As most of you know, I have already arrived safely at home in the U.S., but as you also may realize there is still so much of my story yet untold. So here I go with the last three legs of my journey.
We left Cork on a dreary and rainy Wednesday morning. I experienced some alarm clock difficulties that morning which left me with exactly three minutes from the moment that I opened my eyes to the second I began my sprint for the train station. As it turns out and because I have become somewhat of an expert with alarm clock mal-functions, (better described as operator error) I realized later that before I fell asleep I must have turned my iPod to mute. The next thing I knew it was 6:57, our train left at 7:30 and we had a 30 minute walk to the station. Why does this always happen to me?! Actually, I thought it was quite humorous especially when Danny, Mike (because they waited while the rest went ahead to print tickets) and I arrived at the station completely drenched and sweaty from our run through the city. Let's just say that the 3-hour train was cold and wet ride. From the train station we took a bus to the airport and we were off! Finally I was headed to the mother country!
We flew into a rather small airport, picked up our checked belongings and waited for the next bus that was to take us to the city centre which was about an hour's ride. After waiting a few minutes, crazy-car-lover-Danny came back from talking to a taxi driver. He didn't have to ask us anything because "autobahn" was practically inscribed on his forehead. He had already done the math and he figured that it would only cost us five extra euros to take the van taxi which took an alternate route to the city centre: the famous highway known for it's ridiculously high speed limits, the autobahn. It didn't take much convincing on his part mostly because we were all pretty curious about this cultural attraction and found the five extra euros to be completely worth it. After piling into the van with our luggage, the most appropriate of songs came onto the German radio: Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. It makes sense I suppose.
We arrived to the city about an hour later after going an astonishing 160 km/hour which converts to a whopping 99 m/hour! We dropped off our bags and then went in search of some meat for dinner! After walking around and finding a grocery store for breakfast and snack we stopped at a small restaurant for brats. Then we went back to the hostel to shower and get ready because we were going out that night! For some reason night clubs were hard to come by in our neighborhood of Munich so we ended up finding a pub and stopping for a beer and then going back. We were tired and needed to rest up for Dakau the next day.
Our tour began at 11:00 o'clock in the morning and lasted for a good portion of the day. We started at the main square in Munich, Marienplatz and then took the metro and a bus to the actual Dakau Camp. There are no words to effectively describe this experience. To say that I really enjoyed the tour also seems distastefull in a way too, but in all honesty I found it to be (disgustingly) fascinating. We walked around the entire camp including the barracks, solitary confinement cells, and the gas shower chambers. It was an incredible experience, but something that left me questioning the capabilities of humankind. How could people be this vicious? I learned so much from this tour, but something most surprising to me was that it wasn't only Jews that were persecuted during that time period. In fact, at the start of the Concentration Camp revolution, it was mainly the people who spoke out against the ideologies of Hitler that were sent there. It wasn't until later the Jews who later became the most well-known victims entered the picture, but among them they were other less known victims too. Gays, Jehovah Witnesses, Criminals, Disabled, and many others were all sent to various camps and each person was marked with a colored triangle which identified their "offense." Sometimes they were given two triangles, one upside down as another form of classification. The brutal reduction of life at these concentration camps is incredible and was an extremely eye-opening experience for me.
After our day at Dakau, we went back to the hostel for a nap and then while everyone was still sleeping I went out on a quick run. During my run I found the park where Oktoberfest is located. By chance, SpringFest was instead set up. Springfest is a lesser Oktoberfest and is clearly in the spring. We hadn't planned this encounter, but we were glad for it! The next night and our last night in Munich we would go to scope it out. After my run and my shower we got up and went back to the same brat restaurant and then out to a night club. We quickly realized that a night out in Munich didn't really fit well into our budget so we decided to head home earlier than expected, but that's ok because we had a bike tour scheduled for the following day.
The girls of the group and I got up for the hostel's breakfast and wasted no time to hit the stores of Munich. We hadn't done much shopping and it's always fun to see the different things that each country has. We learned much later that while shopping in Espirit, Libby lost her money belt which held her passport, Eurail ticket and $200 U.S. cash. We went on with our day frequenting the esteemed Haufbaur house for a liter (half liter for me) of beer. Libby realized after the Haufbaur house and before the bike tour that her essentials were missing. She and Luke skipped out on the bike tour in search of these items. They found out later that she lost it in Espirit. The manager there said that she had found it, but since it was late on a Friday afternoon they had already sent all lost items via mail to the Police Station.The problem was that the station was closed and wasn't to open until Monday morning--we were scheduled to leave Saturday evening. To make a long story short, we then decided that Libby was going to stay in Munich until Monday morning and catch the earliest train to Paris (where we would be). It was a perfect plan especially because our friend Anna, who studied with us in Segovia was in Munich at the end of our stay so Libby wouldn't be alone and also because we had already purchased our overnight train tickets to Paris which Michelle and I didn't want to lose out on. While Libby and Luke were running around the city, the rest of us were biking around with our tour guide, Tom. We learned again so much about the historical city of Munich with stops at the English Gardens where we witnessed first-hand the motto, Clothing Optional. Part of the park is the called the nudest region where one can find a myraid a naked old men. Interesting to say the least. After that part of the garden we stopped at the Chinese tower for our second liter of beer for the day, a brat and some saurkraut. After eating we biked back to the start of the tour. The owner of the bike tour also owns a beer bike where 8-10 people can bike and drink beer simultaneously. It comes fully equipped with a bar and an iPod dock for the full biking experience. Well he had just finished up a tour and had a good portion of the keg left so he asked us if we were interested in helping him finish it. You can guess our answer. We spent a good two hours talking and listening to this guy's crazy stories. He is from Maine and has lived in Munich for the last ten years, hmmm not a bad plan, sir!
After all of the biking excitement, we went back to the hostel to meet up with Luke and Libby. We convinced them to go check out SpringFest which was not a disappointment! The disappointment was actually in not discovering this festival sooner. SpringFest is a giant festival similar the state fair. There were rides, food stands and most definitely beer tents. We went straight to the tent where some ordered their third liter of the day. When in Germany! It is common to dance on the picnic table benches while singing German songs. We did our best at both, naturally the latter was more of the challenge!
The next morning the boys moved on to Switzerland for some very much anticipated extreme-sporting fun. Us girls were supposed to check out another German city that day, but since Libby lost her rail ticket we couldn't go without leaving her behind. We instead spent the day in the English Gardens, sleeping, tanning and reading while we anxiously awaited Anna's arrival in Munich! We hadn't seen her since Cinque Terre and we were planning on catching dinner with her and her travelling partner, Anna. We met up with her to eat and then Michelle and I caught a 10:40 p.m. overnight train to Paris. It was weird living Libby there, but we had plans to see her at 5:00 o'clock p.m. at the Effiel Tower on Monday...it was less than two days. So off to Paris we went!
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