Category Archives: Nature Photographs

Thailand 2015

We spent a little over a week in Bangkok and we thoroughly enjoyed our time! We did a lot of cool things like: three days of cooking classes, a day trip up to the old Thai capitol Ayutthaya, toured around Bangkok and even went to two movies! The people were so friendly & helpful, Bangkok was very modern and had all the amenities we could ever need, most things were very cheap, the food and sights were great! We didn’t really see a whole lot of Thailand, just Bangkok and Ayutthaya, and it’d be great to go back and see the rest someday. There were a ton of tourists and expats there, just a massive amount. Jacquelyn and I had been lamenting the fact Americans have been far and few in-between in our travel but there were many Americans in Bangkok and we’re good for awhile.

Thailand is the only country in the area that was not colonized by Europeans. The British were on one side (India, Myanmar) and the French were on the other (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam). The British and the French decided that Thailand would be a good buffer zone to prevent conflict between their colonies. Despite never being colonized, they definitely picked up some British habits like driving on the left side of the road. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and there are pictures and paintings of the King doing different thing like: pointing at stuff, holding swords, playing with his dogs, looking serious and taking photographs, all over Bangkok. Thailand is set up for tourism. All sorts of US brands are available, there’s many places that are a short flight from Bangkok and there’s a ton of guides available for anything a tourist could want to do.

We took three days of cooking class because Thai food is very yummy. We also like spicy food and have a fondness for Thai chilies. It’ a different type of spicy than other chilies. During our cooking classes, I added a lot of chilies to my Tom Yum soup and everyone was coughing once I started cooking my soup, even our Thai instructor. I was happy that I had a stuffy nose that day because I didn’t mind the noxious chili fumes. In another instance, Jacquelyn ordered Tom Yum soup from a street vendor; that soup is best described as “pure burning” and was more chemical weapon than food. Instant eyes watering, instant nose running, not delicious. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that spicy. It hurt going in and out. That said, Jacquelyn finished it while I was running some errands. On my return, I found her staring at the wall. She didn’t say much other than, “I finished the soup”.

Our day trip up to Ayutthaya, the old Thai capitol, was very neat. It started by taking a $0.40 train ride two hours to Ayutthaya. We had read tourists could easily hire tuk-tuks in Ayutthaya to tour all the important sites so we didn’t do a whole lot of research on what we wanted to see. We found a driver who seemed nice; I asked him to “bring us around” while making a circle gesture with my hands. He nodded and we were off. It turned out to be a great tour and the driver was a really cool guy. Unfortunately, we couldn’t finish the tour with him because his tuk-tuk died so he recruited his friend to bring us back to the train station. His friend had a pimped out tuk-tuk with a huge stereo system, very funny.

Overall, our time in Thailand went very quickly. It was too bad because it was such a great place to visit, everyone was so friendly and helpful. I can understand why Europeans and Americans flock to Thailand and why some even settle in the country. I don’t blame them, there’s a lot to love about the country, the people, and their culture.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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China 2014 & 2015

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So, where to begin with China? To start, China is a huge country with huge everything. China is the ‘Texas’ of the world. China: has the world’s largest population, has five of the top 10 tallest buildings, used more concrete in 2011-2013 than the US did in all of the 20^th century, uses the second largest rail network, contains seven of the top 10 busiest shipping ports, and, every year, has the world’s largest human migration, about 200million, for Lunar New Year. A national park we visited has 30million visitors a year which is about the same as the top seven national parks in the US. Prior to the Great Recession, about a quarter of all construction cranes in the world were in Shanghai. I think it’s one of the few places in the world where a person can see new infrastructure and buildings every visit. With each of my four trips to Shanghai over the last four years, the skyline looked appreciably different each time!

