Blenheim Palace- MyTypical English Experience

 On Monday we went to the best place in the world, Blenheim Palace. I want to make a disclaimer before I start. If Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice are things that annoy you or you do not want to hear talked about, I apologize. I will mention it a few times, because it reminded me of them so much. Here is one of the big entrances to Blenheim Palace. It had a huge courtyard in the middle of this entrance area.

 The whole place was just magical. Here is one of the ceilings in there. Several of them were so pretty, like this one, and several were ornate with REAL gold embroidered in it. They had several statues and art lined out through the house (similarly to Mr. Darcy, who had several statues, like the one of himself, in his home).

Big note on Blenheim Palace: Winston Churchill was born here. They walked us through a museum they had to honor him and several of his achievements.

Below is a picture of him on the right, with his mother. She was American and our tour guide made some snarky comment about that. She was very funny. She would make a really funny joke and then move onto the next room nonchalantly. Best tour guide I've had, I can't even tell you all the stuff I want to that she said.

This is the room where Winston Churchill was born. He didn't live in Blenheim Palace himself but he loved to spend time with his family there. Something really interesting is that the paintings in the back of the room were painted by Winston Churchill. I didn't know this about him, but apparently he was somewhat of an artist. Pretty cool.
Below: They had so many reading and writing rooms. There is a green reading room and a red reading room. Lots of reading going on in this place. There was lots of cool history in these rooms with the paintings but I couldn't do as well as our awesome tour guide in re-explaining them.

 This was such an interesting story. On the right is the 9th Duke of Marlbrough I think, who was Duke when their royal family became basically broke. The past couple of generations had poorly run the place and spent all the money they had foolishly without keeping the place up. To fix this and keep up their lifestyle they needed money. Insert the American Vanderbilt family. At 18, Cornelius Vanderbilt was forced by her mother to marry the Duke of Marlbrough because he needed her vast wealth and her family wanted the title. She HATED it there. This picture on the right is particularly funny because he was 5'6 and she was 6' tall. So they painted him on a step so he wouldn't look so short. The tour guide talked about Cornelius Vanderbilt as a great influence and leader. Cornelius and the Duke eventually split up and she went on to to do great work for charities and huge social causes. Pretty cool lady I thought.

Now this picture I honestly don't remember much about; like his name, title or significance. But I included it because the tour guide said that he was very proud of his legs, which you can tell in this picture. The clothes he was wearing aren't even from the right time period but he continued to wear them because he liked the way his legs looked so much. Pretty amusing.

 The Duke of Marlbrough, John Churchill, was an interesting person. He had several tapestries made out (like the one on the left) lined up in all these reading and writing rooms of some great war victories he had. They were in such great detail that not only was he prominent in them, but whole towns and battle scenes were printed out on these tapestries with what they looked like during that battle. They are like a carpet of history. Over 300 years old, most of them.

This is about the middle of the palace and it is their grand dining room. They have their own small dining room in their private quarters, but this is where they go when they have more than 18 guests. On Christmas day, they have their dinners here. I would love to sit in on that celebration!! In the bag is a HUGE centerpiece. like a couple hundred pounds of pure silver I think. It really has no purpose but our tour guide told us about how Consuela Vanderbilt (who loathed her husband) would make sure it was between the two of them at dinner. He apparently was a slow eater and she couldn't stand to watch him take so long. Also, she would have time to knit while he ate meals.

This was what some of the walls of the dining room looked like. The story about these were interesting. Sarah Churchill, who was the wife of the great John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlbrough, was a funny lady. She was very tight and had trouble letting go of her money (I understand that, especially lately). Anyway, she wanted a painter for this room and a British one was asking 1000 pounds. She thought that was ridiculous and got a French painter to do it for 500. A bargain shopper. I didn't put the picture, but the French painter painted himself in the paintings too. The paintings represented all the races of the world coming together. It apparently meant no more war, but all peace between all people. Insert our tour guides joke about how well that idea worked out. She was funny, as mentioned.

