Judith, Schloss Neuschwanstein and I

So straight after uni on Friday I hopped on a train to Munich to visit Judith. Or actually, I hopped on FOUR trains. Which I don't normally mind, except when it's dark and freezing (possibly literally) and you have to wait in the dark, freezing cold for the next train to arrive. But eventually I arrived at München Hauptbahnhof at almost midnight to find Judith there in the cold waiting for me - that's love! She looks exactly the same as she did when I left her on a teary day in May, 2007, just with shorter hair. And she's exactly the same too, in a good way. It was like no time had passed. Unfortunately, our friend Natalia couldn't make the weekend, otherwise it would have been a big au pair reunion, but we made the most of it anyway. (We are FABULOUS company!)

Saturday morning started out nice and lazy, but we both woke up with massive headaches. Judith informed me all about föhn, where the winds change or something (let Wiki tell you all about it) and how she thought that's why we were both in pain, but some coffee and headache tablets and we were right as rain. We had a massive breakfast, walked through the area near her house where the Olympic stadium is and grabbed some Starbucks like old times. Lattes, of course, but not ventis because just a tall latte in Starbucks in Germany is 4 euros, and these are tough economic times!

We then took our lattes to the Englischer Garten and took advantage of the beautiful weather by just wandering around and eating bratwurst mit semmel (not brötchen in Bavaria - and it means bread roll).

Oh, and by the way, beautiful weather just means sunny - it was still heaps cold!

That's the Felderrnhalle where Hitler made one of his way famous speeches. Such a nice square with such an infamous legacy. We saw a whole bunch of other stuff, and may I just add that Munich is gorgeous. Check out the photos linked at the start of this post for evidence.

That evening we topped off a fabulous day with dinner at the Löwenbräu Keller, which featured heavily at my farewell, which feels like a million years ago now. Oh, and we've all been pronouncing it wrong. It's actually pronounced "Loovenbroy". Just doesn't roll off your tongue as well as "Low-en-brow" - less bogan is sometimes less fun.

The next day. We used up all our good weather bonus points because it decided to rain for the rest of my stay. Judith knew the way to my heart and took me to Schwangau, the home of my castle. But first, did you know there's actually TWO castles there? Always overshadowed by my future home, Schloss Hohenschwangau is a gorgeous fortress-style castle built by Maximillian, Ludwig II's daddy. It's really beautiful inside, although it is a little show-offy with all the king's birthday presents on display. We get it, you had friends that gave you better presents than candles and soap. But did they send you a box of Tim Tams like Emma sent me? I think you will find that my friends beat your friends. Ner ner.

But Schloss Hohenschwangau is just there to whet your castle apetite, because after a horse and carriage ride up one very steep hill I finally set eyes on my baby:

Schloss Neuschwanstein!!!!!!!!!! That's a picture of me exploding. I must have embarrassed Judith greatly with all of my squealing and, "I can't believe I'm actually looking at it and it's not a picture"s. See, I don't even realise that I'm standing next to two horses, I'm that excited.

We wandered around inside and I considered the remodelling job that's ahead of me. You know, only 17 rooms of the castle were finished before Ludwig II was declared insane (which he really wasn't - they did it because his grand vision of all these fairytale castles had sent the country into massive debt) and de-throned.

Here's Judith and I in front of the castle. Let this be a lesson for you: never rely on others to take important photos for you. Why the eff would we ask someone to take our photo standing in front of the castle if we didn't want the castle to be properly in the picture. Use your brains, random people that were at Neuschwanstein on Sunday!

Another of the castle. So. Bloody. Impressive. Seriously, it is just as amazing in reality as the photos make it seem.

And one last one from the car on the way home. I'm so glad the weather cleared up in the afternoon so we could actually see a bit of it from down the hill.

So to sum this weekend up in one word: fabulous! So glad to see Judith again, and glad that it feels like no time has passed, and I'm glad that I can finally begin my plans to get my castle ready for when I eventually move in.

Oh, and people think I'm joking about this. I am ALL of the serious.