Unlike my last visits, which were always for work and about work, we wandered around the country and saw quite a bit. We visited big cities like Beijing and Shanghai while also spending a good deal of time out in the mountains away from the terrible air pollution. We had the chance to do “homestays” where we lived with local Chinese and even celebrated New Years with our hosts’s friends and family. They were amazing experiences. We had very open discussions with many different individuals about far ranging subjects from: voting, shooting guns, the Cultural Revolution, economic outlook, cultural norms, one child policy and political corruption. I’m not sure why guns came up so often but pretty much everyone wanted to talk about guns. Some would ask if I had used a gun and then their eyes would grow large when I told them I had shot many guns at many different things. One gentleman kindly taught Jacquelyn and I Chinese calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting. Jacquelyn’s a good artist but my creations would embarrass any parents if put on their refrigerator.

China was incredibly easy to travel through. We had next to no language issues even though it’s the least English speaking country we’ve visited and found many ‘allies’ for help along the way. Here’s a great example: we were in a rather touristy area that was off season so there were no other foreigners, let alone English signs, around. We needed to get from X to Y and took a bus. Someone showed us the correct bus to take but we soon realized we had no idea where to get off. Luckily, the bus driver remembered where most foreigners go, stopped the bus, opened the doors and muttered some Chinese while pointing back and forth to us and the bus door. Turns out, that’s where we needed to get off! Overwhelming, our experiences were like this in China. We were met with kindness, gratitude, and openness all along the way. Only a few times did people try to scam us. One that stands out as being particularly funny was when we took a tuk-tuk in Beijing and the driver refused to give me about $2 in change I was due. At this point in our travels, Jacquelyn and I work really well as a team; I stood in front of the tuk-tuk, so he couldn’t drive away, and started to yell at him. Right away, Jacquelyn joined the fray and was in his face yelling too. I’m pretty sure the guy was used to rolling westerners and westerners not getting upset about losing $2 because he was extremely surprised and quickly acquiesced. Many people have tried to scam us in our journey but we’ve become pretty good at dealing with scammers.

The Cultural Revolution destroyed most cool things in China so pretty much everything, including huge portions of the Forbidden City, are rebuilds or replacements. Other than some of the really big cities in China like Shanghai and Beijing, the cities are pretty void of a cultural heart like would be found in most western cities. We stayed overnight in Guilin while transiting across China, which had a population of about six million people, and is not a lot different in population than Chicago & suburbs. Most of the buildings were done up in the Soviet Style awesomeness; there was a nice lake to walk around and that was about it. To fix this issue, China is rapidly building old looking new buildings to attract tourists. It’s cheesy but also pretty hilarious in a sad sort of way.

So now the two bad things about China. First: the air pollution is really, really, really bad. Like, taste-it-in-your-mouth and feel-it-on-the-back-of-your-throat bad. Interestingly, each major city has different smelling / tasting air pollution. Shanghai (burning brakes), Beijing (plastic-ish + burning brakes), Xi’An (dryness+mining+dust+metals), and Shenzhen (metal working + sweet ocean breeze). Some of the cities in China are very beautiful, I look forward to the time where we don’t have to wait for a specific wind direction to get good, pollution free, views. Second: the Chinese people can be incredibly rude and gross. Cutting, shouting, bubble-invading is all very common along with spitting, blowing their nose on inanimate objects, coughing on people, and sneezing on people. I became pretty good at pushing people out of my way, it helps I’m a lot larger than most Chinese and I would generally just plow my way through willy-nilly. I’m sure those folks didn’t mind being pushed out of the way but I can’t be sure because I never looked back. Amazingly, the Manners Police are out in full force. I first saw the Manners Police in my last visit to Shanghai back in early 2013. They ran around and yelled at people doing gross things. Spitting openly is down significantly, tissues are used by most for blowing a nose, I only saw a couple people urinating in public, every person I saw was dressed, and I didn’t see anyone defecating in public anywhere. That’s progress!

