In September, 2006 18 brave souls departed from JFK and arrived bright and early on a thursday morning in Frankfurt. The reason for the trip was the 50th Anniversary of the Opening of Mannheim American High School. Arriving too early in Vierhiem to check into our hotel we wandered around seperately, some went to BFV, others to downtown Mannheim and others to the Rhine Neckar Zentrum. I won't bore you with a play by play description but these are the highlights.
Friday morning off to BFV where we spent 45 minutes getting through security. Yes they had all our information WEEKS before we arrived. Arrived at the High School and were met by Sharon O'Donnell the principal at Mannheim who I had coordinated with prior to the trip. The booster club had a reception set up for us in addition to Mannheim things they had refreshments and yearbooks from all our years. Sharon then gave us a tour of the school. It is MUCH cleaner and brighter than I remember it. There is no more path across the strasse tracks due to security considerations. All the complexes are now fenced in and guarded. We then did a quick tour of BFV stopping at points of interest and then walked into Grant Circle. Once done we boarded the bus and headed for the Rhine for our cruise.
In the pictures portion when you see myself and a few others watching the cruise ship that is because 11 of our group forgot to get off in Goarhausen so we made a mad dash down the river and met them a few stops down. Saturday morning we headed for Heidelberg and the tour of the castle and the city then due to time we skipped the game and went straight to Worms and the Cathedral. Sunday we left and headed south stopping at Dachau (it isn't like it was in the 70's at all) but still very somber.Then a mad dash for Munich checking into the hotel and rushing to Oktoberfest and our reservations at the Hofbrauhaus tent. Some stayed till closing, some for less time than that but it was everything I remembered.
One thing about the trip it was HOT. I am talking in the 80's until we hit the Alps. But we did have beautiful weather until the last few days. Monday we toured Munich and the Nymphemburg Palace. Stopping by the HOfbrauhaus of course and ending the day at the Glockenspiel. Tuesday was off to Innsbruck, Austria with a city tour and Palace tour. Here the weather closed in and unfortunately the lift was closed for repair so we couldn't get up above the clouds. Leaving that afternoon we headed for our last hotel near Fussen. Wednesday was the tour of Neuschwanstein Castle and it was pretty wet all day. The old series Dark Shadows would kill for some of the Castle pics some of our folks took. Then Thursday it was back to Munich and our flight home. I want to thank all those that attended the trip. I am going to try to put another one together probably in 2008 since Mannheim is due to close sometime between 2009-2011. Check the Blog about some of the things we discovered while at Mannheim. Also I have put together some photo albums by segment of our trip with pictures from trip participants.
You can get those at Pics