This is a statue of Queen Ann. (Also our tour guide on the right, who was great, if I haven't said yet). Queen Ann had a sad sad life. She was loved by the people but she had a rough personal life. In their earlier years, Queen Ann and Sarah Churchill, who I talked about, were best friends. It was because of their relationship that the Churchill's were given the land to build Blenheim palace on by the queen. Its a long story, but they had a huge falling out and I mentioned how unsatisfactory Sarah Churchill could be. So when Queen Ann died, they were on bad terms because Sarah was stubborn. When the queen died, Sarah felt awful, and had this beautiful statue of her built.

I may be wrong on this, but I think our tour guide said that Blenheim Palace was where Queen Elizabeth stayed until she found out that Queen Mary had died and she would become queen. It had so much history here that I can't keep it all straight but it was so interesting.

There is probably no way that this can be read, but it was still very cool. Above is all the gowns that the Dukes would wear to coronations, weddings, etc. and even what the footman wore. That one ladies' dress looks like Mrs. Clause's outfit, people were saying.

Okay so I normally insert a lot of commentary, which generally is okay, but in this situation the pictures speak for themselves. I will make them X-Large so you can enjoy. The awesome thing about Blenheim was that it wasn't just the palace part; there were sooo many gardens and you could walk easily for a couple of miles with every single thing you saw just beautiful. I will put random captions but in general the pictures are enough I think.

This is the back yard of Blenheim. There was a water way and we didn't go to it, but I am pretty sure a huge maze close by. I can't get over how much I love this picture and place.

Walk down a couple of steps and this is the back yard to the back yard of Blenheim palace. It was huge, and there was a giant lake behind it if that wasn't enough beauty for ya. The picture of the lake I took below...

Just another view of the back yard. Okay Pride and Prejudice was through my mind through this entire thing. I don't know if you can see it, but up the stairs there is the perfect set up for the scene between Darcy and Elizabeth after she visits his house. I felt like I was there. Bre and I almost did a reenactment on video but we got distracted.

No, this lilypad is not from my Desktop wallpaper.

They had a whole beautiful rose garden that wasn't completely in bloom. Another reason that I just have to go back. Well here is one of the flowers that was bloomed that was so beautiful. It had so many roses in different colors. If it had been in bloom I can't even imagine. I think it would have been one of mom's favorite places.

Okay sorry but I am going to mention Downton Abbey again. Continue if it does not apply to you: This reminded me of the scene where Mathew proposes to Mary and it is snowing outside. I don't know I was probably really stretching it but these British shows kept coming to mind. I might have just thought, because it is all I've seen as far as palaces go that I would equate it with everything British I have ever seen, but oh well. It kept me entertained. Isn't it beautiful?!

This was our attempt at a self-timed picture on my camera. No one came along so we stacked our purses up and gave it a try. We are larger than the castle. Anyway we got a better one later but I still wanted to include this one. So cool!

Yes I know. I was about to leave and even on the way I saw this beautiful place. I didn't get to go but if you go past the bridge there are lots of sheep and green grass you can hang by. Another HUGE note: on our walk out the gate the Duke drove right beside us! Well, we didn't realize who he was but a British woman pointed him out to us. Our professor's wife, Mrs. Stewart, luckily got a picture of him getting out of the car!

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We walked through the town Woodstock to get back and I could not handle how great it was. Like on every Jane Austen book or movie, you have the families with a lot of money that look over their estates. Well thats what this place felt like: a Jane Austen book. This looks like what a parsonage or an estate house looked like. I think I loved Blenheim so much because it was like the books I read and the movies I watched came to life. My Typical English Experience.

Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye (MUNICH)

 After all the time I have spent in Europe, Paris and the other places I went to GERMANY, where I had been waiting for!! I immediately loved it there. Even the border control when we first got there was funny. He continued to speak German to me although he knew I was American, and laughed when I was clueless, even about how to say How are you? in German. Anyways, the next person we met in Germany was our guardian angel. Stephen is a guy we met at the train station when we were buying tickets to get to our hostel in town. He saw what we were doing and asked us if we needed any help. With his help, we bought a group travel pass instead of single, and we saved half the money on the train. Stephen was incredibly nice. We talked to him on the somewhat long train ride back to and found out he worked with BMW and he was just getting back from New York.