We loved our time in China. We were lucky enough to celebrate 10yrs of being together, Christmas and New Years there. We very much look forward to going back!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Singapore 2014

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We had a great, albeit, short, week in Singapore. We didn’t know what to expect but whatever expectations we had were blown out of the water: easy to get around, great food, great people and pragmatism found pretty much everywhere. After spending about two months in Nepal and India it was like stepping back into civilization where things worked on the first try and there wasn’t a need for a plan A, B and C. We had a mini culture shock! I kept asking Jacquelyn, “is this really happening?” because the experiences were so different than our last two months.

Singapore is a developed nation of about 5.4 million people in an area 1/20th the size of the Twin City metro. There’s no Singaporean ethnicity just like there’s no American ethnicity. Singapore was a British colony and people from all over the region settled in the area. Because of all the different cultures, most of the information signs are in four languages (English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil) making for some pretty large information signs.

The blend of cultures brings a lot of great food, such amazing food. Singapore is unique with “hawker” stalls. It’s a group of food cart like restaurants under a permanent roof. Hawker stalls are all over Singapore and it’s possible to get many different dishes. One of the larger hawker sites we visited had 200 or so stalls. Food is cheap and plentiful so only about 15% of Singaporeans cook their own meals at home!

There was a surprisingly large amount of things to do. Lots of shopping, lots of parks, museums, and performances. It seemed as though there was always a very large mall nearby; I think there’s about 100 or so malls. We were able to find goods in Singapore that we haven’t seen since the US.

I had a chance to work with some Singapore suppliers in my last job. It’s hard to describe their work ethic and work product. Maybe it’s best described as an unrelenting tsunami of exceeding expectations. After visiting Singapore I can see why. Singapore has no natural resources, it’s tiny, it’s the only nation in the world to be given independence against its will and basically started from nothing. So, Singapore people being pragmatic as they are, decided to be good at business and trade. Now, it’s a wealthy country, a financial center, the second busiest port in the world and is a huge tourist destination.

The Singaporean airport was amazing. Butterfly garden, massage areas, sleeping areas, many food options, flower gardens, orchid gardens, free movie theaters, koi ponds, gaming area and so on. I was like, “is this real life? I thought airports were the places people went to go to get groped by undereducated, underappreciated, and underpaid security personnel.” It was such a shockingly huge difference. I’ve never experienced anything like it – I actually enjoyed our time at the airport! Unimaginable!

There were only two downsides for us: sin taxes on a lot of things and the heat. Alcohol, beer, candy, unhealthy snack food were all pretty expensive. A large pack of oreos and a large beer were about the same price, ~$15. Singapore is about 85 miles from the equator so year around it’s in the 90s with 90%+ humidity. So freaking hot.

We enjoyed the water show and all the beautiful flowers of Singapore so there’s a lot of photos of both.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Goa India 2014

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We left Goa, India, and are now in Singapore. We spent about a week in Goa just relaxing on the beach and getting over multiple bouts of food poisoning.

Goa was a really interesting place. It was a Portuguese colony for about 450 years. It’s located on India’s west coast about halfway down the length of the country. Hippies flocked to the area in the 60s and 70s enjoy the beaches, great food, wonderful weather, cheap food, cheap accommodation and plentiful drugs. The hippy culture still very much exists in Goa.

The Portuguese brought Christianity and European architecture to the area. It was really weird driving around on our scooter seeing the typical sights in India and then driving past Christian churches and uniquely European churches.

It was a good visit but we were happy to leave for Singapore.

Enjoy the pictures!

Chris W.

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Rajasthan, India 2014

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We had one of the best experiences on our trip so far – a 12 day tour through the Indian state of Rajasthan. Rajasthan is slightly south west of New Delhi, borders Pakistan, and is mostly desert. It’s a not a big state, it’s about the size of Montana. Despite this, at different points in history, very large forts and palaces were built; forts and palaces that are indescribably huge and opulent. It’s like having a huge fort and palace built in Helena, Bozeman, Missoula, Billings and minor forts built in lots of other cities across Montana. Kind of hard for my American mind to comprehend.

We hired a car and driver to shuttle us about, it was surprisingly cheap. Our driver, Bhupendra (boopy), was a stand up guy. He was from Rajasthan and was able to share a lot of his culture and history with us, we were very fortunate to have met him.

