david miller troyer

went to munich after stuttgart. good times had visiting more museums (BMW included), wandering around more christmas markets. I also made a day trip 2 hours south to the bavarian alps, the town of füssen, which (among other things) hosts castle neuschwanstein. I managed to arrive early enough to miss the crowd, but honestly I got to neuschwanstein and walked right around the castle… and actually a bunch of signs telling me to keep off the trail. but I was determined to climb one of the mountains next to the castle. I reached a final elevation of around 5,500 feet at the Tegelberg, I’ll have to get back to you regarding how much I actually ascended.

That said, I actually left munich with things left there to do, such as seeing a bayern münchen fußball game (I intended to, but missed it because I was hiking), and I also need to climb one of the alps near the castles. anyhow, for another day. hope all is well, I would love to hear from you all.

so I decided a long time ago that I needed some time off from work. it just so happened that both Lunasa and Ben Folds had concerts within 3 days of each other. so, naturally, I decided I would see them both… lunasa in stuttgart and ben in köln. well, ben got sick and cancelled his european tour… so I changed my plans… anyhow, I saw Lunasa last night… and I was happy… very happy… I’ve listened and enjoyed their music for 4 odd years since I saw them at EMU in high school, and the concert simply was bliss…

so today I slept in, and then headed off to the Mercedes-Benz museum. Stuttgart seems to be the center of operations for DaimlerChrysler, and as I approached the stop on the tram, I wondered if the football team was building a new stadium, but no… it was the new Mercedes-Benz museum…

anyhow, my time is almost up… I’m off to Munich tomorrow and will report back when I return on Monday. later.

old high school friend, turned fellow intermenno trainee, monte glanzer and I made the trip south to basel, switzerland this past weekend. much of the time saturday was making our way between many of the museums. we started at the paper museum, where we happened to make our own piece of paper. we also happened upon the tinguely museum, beautiful building full works by the likes of June Leaf, Richard Stankiewicz, Robert Lax… none of which I had heard of before. most of the works were seemingly random wheels supported by angle iron. some were 20 feet high, and it was interesting enough to wonder how the whole thing didn’t fall apart.

sunday we spent a good part of the day plodding around kaiseraugst, searching out the roman ruins we had anticipated from my swiss lonely planet. these were not quite what we expected (picturing scenes from greece), and either only foundational or so refurbished by perfect swiss mortar work that one didn’t know what to think.

that said, my wallet hurts from switzerland. the swiss franc is worth .65 euro cents (about that of the canadian dollar), but the numbers of the prices were at least twice as high as they would be north in germany. anyhow, have a great week, peace.

so, I honestly was fairly disappointed with the result of the U.S. presidential election. while not very excited about John Kerry… W’s foreign policy is a train wreck with my perspective on our country’s responsibilities in a global community. (I could rant more on our government and relativity towards “social” versus “personal sins”, but I simply cannot put the worlds efficiently nor effectively into this blog). furthermore, I believe Kerry could do a great service to the unity of the nation by conceding this election, and not drawing out some lawsuit soap opera. rockingham county voted for Bush, 75/25!

UPDATE: After reading my blog, Kerry gave Bush the win… smartly adverting a showdown in Ohio.

anyhow, I have today off… woohoo… I’d love to hear from you, peace.