Class Trip to Amberg

After much anticipation, and threat of the weather ruining our plans, our class still ended up going to Amberg yesterday at around 10am. We piled onto the bus and after about 30 minutes on a windy road, that left me feeling a little dizzy, we arrived at the base of Mariahilfberg Kirche, aka: Mary's Cathedral (pictured above). We walked up the steps and were all amazed at how beautiful it was on the inside.

This Baroque sanctuary was adorned with murals on almost every square inch, and each wall was more beautiful than the next. Originally this church had been used for pilgrimages, and each ceiling motif represents a certain part of this history.

From there we all went to lunch at a restaurant called Bergwirtschaft which was right at the bottom of the church steps. It didn't look like much on the inside, but the food was so tasty. Eric got the Rehmedaillion (venison medallions) with Kroketten (think of really fancy & fluffy tater tots). I got the Gebratenes Lachsfilet (grilled salmon) with boiled potatoes. Frau Ray (our teacher) had given us the food options days before, so we had plenty of time to practice ordering in German. You could tell we were all pretty nervous, though.

Everything tasted great, except for the side salads. Each person's salad was 3 tiny piles on 1 plate. One pile was shredded lettuce, one pile was sauerkraut, and one pile was shredded carrots. Everything had a vinaigrette dressing on it, but it was so saturated that everything was dripping wet--even the carrots. Out of all the classes, nobody finished their salad. I think it was just a little too different for us.

After eating, we piled back into the buses and headed to downtown Amberg. Like Nuremberg, Amberg also has remaining city walls around it's "old town". Parts of the wall even have bullet holes from the war, which you can see in the top left corner of this next photo.

(Above: St. Martin Kirche/Church)

It was another 20-ish degree day, so we went in and out of lots of shops to warm up. Eric and I started with heisse schokolade (hot coco) and from there went to a few different clothing/souvenir shops. It was actually a pretty fun afternoon. We will definitely be coming back to this area now that we know what it offers. It's also a lot closer (by train or bus) than Nuremberg. Note how many different colors the buildings are below; it seems like they love pastels here in Bavaria!

At around 3pm we all got back on the buses and headed out of Amberg, but first stopped at a grocery store. The teachers wanted us to get a feel for the differences German stores have so we are surprised if we frequent one later on. Mainly the only major difference was there aren't any bags/baggers (like I've written of before). Eric stocked up on some favorite German chocolates (you can see how overwhelmed he was in the photo below) and then we were back home by 4:30.

Like I said, we are anxious to head back soon. We feel like we love each place even more than the last, and can't wait until we have the visitors to show this place off to!