We only traveled a few hours a day so we had quite a bit of time to talk to the locals. We learned a lot about Rajasthan and its people:
* By and large, we were treated very well. Much more friendly and laid back compared to Delhi / Agra.
* Super hard working people. It seems like life is easier for a select few but for everyone else it’s extremely difficult with really long hours. At our hotels, it was really common to see the same staff every day no matter what time it was
* We met some incredibly good business people. We took a cooking class with a woman who had never worked until her husband died. She had zero schooling because she lived out in the desert. She moved into a city to find work and, over time, she found she had a penchant for cooking and started a cooking class for tourists. She learned English, French, and Spanish from tourists. Her class is the #1 activity in her city on Tripadvisor and she now has enough money to build her own cooking studio. She’s grateful Tripadvisor helped her move from a life of squalor to something much better.
* Tripadvisor seems to be very important. Like usual, we found lots of activities through Tripadvisor and thought nothing of it. Talking to business owners, they remember who helped them set up a Tripadvisor account and a lot talked about how their business and lives changed for the better.
* People spoke a lot about their caste. In the US I had learned that the caste system no longer existed and was surprised to hear people talk openly about it. It was very interesting and educational!
* The wages are not high, we found out that our driver’s salary is about $100/mo or about $3/day. He said his wage is OK compared to other jobs.
* We hadn’t seen other Americans for about a month until we ran into a couple who ‘outsourced’ their retirement to India. They left the US shortly after the Affordable Care Act was passed because ‘the US is no longer the land of opportunity’. Both were still pretty riled up about US politics even though they’ve been gone for awhile. Until that point, Jacquelyn and I hadn’t thought much of politics and after the conversation we realized how little we missed the political scene.

Sadly, our time in India is ending. We are in Goa (a hippy’s paradise!) and will be leaving India from here. We missed a lot of the things we wanted to see (Darjeeling, Varanessi, Kerela, Chennai, Amristar, just to name a few) but we’ve decided that after nearly a month here it’s good to move on.

Enjoy the photos :).

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Chris W.

Nepal 2014

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The trip through Nepal was pretty incredible. We ended up staying another week and a half in Kathmandu before leaving the country. During that time we ended up getting some good R&R, visited the medieval city of Bhaktapur, our guide went to some different temples with us in the Kathmandu valley, had some great food and I had my first haircut outside of the US.

The remaining time in Nepal was well spent. We took the time to relax for awhile and recharge our batteries after the rigorous hike in the Himalaya. Much like in the mountains, the Nepali people in the city were just nice, just as hard working and just as great to be around. We traipsed through Thamel and discovered some great Western restaurants. We even found a bar a lot like would be found in the US called Tom and Jerry’s. It wasn’t until we found Tom & Jerry’s in Thamel that I realized how much I missed home – western music was playing, the beer was delicious and Jacquelyn greatly enjoyed her margaritas. It was weird to think that we’ve only been on the road for about two months and already I was starting to miss some of the things I enjoyed at home.

It was fun to see all the people from Europe and North America dress up in Nepali clothes and walk around saying “namaste” while bobbing their heads and holding their hands together. It seemed as though white women in their 20s to early 30s were the most susceptible to acquiring the local’s identities even if the locals didn’t really wear the traditional Nepali clothes or walk around bobbing their heads and saying “namaste”. Overall, it was pretty hilarious. It’s akin to the folks I used to work with that would drink the corporate kool-aid and become “Mr. or Ms. Corporation” but instead of corporate speak and buzzwords these travelers would speak horribly mangled Hindi and look like idiots. At the very least, I hope their traditional Nepali clothes were comfortable.

It was great to see our guide again and we were really happy he brought us around to different temples in Kathmandu. We really like Sandesh, it’s too bad he had tragedy befall his family but the Nepali people are an incredibly strong bunch and if anyone can handle it, it’d be the Nepali’s.

