Wednesday
I arrived in Berlin off of the night train around 8 in the morning, and was immediately struck by its scale.  Wikipedia says that it is the second largest city in the European Union. Its population is a little less than that of Los Angeles.
A good portion of the group from Calvin had been traveling Europe during this time, so I had made some plans to meet up with a fellow student also in Berlin and go with him on a free walking tour around Berlin. However, i was not able to find him, so I ended up going into a hostel in the city to see if the walking tour stopped there (and to get out of the rain and mooch off of their wi-fi). My friend had ended up deciding to go on a paid tour of the city, and i didn't really feel like paying, so we didn't end up meeting up.  Just like many of the other days, I walked around the city from landmark to landmark, and saw the Fernsehturm,  the Brandenburg Gate, and the Charlottenburg Palace (to name a few).   I enjoyed berlin, but was tired from traveling, and definitely ready to head home at this point.

Brandenburg gate.  From wikimedia.

Although i'm sure berlin has much to offer, i wasn't able to spend much time there - since the night train I took tuesday night began the last day I  had on my pass, i had to make it back to amsterdam that night.  I thought i had to catch the train around 4:30, but in a bout of paranoia i checked my itinerary and realized that i was actually supposed to leave at 3:40.  Classic closet dyslexia coming out to bite me! Anyways, i made it back to the station, but just barely.  from there, I took the train back, and got home at 11:58 that night.

Fiendish italian transit officials! Castles!

Monday
Monday morning, I woke up in the Milan airport, ready to leave for Munich.  However, before I left, I had a few questions about my route, and wanted to confirm things with one of the Italian transit people. PROTIP: when in doubt about which route you are going to take, do not ask an Italian transit official.  After explaining to them that I had a eurail pass for a certain number of countries, they proceeded to give me a route which led through a country outside of the pass, and so when I found that out later on, I had to pay the 10 euro or so for that one part of the route.
I eventually ended up in Munich. Sadly, my camera had died at this point, and since i left my charger at home, I was not able to get pictures.  Sorry bout that. I tried going to several different hotels and asking if they had that type of charger (hotels/hostels often have a big bin of chargers behind the desk that people leave behind at the hotel, so you are usually able to rummage through it, looking for one that might work), but no one had my specific type.
The rest of the day, I walked around the city of Munich.

Picture borrowed from http://www.orangesmile.com/ because I was camera-less.

Tuesday
In the morning i visited the street market in the city center and bought some produce, then took the train out to the town of Fussen to visit Neuschwanstein castle.  In the planning phase of my trip, i remembered that europe has cool castles, so i googled something along the lines of "best castles in europe", and stumbled upon this one.  Take that, frommer's and lonely planet.

Neuschwanstein castle.  This photo is from http://thebesttraveldestinations.com/

Neuschwanstein castle is pretty stunning.  After Ludwig II's father died and funding was available, Ludwig II (the king of the region) started pouring all of his funds into castle construction. You would think being a king of a rich region would provide you with more than than enough money to build a castle, but I guess the popular saying remains true:  never trust a Bavarian to stick to a budget.  The king went into large amounts of debt building it, and never even completed construction, dying before work on the middle floor could be completed.  Upon his death, the royal family halted construction, and opened the castle up to the public. 

After touring the castle, I still had some time left before the last train departed for Munich, and so decided to forego the bus down the mountain in favor of walking.  it took me a while to figure out how to walk back to the town and train station, and at one point I accidentally started walking on a scenic trail. I am sure that the town's residents appreciate the gently winding paths, but i found them quite frustrating, as I had to make it back so I wouldn't miss the last train back to munich.  With that delay, I cut it pretty close, and eventually got on the train five minutes before departure.

Saturday

Although the previous day was great, I did not in fact go to genova to visit Italian architects.  Instead, I stayed there because of its proximity to Cinque Terre, an area along the northeastern coast of Italy.  The cirque terre is a series of 5 towns in close proximity to each other, each beautiful and each connected by trails along the coast.  Although it is a popular place for tourists to visit, I had hoped that since I was visiting before the main part of the tourist season, the trails would not be too overrun. After a 2-hour train ride, I arrived in Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the five cities.  It was some of the most beautiful hiking I've done - hopefully you get some taste of how it was from the pictures.

After walking around for the afternoon and evening, I ended up at the middle town of the cirque terre.  I should have looked at the time sooner- the next train would be leaving a bit after 11pm, and since the ride took 2 hours, I was going to miss the last bus back to the hostel.  I was sitting at the station (reading Necromancer by william gibson), waiting for the train to come, and whilst there, I was approached by someone who was also trying to get back to genova and was wondering about how to get back.  the two people asked if they could follow me back, and while i was nervous having people follow me, not being the most directionally adept of people, I accepted.  On the ride back we played mad libs (turns out those things still exist), and I learned that they were staying in the same hostel, so we were able to split a taxi for the ride back. 

 

Sunday

Not much to write about today - I spent another day hiking in cinque terre.  I was going to go into the water at one of the beaches, but the area was too cold, and I was also nervous about leaving my stuff on the beach, because my professor told the same story 5 to 10 times of how his son had all of his things stolen while swimming in an italian beach.  A car drove up onto the shore, people jumped out and grabbed their bags, and the thieves drove off with all of the groups belongings. As such, i was quite nervous. after laying on the beach for a while, i went walking along the coast again, and this time did not miss the earlier train back.   The following morning, I was going to head out early over to Munich, so I took the train up to Milan, and slept there.