My Final Day in Munich

I'm sure you're all wondering why I didn't post anything of substance last night and there is a very legitimate reason. After our Dachau tour, David and I partook in the Munich Beer Challenge. More on that later.

Inside the main government building in Munich,

We started our day by waking up around 9 (yay!) so we could get ready for our trip to Dachau around 10. The tour group picks up at our hostel so we had to be ready a little sooner than we would have been otherwise. A guy from Spain walked us to the meeting point for all the tours of the day. This is where we bought our tickets for Dachau and waited for the tour to begin. For our entertainment, we had two dogs running around the square playing. Reminded me of how Hektor and Oscar play when they think no one is looking.

The tour left at 11 and we made our way to the train station so that we could go outside of Munich to the smaller town of Dachau.

The guardhouse to Dachau.

Marcin, our tour guide from England, was freaking awesome. He's a professional jazz musician (mainly saxophone) and composer. On the way there we had plenty to talk about that wasn't a concentration camp, which I think was a good way to start off the tour. It's really funny or weird, depending upon how you look at it, that I've run into two professional saxophone players since I've arrived in Europe. Anywho, on to Dachau.

The town itself is quaint, but when you get off the bust at the camp it's unbelievable how much the atmosphere changes. Dachau was the mothership and model for all concentration camps around Europe. This was the scale to which all others were measure. Next door to the camp was the SS training facility. Almost all of the SS and infamous Gestapo/SS came from this very town from these very buildings. When you walk inside, it's hard to imagine what it would've looked like while it was still in use, but it was still an unbelievably sad and sobering sight.

Imagine thousands of prisoners lined up in this yard.

Marcin was one of the best tour guides I have had and he was incredibly knowledgeable about Dachau's history. They would line up everybody in the courtyard you see above, make them take off their hats, and bow their heads to the SS every morning as they were all counted. Marcin was telling us how everything they did was to in some way dehumanize the prisoners. We saw four main places, the museum, the barracks, the crematoriums, and the gas chambers. The chambers we saw were completely original and were, again, the model for the rest of the system. Everything started in Dachau. They ran all their tests and started a lot of their experiments within these gates.

I'm not going to post the chamber or crematorium pictures here. If you'd like to look through all of my pictures in Munich, they are now available in the top right corner. Per usual, it's hard for me to fully digest the magnitude of yesterday.

Now on to something completely different... and I mean completely...

The Munich Beer Challenge!

We got back to Munich around 4:30, ran to our hotel to rest a bit, then returned to the train station for the Munich Beer Challenge! We visited three of the most famous bar houses in the world last night. It was awesome. Got a beer in the station and walked through to the tram. Did I mention it's legal to just walk around the city with open alcohol. And to get on the tram with it as well? Oh the small things I'll miss...

Anywho... we had great beer all night. I can't remember any of the brews or names of the pubs at the moment, but I'm sure I'll do that research eventually. Maybe if you squint you might be able to make the name off the menu that is under Erin's hands. I think it was a tad too much alcohol for one night -- I had over 2.5 liters. The tour was through the same company so I ended up running in to Marcin again. It was great. Above is the main group of people I was drinking with. Two Canadians, two Americans, and one New Zealander. Luckily for me, the tour ended right back at the bar in my hostel with a shot of Jaeger... seem like a bad idea to give us shots after so much beer? I think so too. I was starting to get dizzy and whatnot around 11 so I came back to my room, quickly posted what you saw last night (which seemed quite sober, if I do say so myself) and passed out. Just woke up, looked up my train information and am now about to leave for Austria.

Hope this was a good update. I'll talk to you guys later!

God bless!

A Full Day

It's really late and it has been a full day so tomorrow will have both my trip to Vienna and my last night in Munich. I've absolutely loved this place. Now to sleep and wake up in the morning and travel some more.

God bless!

München

So I survived my 9 hour bus ride from Berlin to Munich. That's WAY too long to be sitting down. We had stopped in Nuremberg for a few minutes when all of a sudden two Polizei approached David and me on the bus. They asked to see our passports. Scared the buhjeezus out of me. I was trying to figure out why they would just make a beeline to us and demand our passports. As the incident got further away it started to make some sense. We couldn't speak German so the attendant kept looking at as funny as we tried to tell her what was going on. Didn't realize I could be a suspect just for travelling. They gave us the whole nine yards: asking us why were in Germany, where we were from, when we would be leaving Germany (rude!), and how we had gotten to be on the bus. It ended up being nothing, but it gave us a little bit of a what the hell? moment amidst the 9 hours of suck.

The bus passed through Nuremberg and Dresden. It was weird to think about all of the crap that has happened to Germany throughout their history. I kept thinking about the bombings in Dresden, the forests that covered this beautiful land, and what it must have been like to be a combatant in WWII. Luckily I am not old enough to remember or have seen those horrors. As we rode into Munich, we saw the Olympic Park. Oh. My. God. Unbelievable. This thing was freaking massive and was one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen.

Of course, David and I lost our way to the hostel. The directions seemed so simple. Streets in Europe are anything but simple. You know how I said last night's hostel was the best I've stayed? Well, Euro Youth Hotel is even better. This hostel is alive with young people. And Happy Hour every day from 6-9. I love how hostels in Germany all have bars in them...

We planned out the rest of our trip as soon as we were settled in to our new home. We're going to leave Thursday morning for Salzburg and then on to Vienna to finish out our trip. Tomorrow we're going to do the Dachau tour. I'm really excited. Kind of odd to be excited to go somewhere that there was so much inhumanity, but it's one of those things that I feel will be completely humbling and incredible. A greater appreciation for what I have the opportunity of doing with my life. This is through the same company who did the free tour in Berlin, but this one sadly has a charge.

When we were adequately rested, we went out on the town to see what Mardi Gras in Munich was like. There was smashed glass EVERYWHERE and people were roaming all over the place. I'm sure the city will be much more appealing tomorrow when everything is cleaned up. I've done nothing in Munich and I already like the feel the city possesses.

I think that's it for today, guys. Tomorrow is going to be a rough day, I think, just because of the strain it will put on my emotions. I'm prepared for it, but I'm not sure you can ever be ready for that type of experience.

Until next time, my friends.

God bless!