At the end of the day, we weren’t quite ready to leave Nepal. It was such a wonderful country and we had such a great time there. Someday, it’d be great to go back.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Trekking in Nepal 2014

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We spent about two weeks walking in the Himalaya before heading back to Kathmandu. We went to a region not too far from Kathmandu called Langtang / Gosiankunda so we fortunately missed the deadly avalanche.

The trek was pretty incredible: stunning scenery, great company, good weather, and delicious food. For the most part, the weather was incredibly good – good temperatures and clear skies. We hired a porter-guide, Sandesh, to help us along the way. We really lucked out, he was a great guy and we enjoyed spending a little over two weeks with him.

The scenery speaks for itself. Never have been around such incredible beauty; I hope to come back again in the future. There’s an immense tranquility at the higher elevations – no planes, no car noises, no Harley Davidson noises, no pollution, no/very few people, no cell phones, no radios, etc. It was so wonderfully awesome to completely avoid all the annoying sounds of humanity, I was quickly brought back to the numerous times I took off into the Black Hill and found my little corner of clarity in nature. The experience was a great reminder that I greatly enjoy being disconnected and having my own tranquil space free from the pollution of others. It was also great that I was able to share this experience with Jacquelyn; she has never hiked in this high of elevation, which is an experience in itself. It’s really hard to describe hiking / walking / trekking above 14,000ft: the sun is brighter, sounds carry further, there’s less pollution, and things just seem so much better!

We met all sorts of people on the trail from many different countries. tree huggers (literally came across a group of Brits hugging a huge tree, they asked me to take a photo of them), individuals trekking by themselves, huge groups of trekkers and porters, older individuals (70s-ish), people with very little gear / preparation (no sleeping bags, no coats, but just jeans and a sweater), and people with every last accessory (including matching bandanna). We did not meet many people around our age (early 30s) and those we did meet were all in Nepal for a short time because they had to get back to their jobs. We met a new group of people we didn’t quite enjoy being around and those are Israeli tourists. Quite a loud and obnoxious bunch seemingly oblivious to those they are around.

In order to pass the time, Jacquelyn and I read books and played cribbage. Before we left, we decided to have a cribbage contest which we aptly called “the Great Himalayan Cribbage Championship”. We decided the winner of the tournament would get to spend $40 or more at a restaurant of their choosing at a date of their choosing. Here in Kathmandu, a $40 dinner for two is quite luxurious. We played during the course of the trek and I was completely victories, utterly defeating Jacquelyn with exactly one victory to her zero. It was a great victory and I will reminder her for years to come.

The biggest surprise was the Nepali people. Talk about a bunch of very strong, very tough, very friendly people. For example, Sandesh, our porter-guide, is probably 5’3″ and I think I have somewhere around a 120lbs on him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he could bench press me. No matter what, he always had a smile on his face and was ready to go, even after eight hours of hiking misery and two family tragedies (uncle and cousin killed in Annapurna avalanche, child in ICU) during our trek.

We, at least me, didn’t have the huge, life altering, experience that many other people claim to have while trekking in the Himalaya. In fact, I feel pretty much the same as when I arrived. Sure, it was pretty, sure it was great to experience all the cultural difference, and yes it was very rewarding hard work, but it was just another awesome experience we’ve had on our trip – not a life altering experience which completely changes the way I think about life. I am OK with this, I didn’t think anything was wrong with me to begin with so there’s no reason why I needed the life altering experience :).

I broke up the photos into two groups. One group of 83 photos shows the various experiences on the trail. The next group of photos are artistic (if you can call it that) photos of the things we saw on the trail, pretty much mountain views. The second album of full of pretty stuff but no real content.

After the trek we went back to Kathmandu and hung out for almost two weeks. I’ll write about that later.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

Trekking photos:

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Mountain photos:

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Italy 2014

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We had a great time in Italy! We didn’t really plan on being in Italy very long but we ended up staying for quite some time – around eleven days total. We didn’t see a lot of Italy, actually, we didn’t travel much at all. Instead, we focused on spending more time in one place and took cooking classes along the way! Our time in Italy was in a small area of Italy: Bologna to Padua (near Venice) to rural Varenna (Como Lakes region). The flat areas of Italy smelled and felt a lot like Minnesota in the summer: farm like and a bit humid. Varenna, a city on a mountainside, was a really cool little town.

