, "Oh my, let me find another egg."  To which, another said, "Foo, you to young to find that egg."  Ultimately, they joined forces and all smiles seemed to be Sunnyside Up.

They were eggtastic at finding Eggs

She was so Egg-cited to find a blue egg.

They Egg-zited the hotel to look for Eggs

[Editors Note:  Writing Egg puns is harder than you think]

Hope you enjoyed our day...see you tomorrow!!!

Mr. Lavoie currently eggs-hausted from being so flipping creative with his pun-ative approach to this blog.  Hope you yokes enjoyed it.