Aug 19, 2010

Chapter 7: Passau and Munich

5 Hours later, we woke up from a night in Regensburg! Maggie and I were both struggling to make it onto the bus that would take us to Passau! Since the waters were still too high for us to get under this one imparticular bridge...  Maggie decided to skip out on Passau, so Pop and I journeyed alone to Passau. We went on a walking tour as soon as we arrived. We passed by a place where you can by horse meat, the executor of Passau's house, and the Cathedral. Our tour was very short and sweet. They left us at the Cathedral where we would listen to an organ concert. It is the biggest organ in the world with almost 80,000 pipes. They played some Bach and many other songs. It was very loud, but very good! After that, Pop was determined to find a liquor store so that he could get a bottle of vodka. Every night in room 205 he attended a private drinking party with Maggie's grandmother, Mrs. Sarah, and Mrs Sarah's friends, Tom and Margy. This is the crew we had dinner with every night, so they loved each other's company. Pop wanted to get a bottle to repay them for their kindness. Let's just say I spent the 3 hours trying to find a bottle of Vodka. These were the only 3 hours I had in Passau so I did not get to go see anymore of Passau. Except the grocery store. We bussed back to the ship that was waiting for us in Regensburg, hopefully going to sail off that night for Melk! When we arrived back on the ship, I looked for Maggie and finally found her. The first thing that came out of her mouth was "Cata is gone!". Cata, our faithful waiter and shopping companion from the day before had hurt himself. The night before when we all arrived from our night out and all the girls went to sleep... the boys decided that they wanted to go out again! Well, right outside the ship was 2 large dumpsters. Cata decided he wanted to swing around on them for entertainment. He fell off the dumpster, broke his collar bone and busted his head open. Needless to say, Cata was taken to the hospital and didn't come back. He was sent home and that is where he will stay for the next 2 months to recuperate! Maggie and I were very sad... Cata was by far our favorite waiter. We decided to go out on the town again that night with Stefan and Bobby, but didn't stay gone long. It just wasn't the same without Cata there! So we all headed back to the ship by 12 and went to bed.

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The next morning, we were informed that the waters were still too high for us to make it under the bridge. We were going to miss our scheduled stop to Melk, but they awesome cruise directors surprised us with a trip to Munich instead!
We bussed an hour and 20 minutes to Munich (I slept!) and took a bus tour around the big city. They let us off in front of the big Opera for a small walking tour. Pop and I joined the walking tour and went to the cathedral. This cathedral has a coo coo type clock on it that goes off at 12 PM. We just happened to be at the cathedral at that time so we all stood around to watch! The little figurines danced around the clock and all the bells were dinging and dinging!
After the cathedral we had a little free time. Maggie and I set out to the market to find something to take back to our families! Pop decided he wanted to go sit at the small cafe near the place that the buses would be picking us back up. Maggie and I went through the market and I FINALLY found a place to get my sister something! She is pretty hard to buy for and I was so so so excited about this store. I can't say what it is yet... because I got something there for both of my sister's and only one knows about it so far! She liked it a lot and that's all that matters! After that store I was on a mission to find some wine for my mom. I really wanted some Frankconian wine because that was the region of Germany we sailed through and that is where we saw all the vineyards, but I couldn't find any. Frankconian wine is in a special bottle. It is a short fat bottle not tall and slender like normal bottles! I ended up getting some Italian wine that I hope will be really good!
Maggie got a little box of raspberries that were gone in about 5 minutes. They were really good. We continued walking around looking at everything until we had made our way close to where the bus was going to pick us up. We came up on a square that had nothing but grass. There were children playing with balls, young couples laid out in the grass on blankets, and young women reading books. We sat down in the grass and just watched everyone. We saw and artist on the other side of the square and went over to talk to him. He was from Italy and spoke english very well. He said he had been to Atlanta before and that he wanted to go back one day and that maybe I would see him there! I loved his paintings... I so wish I could have bought one and brought it back but they were too big! He let me take some pictures of them though! That was so nice of him! We finally made it back to the square where the bus was and headed back to the ship in Regensburg.
While on the bus, they informed us that the water was still too high. That we would yet again spend another night in Regensburg. I was kind of hoping that we would sail because I was tired of spending nights out with the crew. They were becoming a little rude and obnoxious at times. Maggie and I had planned to do laundry at a laundry matt later that night instead of going out so we went and got ready to do that when we got on the ship! When we went to leave, they wouldn't let us off the ship. They said "We're leaving at 7:30!" Hallelujah! I was so glad we were sailing that night. Maggie... she wasn't so happy. She really needed to get her laundry done because she would stay in Europe another week after we got off the ship. So we set sail 30 minutes after we wanted to get off and decided we would join our dinner table instead of going to eat the famous german Kebab.
We were informed after dinner at our nightly meeting that we would have a sailing day to catch up to our schedule and make it to the lovely city of Vienna!!
Then it was off to bed!

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