Thursday, June 14, 2012

Passau, Germany

Wow, I'm getting behind!  On Tuesday, June 5 we went to Passau, Germany for the day.  We left at 7am so we could take the scenic route on the way there.  Apparently we drove along the Danube and through some really gorgeous parts of the Austrian country-side.  I have no idea.  I got on the bus and slept almost the whole way there (as did most people).  Oh well!  Passau is this small town in Germany, right across the borer from Austria.  3 rivers meet there and the main part of town is on this little "V" of land with the rivers running down the sides of it and meeting to form the third river (The Danube) at the point of the V.

We went to the University of Passau, which has apparently been rated as having one of the prettiest campuses in Europe (and I believe it), for a short lecture on German arbitration law.  It was cold and rainy so we went straight to the center of town after the lecture instead of looking around the campus at all. 

Once we got to the center of town we all went to find something to eat and then find a bar where we could sit and relax, grab a drink, and, most importantly, stay warm and dry.  After about an hour or so of hanging out in the bar we found, I decided I didn't care about the cold and rain anymore and I wanted to go explore...so, off I went!

I started by wandering over to the Cathedral in the center of town.  It claims to have the largest Cathedral organ in the world.  It was pretty huge.  This cathedral was absolutely beautiful.  They had trees indoors lining the aisles and paintings on the ceilings and walls, and it was just beautiful.  It was very different from some of the other typically ornate churches in Europe.  Even though it was huge and very ornate it felt..lighter and more airy than most "typical" ornate churches.  It was very light and bright inside.  I stayed in there long enough to hear someone start warming up on the Organ.  They have two free concerts each day at the Cathedral but I missed them both due to the timing of our lecture and when we were leaving.







After leaving the Cathedral, I wandered through the town to the Rathaus which was right along the river and you could see the fortress on the other side of the river.  It was a really cute square and the fortress looked like it would have been fun to go explore, but I wasn't sure about the timing of the buses to it and didn't want to risk running out of time or being late for the bus back to Linz.






From there, I decided to walk along the water and follow the river to the tip of the land where the rivers meet.  Along the way I met a really nice British couple who took a couple of pictures for me.  They were taking a river cruise through central Europe and were very excited to talk to me about school and what I was doing in Europe during the summer.  We went our separate ways and I continued down to the park at the point where the rivers meet.  The view was really cool!  You could stand there and see the rivers converging.




I walked up the other side of the "V" and quickly ran into a slight problem.  The river was overflowing and covering the path.  It was actually very cool.  I walked around the overflow and wandered back down to the path along the water.  Apparently the river is always overflowing a little bit on that side because a sandy beach has been created where the path should be.  In places you can see the path, or parts of it, being covered by the water.  I decided to walk along the "beach" a little bit and see where it took me.  I came across all sorts of people who had the same idea as me- from business people in suits to couples strolling and families with kids playing in the sand.





Not wanting to wander too far away from the center of town, I headed up a steep flight of stairs away from the river and back into the center of town.  From there I went to a cafe that I read about as having great coffee and desserts. I think it was called Cafe Simon.  A couple of the girls from my program were inside so I sat down with them and grabbed a cup of coffee with amaretto and a piece of some cake-like thing for dessert.  Everything was really good and I was definitely glad I stopped in.



After coffee we went to see if we could find the rest of the group that had stayed at the bar.  They weren't there anymore so we wandered to another cafe.  From there I went to wander around a little more and finally bought myself an umbrella.  It has been very rainy the whole time I've been here and I left my umbrella at home.  It wasn't consistently raining enough to merit buying one seeing as the ones I had found were around 8-10 Euros, but I found one for 2 Euro and decided it would be worth buying. (In case you were wondering, it was!)

I ended up finding a bigger part of the group in my wandering at that point and we all headed down to the bus park place where we were supposed to be meeting since it was getting close to time to leave.  The bus ride home was pretty crazy.  Everyone was having a blast.  I don't think we quite achieved the levels we reached on the way home from Salzburg, but we had a good time.  I won't go into detail for the sake of those involved, but suffice it to say that someone fell asleep and sharpies were involved. 

Well, back to studying for me.  I'll try to get a couple more updates in to get caught up as I need study breaks! 

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