Day 41. Well as can be imagined I
slept quite well last night, I was out like a rock. But we woke up early again for
the free breakfast so I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Today we wanted to go to
Dachau, but first needed to figure out some trains. Laura and Chris had so many
good things to say about Salzburg I decided I wanted to route my trip to Vienna
through Salzburg and spend a day or two there - easy enough to sort out. Laura,
on the other hand, was trying to take an overnight train to Italy but couldn’t
think and was running into so many complications with Italian and German
trains/buses/reservations/ ridiculously long layovers that she called me over
to help her sort things out. We couldn’t seem to find Luke at the station so we
had to just go to Dachau without him, hoping we would meet him there. We also had
to figure out how the ticket machines worked, and failing at that we went to a
ticket counter and purchased our tickets there. We arrived in Dachau and took a
bus to the concentration camp. It was set up in 1933 as a concentration camp
for political prisoners. Dachau was the first Jewish concentration camp and
served as a model for all other subsequent concentration camps under the
command of the SS. Over 200,000 people were incarcerated and over 43,000 people
died here. Can you say somber? We wanted to take a walking tour of the grounds,
but the last English tour had already left so we all bought audio guides. I,
however, stumbled upon another tour that was in English so just tagged along
with them (I figured I already paid for the audio guide, this was just a
different kind of audio). The tour took us through the camp and the lives of
those incarcerated here. It was sickening, brutal, relentless, outrageous, maddening,
and so many other emotions that just continued to flood through me. I didn’t know
how or what to feel. The worst was the gas chambers and the cremation buildings
(that’s plural, one cremation building wasn’t big enough, they had to build a
second bigger building). I physically felt sick. I did not want to walk through
those rooms. Every fiber of my being I was screaming not to go into the gassing
room. They were even disguised as “showers” so no one would refuse to go in the
room. It is just crazy insane to think where I was standing and what had happened
here. I wanted to throw up. There were nice memorial grave sites around the
cremation buildings, and it was so humbling to think about what those
incarcerated went through. The living conditions in the barracks were awful and
they lived in constant terror and harassment (biggest understatement ever). After
walking through the museum and seeing all of the camp I was ready to not be
there and went to find the others. I did end up finding Luke at the camp and we
all met up in the cafeteria for a late lunch. I had a schnitzel and fries (Hoodwinked!).
And we were all just so tired that we were quite delirious and silly on the
train ride back into the city. When I got back to the hostel it was naptime for
me and sleeping even for just the solid hour that I got felt amazing. We said
goodbye to Kurt and got a beer at Luke’s hostel, watching the soccer game for a
bit, talking of traveling, and I even got some skyping in. We went and got some
dinner (need any more sauce Laura?) and then everyone was so tired we called it
a night, hurray for an early (ish) bedtime!
Day 42. Castles!! Today we decided to
go out to Fussen and see the Neushwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. We woke
up early, got a good breakfast, walked to the station, went shopping for a bit…
and missed our train. But this time it wasn’t our fault! Yes we cut things
close, but the paper we had said platform 27 and the station switched it to platform
29 on us! So we had about an hour wait at the station for the next train to Fussen. We
ate some lolli’s (candy) and played some card games on the train ride over as
we rode past fields and fields of dandelions with impressive views of the alps.
I seriously want to make a dandelion snow angle and run through a field of
yellow flowers or dandelions. The fields are that epic. We got to the castles and it was pretty crowded
with tourists, which unfortunately filled up all the tours of the castles except
for the way later ones and Laura had to catch an overnight train. So we decided
against going inside on an audio guide in French to just walk around and see
the castles. I would have loved to go inside ‘Mad’ King Ludwig II’s fairytale castle,
but we had a great time just seeing the very modern outside. Infact,
Neuschwanstein castle was the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle and supposedly
the Disney castle (but everybody claims that). We stopped for a bite to eat and
I got an apple strudel and another delicious German beer (seriously, they are SO
good). Both castles were nice, but they didn’t compare to Portugal and I might
have liked it better had we seen the inside, oh well, my imagination can run
wild and I can see it next time. On the train ride back to Munich I sewed up a
big tear in some of Luke’s pants as a gaggle of Spanish women watched in awe
and adoration, haha. Laura and I are travelling in opposite directions of each
other and just met in the middle so we swapped some info on the train (I love
fellow travelers!). We got some delicious and super cheap, but oh so massive and classy pizza and then said
goodbye to Laura. I hadn’t been to the infamous Munich Beer hall yet, so Luke, Chris
and I made our way to the Hofbrauhaus. Imagine a massive 4 story medieval
dining hall with long tables and so many people. Anyone from your grandma to
your under aged brother were drinking liters and liters of beer. The server’s were all in
leiderhausen and were prompt to bring you a drink. Supposedly the hall could fit up to
11,000 people! And it even had regulars with their own engraved glass mug and marked
specific spot. If you sat there and they came, out you went without a hint of protest.
Luke bought my beer since I sewed his jeans (Thanks Luke!) and the night commenced!
A liter down for the each of us and we headed back to the hostel for a concert
going on that night. We had fun at the concert and met some interesting people.
We eventually found our way to our beds after a quick Kebab run (Timmy!!) and I
passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. It was a great last day in Munich
with great new friends.
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