Hi, it’s Christina –
After all the elaborate ornate cathedrals
we've been seeing, I almost didn't notice
this tiny church in this village. I think
it's charming. It's one of maybe thirty-
five buildings in the village.
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Greetings from HOME. As
predicted, I crashed when I got home on Sunday, and I was pretty much in a coma
all day yesterday. I screwed myself up with a nap yesterday afternoon. I would
have been fine if I had set an alarm, but dummy me figured, I never nap for
than more than 1½ - 2 hours, I’ll be fine. 4½ later… UGH! I went to bed around
11:30 and was up by 6:00, so I think I’m back on track.
There are no pictures from
my final day in Europe and the trip home, because honestly, there wasn’t much
to see. The shuttle picked us up at 3:20 in the morning from Passau, so the two
hour trek to Munich was completed totally in the dark. We had very little time
in Munich airport before we were on our plane to Heathrow.
A random couple walking down the street in Passau |
I did sit with an uncle
and niece who were off on a three week adventure. They were headed to Peru (via
Miami), off to visit Machu Picchu and several other places in the South
American rain forest. On their return trip, they are staying in NYC for two
nights, so I shared what I thought were “must sees” and where they should be
careful. I wish I had gotten their names. They were so nice and I would have
been interested in hearing about their journey.
We landed at Heathrow forty
minutes early, but by the time we got to terminal five, hiked for miles to get
to the gate for security, made it through security, and got to our new gate, we
were only waiting for a little bit before we boarded.
On the plane I was wired
for sound, and couldn’t sleep, so I watched three movies – The Intern, The
Martian & Steve Jobs. I enjoyed all of them. By the time they finished, we
were approaching Newark. It was strange, I was watching the flight map as we
entered US airspace, and the flight pattern had us come in over Massachusetts, we
made it over Lys’ school in Burlington, Vermont, then hung a
sharp left to head to New Jersey.
The only turbulents we hit
the entire flight were upon approach, and let me tell you, we came in at such
an angle, and were bouncing so much, I was sure our right wing was going to
clip the tarmac, and it came pretty dang close, but we landed without incident.
An hour and a half after landing, we were in my van with Paulie driving and
Dani Rose, headed home. Dropped of my mom, came home, gave Dani her gift,
Paulie one of his, and then I went to bed. See, nothing photo worthy.
All the photos in this blog
are from my last day in Passau, Germany. All of them have comments near the photos, so
they really don’t need much more explanation. There are just a few things I
would like to add.
If you visit St. Stephens
Cathedral (which is absolutely gorgeous) in Passau, and you decide to
partake in the organ concert (which is terrible, I swear at some points he was
just hitting random keys to make noise, and I did not recognize a single thing
he played – so either he was just an awful player or he chose the most obscure
pieces of music available), bring your jacket. It was in the high seventies outside,
but inside the cathedral it was maybe in the low forties. I was shivering so bad,
(plus I couldn’t stand the noise any longer), I got up and left.
I was a little naughty
when I was there. The only reason I went to the concert was because mom had
signed up for it, but she got sick and went back to the ship, so I took her
spot. I would have been happy to just go in, get my photos, and leave. Anyway,
I knew she would have been disappointed she missed it, so I did a quick video
of the church, while he was playing, before I got caught and had to stop. It’s
just a snippet, but here it is. CLICK HERE
The reason I climbed all
the way up to Veste Oberhaus was because I was told that from there you can get
a picture of where the Ilk, the Danube & the Inn rivers converge. Now you
might say, who cares, but the one cool thing is the rivers are three distinct
colors, and when they meet, for a very short span, they retain the colors. This
was something I thought you would want to see (I would have been happy with a
post card, so yeah, I did this all for you.)
There are 300+ steps to
get up to Veste Oberhaus, however, at the 130 step, you have a choice as to
whether to turn right and climb the remaining 170, which would take ten
minutes, or turn left and take the path which takes twenty minutes. It was a
warm day, and the stairs were almost completely in the sun, and the incline was
pretty fierce. I chose the path, which in the end wasn’t much of a picnic
either, and had close to 100 steps as well, but they were spread out. Oh, and
by the way, the 300 steps sis not include the steps in the tower (which cost 1€).
I hope you like the photo…
I said I only missed
taking a photo of Cezar, our bartender, but upon further review, I realized I
missed a few more people – Cruz, another waiter, Alexandra, another cabin
steward, and the four guys who were always running around making sure
everything was functioning on the ship – I guess they are called engineers.
They were all nice, but I didn’t catch a single one of their names.
I noticed the swan after I took this shot,
I thought I got him, but I guess I either
missed or deleted the photo by accident.
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Oh, and I did find the
photo of the lock we went through where you can make out the two water levels.
Here it is –
So there you have it, my
almost two week adventure through Europe. I hope you enjoyed coming along with
me as much as I enjoyed having you.
Until next time, have a
WONDERFUL day & happy writing.