I was completely unprepared for the beauty of Italy. The food was magnificent, just brilliant. We learned a few simple recipes at at couple different places that were just delightful. Some of the more fun recipes was learning how to make pasta and pizza.

Fun facts we learned while traveling in Italy:
* Italians tell us there is no “Italian” cuisine or language. Italy is all about the city and the city’s specialty. In Bologna, our spaghetti had no tomato sauce and that’s considered normal for Bologna.
* The wine and the champagne were oh so good! We didn’t have to spend much to get something great! One of the wines we enjoyed the most was a whopping $1.50 for the bottle. I have no idea how anyone can make money off that.
* There’s an encyclopedia of pasta. Something like 5,000 different pasta recipes. That’s a little under seven factorial so that small amount of combinations results in a lot of different recipes! I never realized the pasta world was that complicated.
* There’s some things that are absolutely flabbergasting about Italy. Namely, how individuals buy fare for public transit. In a million years I would never have guessed that the nearest news stand or random shop closest to the stop would be the place to buy a ticket. When I asked a local about this he said, ‘Well I could just say, “that is Italy”, but it’s more complicated”.
* Food is serious business. Criticizing one region’s food seems to be quite the faux pas.
* Venice seems to have mastered the art of extracting tourist’s cash.
* Rick Steves is everyone’s tour guide and Rick Steves has groupies. It’s hilarious!

Overall, we had a great time. We’d love to go back to the Como Lakes region and explore all the little towns and do more hiking!

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Enjoy the photos :).

Innsbruck, Austria, 2014

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We visited Innsbruck, Austria, since it was on the way to Italy. We went up a tram to the top of a mountain near Innsbruck and had a wonderful view of the valley and the Alps. The weather was perfect and it was a lot of fun to have the experience. It’s been some time since I was last in the mountains, I really soaked it up! The town of Innsbruck is rather small but still has some cool stuff like good restaurants and a neat Catholic church. Innsbruck held the Olympics a few times so they have really good transit for such a small town.

I took a timelapse of the clouds rolling through the mountains. It was really cool and can be downloaded here: DSC_7449.

Enjoy the pictures!

Chris W.

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St. Goar and Rothenburg ob der Tauber 2014

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I decided to break up our Germany trip into two posts because St. Goar on the Rhine River and Rothenburg ob der Tauber are pretty different than the rest of our travel through Bavaria.

We really liked St. Goar. It’s a tiny little town on the Rhine River. We rented bicycles and biked up and down the river finding all sorts of plants (hops, pear trees, apple trees, raspberries, and so on). The Rhine region is known as a Riesling region so we took advantage of the delicious wines with typical German meats and cheese! We rode a riverboat up the Rhine and saw all sorts of castles along the way. We hopped off at Bakarack and hiked up to the castle above the town. Whether by boat, car, bike or train, the Rhine River region between St. Goar and Bakarack is astoundingly beautiful.

We then went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and was blown away by this medieval city. The original city walls from long ago are still intact and most of the inner city is as well. It was quite an experience and everything was done up in the traditional medieval way. It was very touristy but still fun to visit: we had a chance to walk the city walls, see a neat night tour, enjoy meat & cheese & bread and just had a very fun time!

On the way to Dachau were saw more of the Bavarian countryside and saw a lot of hops growing :). Germany isn’t a whole lot different than the Netherlands. There’s a lot more room, the trains are super easy to navigate, and the trains are very comfortable. The only downer is probably due to the internet. A lot of places that have advertised internet with their lodging have super crappy internet or have internet that only works in the common area. Otherwise, the food here in Bavaria is delicious and the people are great too!

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Enjoy the pictures!

Chris W.