Today had a bit of a rocky start. I woke up on time, got breakfast, the usual. It was the first time that we would be taking a train to get to our cultural visit of the day, so it was a little stressful making sure we had everything we needed and didn’t mess anything up. So, we get to the train station ahead of schedule and we’re waiting for the train to come, only to find out that it has been delayed by about 20 minutes. Ugh. So the train finally comes and Dr. Feick ditches us! Everyone was very confused, but okay whatever. The delay caused us to arrive in Ulm late for our apppointment to climb the Minster tower. Great. I had thought that it was already going to be tough to get up and back in the timeframe that we had, but now we have even less time. Sonja, on the other hand, was very optimistic and said that we could still make it, so up we went.
768 steps. They just kept multiplying. You think that you’re getting close to the top, but then you look up and there’s still 500 steps left. Round and round we went up the narrow spiral staircase. “Just keep going, you’re so close”, and “where is the next rest area” were the only things going through my mind. 20ish minutes later, I was the third person to arrive at the top of the tower, behind Sonja and Alan. What a view it was. You don’t realize how high up you are until you get to the top and look down. We were 530 feet high. That’s crazy! Go us! All but 2 people were able to make the climb, but since there were so many of us, we weren’t all able to fit on the top at once, so I headed back down with a few other people to make room for the others. In all honesty, the climb up wasn’t as bad as I thought that it would have been , but the climb down was worse, to the point where almost everyone’s legs were shaking at the bottom.
After everyone had made their way down from the tower, we got a guided tour of the city of Ulm, which we were also slightly late for…whoops. The tour was really interesting. The most interesting fact that I learned was that Ulm has a hotel that holds the record for the most crooked hotel in the world. Odd but still an achievement.
After the tour, we got lunch at a place called Pfannkuchenhaus (pancake house). Here we ordered these crepe like pancakes that were AMAZING. Everyone else had to choose between getting a sweet one or a savory one, but me and Lexi had the brilliant idea to split a sweet and a savory one so that we were able to have both! It was probably one of the best lunches we’ve had so far.
Unfortunately now was the time to leave Ulm, so we took a train back to Augsburg, where we grabbed a tram to go to Königsplatz. However, halfway through the tram ride, we got kicked off because they were headed back to the station, not Königsplatz. Everyone was very confused, but thank goodness some guy was able to let us know what was going on, and we hopped on the next tram to Königsplatz.
Anyways, we get back to the hotel and we’re on our own, yet again, for dinner. So a group of us walk around, looking for a place to go and we find this pizza, pasta, italian, etc. place to eat. Again, good food, and we survived another meal by ourselves in a foreign country. Afterwards, everyone was pretty tired from the climb that we had made today, so it turned into a relaxing night in the hotel. Exactly what I needed.
Stay tuned for more about our adventures in Augsburg.