Trip Day 1

If you have been following my blog, which I assume you are because you're reading this, you know that I stopped posting for a while. Well during that time I went on somewhat of an adventure throughout Central Europe. Some friend and myself managed to make our way to Nurembourg, Munich, Brussels, Brugge, Amsterdam, and Berlin all within a 10 day period. Because there are so many stories to tell, as well as pictures, I think it would just be best for me to blog for the next 10 days and tell the story of that day. So here I go.

Day 1: Nuremburg

To start the day we arrived in Munich actually. After riding a night train from Vienna, we were tired of riding, but we figured that this would be as good of day as any to head there, so we hopped onto the first train to Nuremburg. Once we made it into Nuremburg we started wandering around aimlessly. We didn't have an itinerary for most of the trip, and it was too early in the morning for the tourist information to be open. We walked up and down the streets, taking in some of the sights including a very nice Lego store that had some very cool statues in the windows. These statues were taller than me. We also saw a cool church. Shortly thereafter we ate some breakfast and got on our merry way. We first stopped at the Nuremburg castle. This is one of the few cities in Europe to still have the castle walls standing. Most other cities tore them down. Although we didn't go into the castle we had a good look around. Following the castle we walked just down the street to the Albrecht Durer house. I didn't know much about him but he seems to have been a relatively important painter. The tour of his house was narrated from the perspective of his wife, which added a nice little twist. We did not stay there for long because there were many things to do and not a lot of time to do them. Of course because we were in Nuremburg we had to stop at the War Trials building. There was an extensive exhibit there, much more than we had initially planned on, but regardless, it was interesting, although I can't really say it was a good time... We also knew that Nuremburg was a famous location of Nazi rallies, so we had to visit the rally grounds. This was another amazing place. The buildings they constructed and the awe that much have inspired, I can see why the German people could have become so brainwashed by the Nazi ideals. The whole area was grand a built up, despite the fact that the actual grounds have been somewhat left to waste by whatever nature can throw at it. We even had the chance to stand on the same podium where Hitler gave the speeches. Hard to believe. Unfortunately, it was late in the evening by the time we had made our way there and we had to start heading home. On our way back through the grounds, Nuremburg seemed to have some sort of goodbye planned for us. Initially it was blue skies, but that quickly turned to rain. The rain then became sleet, which was followed by snow, all in about a 10 minute period. But that didn't stop the city from firing fireworks in the park, illuminating the sky and seeing us off. Nuremburg set the bar high for the first part of our trip and I must say, it was a blast.

Below are the pictures I took during the day in Nuremburg. Please excuse any blurry ones, I do not feel like deleting them all right now.