Today arrived at Füssen.

1. I missed the train from Munich to Füssen. I ate some Chinese dish at the main station until I found out I only have two minutes before the train departure. I rushed to the station. I got on the first train I saw. Just as I got on the train, the train beside the one I was on went away. After a few moments when this train didn’t depart, I realized I got on the wrong train.

2. I was very disturbed. The thing that concerned me the most is that I need to arrive at my hotel before nine in the evening. I thought with my missing the train, this is nearly impossible; plus I didn’t have any Internet or cellphone connections.

3. But I was then calm. I thought there’s a solution anyways. Actually I have been thinking in this way since I came to travel. I think this is important: something you don’t know where you are going, and sometimes you have troubles finding ways or something. But I think these things are not at all problems;  as long as one has the courage and curiosity to explore what awaits him/her, one will always find his/her way. I arrived at my hostel 5 minutes late, but I still entered. I would say I am lucky; but also the thought is important.

First of all, how I travelled today.

1. To Mirabell Palace. The two unicorns at the gate of the garden give the place an exotic feeling. All of the statues in the garden look somehow strange, giving the garden a sense of secret.

2. On my way to the old city I met a group of Chinese tourists with a tour guide. I then changed my original plan and followed them for some distance and learnt from the tour guide. The most important thing I learnt was that in the Mozart Cafe there is a very famous dessert called the Noderl, which I previously considered as nothing but an attraction for tourists. I tasted that dessert late in the afternoon, and I was great. Worth the price.

3. I climbed up a hill and on the south side of the river and hd a panoramic scene of the north side of the river. The climbing was fun, although it was kind of demanding, even without any luggage. I then walked all the way and Again to the Hohensalzburg castle. I believe no many tourists have done a tour like this. It was a view of the city from a different angle. That is what I aim to pursue during travel: well planned route+random wandering=surprises and “wow”s.

When I climbed up to the top of the Schloss Hohensalzburg, I immediately fell in love with the city. With mountains, rivers, villages and a sense of a small but popular town, Salzburg is a very cozy place. Especially the castle. I spent an entire 5 hours in the castle, visiting museums, sightseeing, having dinner and listening to a concert. The sight at the tower of the castle was great. Especially you can see the Alps from distance. The clouds dimmed sunlight, and reflected various beams of lights on the mountains. The castle is my favorite castle so far.

This morning I left early the hostel I stayed. By the way this is my first time I am traveling alone, and the experience has been quite good do far. Yesterday night I met a Korean and an Austrian and we talked till midnight. Hostel is such a great place.

Back to topic. I packed everything and left for English Garden. This is such a pastoral place! Trees, lawn, rivers, and even people riding horses! Was I in the center of the city? There is also a Chinese Turm in the garden. I couldn’t help but played the pastoral symphony while I wandered in the garden. So idyllic.

Later I went to the Residenz museum. Wha! The corridor is one of the most lavishly decorated passage I have ever seen. It was beyond word description. Very pretty. Walking through it one can really feel the lavish life of the royal family centuries ago.

In the evening I travelled to Salzburg in Austria, on the border of Germany. I felt I love Munich. I don’t usually  love a city. When I went to Prague I found it interesting but not charming, but it was probably because of the language: I don’t understand Czech language, and this made my travel experience not that great. But I really like Munich. History and modernity. City life and pastoral life. peace and dynamics. It combines three elements in one place. Such a well designed city!

I have realized that I haven’t been updating my blog for a while. This is partly because for the past week I was busy preparing my travel starting this Saturday, partly because the thunderstorm cut down the internet access in my room, but when I wanted to write and post something yesterday, I found that my computer couldn’t start. WHAT A BAD NEWS FOR ME! That means, from then on, I can only go to Starbucks for Internet and write my blogs on my iPad. It also made booking hotels and other things more difficult. But I need to accept the reality. Maybe I will change a computer.

Bt anyways… Let me talk about what happened last week.

Highlights:

1. I bought a Deutschland Railway Pass, SPEAKING GERMAN TO THE DB STAFF THE WHOLE TIME. It took me more than 20 minutes, and I can only understood 50% of what she said. But I still successfully bought the pass. Such. Great accomplishment. Since that time I felt so much more comfortable speaking German to German people.

2. I went to Dresden, capital of Saxony. Scenery in the city was OK, lots of gloomy buildings, the lucky survivors of the World War II. the scenery at the top of the Frauenkirche was great. I also took a steam boat along the Elbe river. There are so many castles along the river. The riverside was gorgeous.

3. Also in Dresden. On Saturday morning, 6.29, I had the most wonderful breakfast, or dessert, in Germany. I bought a Dresdener cheesecake at a restaurant next to Frauenkirche, went to a Chocolate museum and bought a glass of chocolate ice coffee. The cake was good, the coffee was good, but when the two were combined, OH MY GOD. A special sweetness of cheese and cake, and a special bitterness of the chocolate coffee. COMBINED. The most absolutely wonderful flavor I have ever tasted. It is hard to describe, but I felt in wonderland, that this taste couldn’t be produced in our world. Well. I then thought, that cooking is a kind of art. The great masters of art are the ones who can combine different individual elements into a harmony. Musicians make use of the special quality of every instruments and compose them into great music. Cooks combine different favors and create new flavors. Engineers and architects combine elements in art, science and  humanity and creat great products. It reminds me further, that nothing in the world works wonderfully alone. But there need to be a person who have the ability to integrate things and make them work together properly and beautifully. I wish I could become that kind of person.

4. Also in Dresden. It was I pity that I didn’t visit the green vault. Tickets were all sold out! But what surprised me was that the lady selling the tickets can speak Chinese! I was so surprised that for a moment I had nothing to say. You need to know that in DDR not many people speak even English.

5. Saturday afternoon I went to Prague. Oh man, what a beautiful city and friendly people. I stayed at a home stay, which is actually a real Czech family. It costed only 26 euro, but the family provided me with a super large room, super comfortable bed, delicious local food (especially breakfast. It was the best breakfast I had so far since last year when I left China), and so much fun. The lady in the home has a 6 year old kid, and in the morning after breakfast we played games and it was simply great. The lady and the kid literally don’t speak English, but the friendliness was expressed without words. I was also a little surprised that English was not so widely used in Europe. I used to think in Europe everyone speaks English, but that was such a wrong assumption… In Prague, for example, when I asked passerby for direction, most of them cannot understand what I said. Even people in tourist sites speaks only little English and German. Now I understand the advantage of having the ability to speak several languages. People find it better to communicate if the one he/she is talking to can speak relatively good his/hers native language.

6. I forget to mention that the train from Dresden to Prague drives along the Elbe river. The scenery along the way was also great.

7. On the train back to Leipzig I met an interesting Arabian guy. We talked all the way in German. I shared with him the delicious candy I brought from Chongqing, and we talked a lot about our languages, Arabian and Chinese. In the end he gave me a postcard he bought in Prague as a present and wrote on it wishes in German and Arabian. This postcard really made my day! A nice encounter, discussions of cultures, spending good time, and lots of thinking: the meaning of traveling??