German Countryside

As soon as I arrived in the quaint German town of St. Goar, I knew I had made the right choice in choosing Contiki. The adorable buildings of the town were tucked into the hillside next to the Rhine River. I would never have been able to get to a place like this on my own.

My friends and I took a walk around town and were delighted to find a cute shop that had all kinds of handmade decorations and elaborate cuckoo clocks. Upstairs, they even had an entire room dedicated to Christmas. When we walked in and talked to the owner, he was very kind and welcomed us with a shot of his homemade liquor.

After dinner, we went to a wine tasting. I didn't even know that they made wine in Germany, but holy crap it was the best wine I've ever tasted! We tasted five different kinds of wine, but my favorite was the last. It's specific to that region, and it's called eiswien. They make it from frozen grapes that they harvest in winter. And it is delicious. It was remarkably sweet, sweeter than grape juice. I was tempted to buy one of their 34 euro bottles, but I resisted. I kind of regret that now.

A couple glasses of wine later, and I felt great. We went down to the river to gaze up at the magnificent stars. I hadn't seen stars like that since Flagstaff; partly because I live in a big city in France and partly because there's rarely clear skies. In the distance, we could see a castle, and we thought, "Why not? Let's break in." After practically scaling the side of the mountain, we made it to the castle and the door was just open. I wandered up to the tower and down to the

dungeons. It was all a bit creepy at night, but when else was I going to get an all access pass to a castle. Later that night, I heard that a few of us who snuck off were caught by the German police, but I was fine.

I turned in early that night, excited and wanting to be well-rested for Munich the next day.