Oh what a morning this was blog. Chocolate croissant and latte, like usual. The group was running a little late so instead of taking the street tram to the train station, we sped walked down the street. Watching 20 American students, in Germany, speed walking to a train is an interesting sight. Some are up ahead, some are lagging behind, and the teachers are just trying to get everyone there on time. We made it on the train and then it was not too long before we were in Ulm. Dr. Feick had warned us about how many stairs there were to climb to the top of the church, 768 steps to the top, that what I was thinking about. Little did he warn us that climbing these stairs is one scary hike.
I did not like the gondola ride up the Alps in Oberammergau, I was not prepared for Münster. When I was little I climbed the steps up Notre Dame, it was not hard at all, tight space but easy to do. I was expecting something similar Notre Dame. This was not similar to Notre Dame. The stairwell that we had to take was a tight spiral, that was not fully connected to the rest of the building. The stair well is essentially its own structure off to the side of the actual church. The stairwell is very tight, hard to even have two people passing each other. Partnered with the tight space, there were windows along all sides of the stairwell. You could see exactly how high up you were at all times and with all angles. You couldn’t not look out the window because they were everywhere. Closing your eyes is also not an option because you could trip on the uneven steps.
At about 3/4th of the way up there is a giant landing, leading into the last set of stairs until you are at the top. I decided to take a break, but the break led into a contemplation of not going all the way up and just heading back down. It wasn’t until Ryan Earle made a deal with me. If I went all the way up he would buy me a gelato. At that point I was so close that I might as well just go to the top. I made it up, took a photo and then immediately went back down. The way down was surprisingly worse than the way up. At the end of the day I’m glad I went to the top. I got to see an amazing view and experience the tallest church in the world. I did not concur any fear of heights, but I do have a funny picture from me at the top.
After the church we took a tour of the city of Ulm. Our first stop was back to the church, where he talked about the bombing of the city of Ulm and how near 80% of the city was destroyed but the church was untouched. There were water streams right outside of the houses. This beautiful bridge. Ulm is the city I want to retire in, still a big city but quiet and relaxing.
The most interesting part of the tour was the “extremely tilted house”. Our tour guide described the reasoning of the tilt to be that the base of the house was the only measurements the city took when dealing with taxes. Because of this rule, people would try to build their upper floors wider than the base, causing a tilt. Now this house is turned into a hotel. However, I want to know if these buildings are actually safe to live in.
The tilted house was the last stop on our tour, and from there we went to dinner at Pfannekuchenhaus. I knew there were sweet crepes and there were savory crepes, but I have never seen so many options in my entire life. Anything you could think of to put on a crepe, they had it. At first I wanted the strawberry and Nutella crepe, but I knew we were getting cake for Eammon’s birthday so I went with the basil chicken and mozzarella instead. Best decision I had made all day, the basil chicken was very good and something I wouldn’t normally have ordered.
We take the train back to Augsburg and work on our presentations for the rest of the night.
