Mon 17-Sep-2001 Woke up early. Much to my dismay, my shower token did not work, which meant that I did not get any hot water. Checked out of the hostel and went to the train station, and got tickets to Berchtesgaden the town in the Bavarian Alps where many of the high ranking Nazis had homes. Erik got info on trains to the Mainz and it turned that there was a convienient overnight train. We had an hour to kill so we went to an internet cafe. Then we got on the train to Berchtesgaden, settled debts, and packed away my loose change now that Austria is behind us and we have no use for schillings. When we got to Berchtesgaden, we checked out the tourist's bureau. The good news was there was a tour of the Eagle's Nest, parts of the bunker, and the residences of some of the masters of the Third Reich in Obersalzburg. The bad news was that there was only space for two people; Chris and I would be the lucky ones. I did feel bad leaving the others behind. On the other hand, Erik didn't seem very interested to begin with either way, which seemed odd because he was interested in the Sound of Music tour. Anyways, we got to see the homes of many high ranking Nazis like Bormann, Göring and Speer (Hitler's home, the Berghof, was demolished). The Eagles Nest would turn out to be very interesting; it was a tea house built as a birthday present for Hitler, built above the clouds. The interesting thing is due to Hitler's fear of heights, he would never use it to any degree. The tour was everything that the previous tour was not: interesting, informative, not a tourist trap, and free of the Bob Saget crap humor. We had a good dinner at Luitpoldpark; I cannot say that I am tired of Schnitzel yet. We then boarded the train back to Salzburg so we could catch the night train to Mainz. Back at the Salzburg Hauptbahnof, we had two hours to kill. People had fun spending their very last of their schillings and other stuff. The train would turn out to be 20 minutes late, so we ended up lounging around the train station before departure. Also, a drunken bum came up and begged us for beer in very slurred German. It was quite an amusing experience; as he couldn't realize for more than a few seconds that I did not speak German. Upon realizing that I was an English speaker, he would start a sentence in English and end it in German (I think it was German; maybe it was just English slurred beyond all recognizition). Finally a little bit after midnight, we boarded the train for Mainz.

Tue 18-Sep-2001 Woke up in Mainz. This was my first time on a sleeper car. I "sort of" slept, but it was much better than a redeye flight. We got on a train to Bingen, or what we thought was the train to Bingen; we ended up in Wiesbaden, which was in the wrong direction. We got off there and went to an information booth, and found out where we actually had to go, and Chris got tickets. Corey had to run to the rest room so Chris and I had to go ahead to Bingen. We arrived there and dawdled for an hour and then Erik and Corey arrived. We went out of the train station and walked alongside the Rhine and to the docks, and went on a river cruise up the Rhine to a town called Bacharach. Our hostel there was in a castle called Castle Stahleck. To reach it, we had to climb five hundred stairs up a mountain carrying our packs. Never again. The location did have some strong points, namely the view. This castle is on the top of a high hill overlooking the Rhine valley, as well as a very quaint but pretty town. Over the course of my stay, I took many pictures. After settling in, Erik took a nap and Corey and I went down to the town to investigate accomodations in and travel to Munich. After visiting the train station, it became clear that the way to go would be through Mainz again and on to Munich, and we would be leaving on Thursday so we would just catch the first train we could. Then came the hard part - accomodations. Since Oktoberfest would be in progress, we knew that accomodations would be hard to come by. We went to a pay phone and Corey got together all of our travel books with hotel/hostel listings and started calling. There were no vacancies in Munich nor Augsburg. We did find some vacancies in two hotels in a city called Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which is a small city in the Bavarian alps that hosted the ski part of the 1936 olympics. The place is actually closer to Innsbruck than Munich, but still less than an hour by train. The two hotels were called the Gästehaus Trenkler and the Hotel Schell. To be safe (as well to be jerks), we double booked ourselves. When we got back to the castle/hostel, Chris informed us of an interesting discovery about the place at which we were staying; full service laundry! I then got a good amount of my dirty clothes together so my pack wouldn't have the properties of a chemical weapon when I go home. I also learned another thing about this place; tons of screaming kids. After dinner in the cafeteria, we took it easy and bummed around.