Wednesday, June 27 - Peter

On Wednesday, I did a walking tour around the city and go to see most of Munich (pictures included).  I was able to see many of the amazing buildings and memorials including a community made memorial for Michael Jackson.  Later on we went to the Modern Art museum in Munich and we saw lots of weird looking objects and many famous paintings too.  We were there for about 2 hours.  After returning to the hostel, some people decided to do makeovers.

Tuesday, June 26 - Emma

Today we woke up in Salzburg, Austria and left for Munich, Germany on a train.  The trip was 2 hours long, and when we arrived we had a busy day ahead of us.  After checking in to the youth hostel, we went to the Schloss Nymphenburg gardens and looked at the scenery.  My favorite part of the garden was the statues of the Roman gods around the fountain at the back.

After the gardens we went to the Olympic Tower and the Rock 'n Roll Museum.  The view was breathtaking from the terraces at the top, and the jukeboxes had some great songs.  It took a while, but eventually we got the jukeboxes working, and listened to "Hound Dog" by Elvis, "Under Pressure" by Queen, and "Imagine" by John Lennon.  By the time we finished at the tower, it was getting late, so we rode a couple of trains and walked back to the hostel and finally went to bed.

Monday, June 25 - Izzy

On Monday we went and saw the Hohensalzburg Fortress.  It was beautiful.  Frau S, Kira, and I did the audio tour.  We went into the torture chamber, which is the only access to the castle dungeon.  Then we went to the watch tower and we could see all of Salzburg!  We could see everywhere we went on the Sunday bike tour.  You could see the old city walls.  The audio tour was actually really cool and informative.  After that, we walked through the King's quarters which did not have a heat source. After that we walked through the marionette museum.  Once we finished at the fortress we went to lunch and shopping.  Elisha and I found an ornament store and it just kept going.  The store was massive. Once we got back to the youth hostel we did face masks and it was super awesome.

Monday, June 25 - Kat

Today is our last full day in Salzburg.  We woke up pretty early to get a good start on our day.  We first started off by taking a cable car to the top of a mountain where a huge fortress stood.  We had 2 hours to go off in groups to explore it more in depth.  We looked a lot at the exterior and were only able to go into parts of the inside, but it was very beautiful everywhere.  After that, we broke up into groups and got to go see things that we wanted to.  I was in a group with Peter, Caleb, and Gabe.  Our first stop was this Asian restaurant and we ate some really good ramen.  After lunch, we went shopping and we all found some good finds at H&M.  After we had our shopping at a few other places too we met back up with the rest of the group and headed back to the hostel.  At the hostel we all gathered together and did face masks.  It was super fun and even all of the guys did it!  In addition to this we packed and hung out in our rooms due to some quite noisy neighbors.  Then Hannah and I cleaned up our room, jammed to some music, and just enjoyed our last night in Salzburg. 

<3 Kat

Sunday, June 24 - Kira

On Sunday, we started our day off by going up in a cable car to the top of a mountain! It was really cool and really pretty and we got to explore on top of the mountain for a bit and take pictures.  We had yummy cheese pizza for lunch and then we headed to our bike tour!  It was a 2 hour bike tour all around the city learning about the places where scenes from "The Sound of Music" were shot.  It was super cool and really interesting!  I almost crashed a couple of times, but it was fun and the ride was my favorite part.  We saw the river where the kids were playing with Maria, the Abbey, the gazebo where Sixteen Going on Seventeen happened, the place where they sang Do Re Mi, and we got to see an old cemetary and try an apple strudel pretzel (delicious!!!).  It was a great day!  I can't wait for the rest of travel week!

Sunday, June 24 - Emma

Today we woke up in the Youth Hostel in Salzburg, Austria.  We ate breakfast at 8:00AM and then got on a bus to head to the mountain.  Most of the group took a cable car to the top, but those that were afraid of heights stayed on the ground.  The top was very foggy, but during the ride up and down the group took some great pictures of the town and scenery.

Once we descended, we ate lunch an Italian Restaurant.  Kira, Gabe and I  split two pizzas, on margherita and one four cheese with spinach, and then I had apple strudel for dessert.  After lunch we went on a bike tour around the town that featured the landmarks shown in the movie "The Sound of Music".  We saw the Abbey, the Pavillion, the river, and other famous scenes from the move.  Then we got ice cream and went back to the hostel and ate dinner.

Saturday, June 23 - Caleb

Today we said goodbye to our partners.  We left for the train station at 10 in the morning, with a really sad car ride.  Once we got to the train station we met up with the rest of the GAPPies and started saying our goodbyes. There was a lot of hugging and a lot more crying.  I don't think anyone was really ready to leave their host families. After one final group hug with all of the GAPPies, we got on the train and left for Salzburg.  After a very long train ride, and some more crying, we arrived at the Youth Hostel and settled in to our rooms.