When we got into Munich he walked us around, pointed out a cheap place to get food, walked us to the place to buy train tickets and walked us through how to buy a train ticket to Nueschwanstein castle for the next day. Again, saved us a ton of money, time and hassle. He would show us one thing then say "Okay vollow me now." He even pointed us to our where our hostel should be and mentioned some places that he knows a lot of college people like to shop. I can go on more about how great Stephen was but I am sure I have said enough.

We got into our hotel late on Wednesday night and we SWEATED out the night there. You may know this, but Germany is not an air-conditioned country. Normally they don't need it, but when it is in the 90s all day, you notice when you don't have it. It was a struggle the first couple of nights but after it was perfect. Anyways, these first couple of pictures are us on our way to Nueschwanstein castle. It was crazy beautiful. This one of the left is just outside the train window. (The train, also not airconditioned)

 We sat by some Turkish people on the train that were very loud and whom it took me a while to figure out their nationality. This picture on the right is a quick peek of the castle. Just a faraway view and I was so excited. The little town at the base of the castles was so quaint and extremely German. Our waitress wore one of those typical German outfits.

Emily and Megan posed in the street for my picture. The whole town is made up on a hill going up towards the castle.

 After we got out tickets to the castle, we stopped to get lunch, and I was really looking forward to that. Oh did I mention that I had a giant pretzel for lunch? I definitely got used to German cuisine very quickly.


Another note: our hostel in Munich was extremely nice (minus no airconditioning) and it was so close to the train station and everything we wanted to get to. We walked everywhere.

Anway, I went ahead and took a picture of what I got on the menu, I got Bauernschmaus. The roast pork and the sauerkraut were to die for. I LOVE German food, and this was the best.

 Emily and I shared the food and there is the picture of it below. Bought water too, it was only 3.50 for it, such a steal! Not really.

This is the Hofbrauhaus Castle I believe it was called. We did not go into this one but it is I think where King Ludwig II was born, who was the king that built Nueschwanstein.

Moving on past that, we kind of had to hike up to get to Nueschwanstein castle. The higher we got the more German countryside you could see. There was a little creek at one bridge that we got off the trail to walk beside because it was so pretty. There's just me, then a pic of me and Emily and one picture before we decided, why not climb up it?

 I was this II close to buying this hat/wig. Isn't it just so German and perfect? Felt green hats were everywhere and I got one for a special person. Aren't you hoping and praying that this lucky person is you? Jealous? You should be. This may be what I looked like if Mom was German, making me 100% German, so who knows.






This is just the start of several views that we had on our hike up the mountain. All the countryside that we saw on the train over to the castle, we were able to see from above.

 The distance that we could see while we were up there was just unreal. While all the Japanese tourists (which there were always buses and buses of)  were taking every single picture they could get a hold of, we enjoyed this view of the country. It was breathtaking.

 I took a video in hopes that you would be able to more clearly see the beauty that I did. Maybe it will work, it is above if so. I just wanted to include all of the pictures I took at this level because I thought it was so beautiful. There are several, so I hope you enjoy as well.

 I don't know if I got a picture of it but on the bottom picture of the views, to the left of that shot, is Swan Lake. King Ludwig II loved Swans apparently. It was a huge fettish. Strange, but it had a big influence on the area.

In between these pictures we got in a tour of Nueschwanstein. Now this was interesting. I was unsure of what our guide was saying every other word. At first we were all sure that we were on the German speaking tour. That's how bad she was. 

 The way her pitch and tone changed while she was talking was incredible. Think of the most RIDICULOUS German accent that you think could surely be impossible. That was exactly how she talked. It was amusing, but unfortunately I don't have much to say about the castle because I am just not sure.

It was built in the late 1800s by King Ludwig the II of Bavaria (which is like a state in Germany). He apparently ran his region bankrupt building this castle and others that he worked on. Its ironic because people seem to talk to him like he is a famous King in history that was responsible for these beautiful castles, but really he seems like he was a terrible ruler. Oh I did catch this from the tour guide. She said that his title was taken away from him because he went crazy basically. Later he "drowned" in a pool. Assume with those quotation marks what you may...

 This is my best attempt at an incredulous face. I really was incredulous, but obviously photos don't always translate.

 This is the castle that supposedly Cinderella's castle and the Disney castle were based off of, which was pretty cool. It was built so magnificently onto the side of the cliff and I can see why he chose to build it where he did. The view was incredible. We hiked up a little higher to get a complete view of the castle.


If you looked down on the bridge that we were one, there was a beautiful waterfall and several walking trails. I could see myself coming back here for sure. There were so many trails and hikes that you could take and it would be amazing if we had time to hike them. The castle was so cool, but a lot of it was the beauty of the area around that. It was so beautiful and the castle was built in the perfect spot to enjoy all of God's beauty surrounding it.

We took the train back to Munich that night and got some dinner. More sausage, of course, I took advantage. Molly, I got some Kinder chocolate and it was delicious. Not sure how German specific this is, but it was good. 

 On Friday and Saturday we just went shopping and hung out around Munich, taking our pleasant time. It was relaxing and a nice break from all the going we have been doing (but oh we still went hard). To the left you will see a store with, yes Dindrl and Lederhosen. I thought surely it was a cultural stereotype we were taking part in but they embrace it and it is true. There was a whole shop with the outfits. If they weren't so expensive or if I had a little girl I definitely would have bought some. Even in the department store they went into they had a section devoted to these clothes. A few people    wore them around on a normal day, CRAZY!

 Anyways, our first stop was the Marienplatz where we saw the Glockenspiel. Every day at 11, 12 and 5 they would have a little show where it'd spin around, dance and joust. I tried to do a video, who knows if it'll work. It was a really cool atmosphere though.

After we looked around we stopped at a huge market in Munich. It had all sorts of cool spices, foods, specialties and it was all so cool to look out. Look at some of those cool fruits they were selling!


I was lucky enough to meet up with my good friend Grace in Munich on Friday. We talked about how wierd it was that we were both in Munich, at the same time, studying abroad and how cool it was that we got to meet up and hang out there.
Grace has been in Munich for several months now and so we got to walk around, talk and hang out for a while. Her German is pretty impressive, in my opinion. She thinks the natives can tell that she is American, but I can't remotely tell what she's saying so that must mean she's pretty authentic.

 After I hung out with Grace we went back to the English Garden (where Grace and I hung out earlier) to see it. It was so pretty. We got in this river where several people were swimming in and laying around (even though the water was freezing). However, apparently the weather wasn't too cold for some people. So in Germany, going nude in the park is acceptable. Absolutely no limitations. So there were plenty of nude people laying around the park and there was one too close for comfort next to us on the river. That was experiencing culture. I have been around enough of these situations at this point I think I am scarred permanently.

 We kept walking through the park and it was beautiful (as seen left). Then we went to the beach!!! See, there are people surfing. Well you would think that'd be true but no. They made artificial waves at the front of the park and people got in full out wetsuits to catch a wave. Random, but fun.
 

My supper, once again, sausage and sauerkraut. Couldn't resist. On Saturday we just hung out, chilled and went to this English Garden again. They had a band playing and singing some very pretty German music and wearing, once again, Lederhosen. So many people and it was like a random festival. People were eating, having a good time, listening to music! It was such a cool atmosphere and I think it was just a random Saturday that we were there.

Hopefully this video works, I tried!

 These two places below were close to each other. We spent a lot of time walking through this mini garden in Munich and it was a beautiful day outside most everyday. There were people playing violins and that was so beautiful. Right across the street there was this building. I don't know much about it but only the main middle part was left undamaged. Apparently it got ruined during the war and the bombings in Munich and they had to rebuild the rest. So sad.

 Overall, Munich was such a beautiful city, with nice people, great food and several fun things to see. It was such a full but relaxing weekend and I realized how much I love Germany and I really want to go back someday. I hope to get the chance. I have loved the beautiful cities we went into but one thought became clear to me while I was in Munich and after seeing some nature: God's creations are so much greater than anything man could dream up.

Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye. To You, and You, and you.