Ah Munich, finally the last stop of my second tour de Europe. Three full days there, a day travelling back to Brighton, two full days here and then back to San Jose!
After checking into our hostel (which had rather crappy beds and considering how much we paid for it, that was very annoying. Definitely a rip-off hostel) we headed down to the city center. Little did we know that there would be a huge festival going on. Because we couldn't read German, it took us a whil to figure out what was going on but it turned out that it was a weekend long festival/party celebrating Munich's 850th birthday. Oh my. And that birthday was being CELEBRATED. Huge throngs of people, troups dancing, tents upon tnets of crafts and food and stages for performances, etc. The crowds were ridiculous so we pushed our way through them, went into Fraukirche and saw this skull in a reliquary thing, that we think had something to do with the celebration but again, can't read German so don't reeally know, and headed out to Englishergarten to watch the surfers. Yes, surfers. Thre is this area of the park where the river winding through creates something of a rapid and people surf on it. Looks fun and was incredibly entertaining to watch. After strolling around this massive park, we made our way back to the festivities to grab lunch/dinner (sausage and a BIG pretzel- I later felt kind of ill from all the pretzel) and headed back to the hostel early.
The next day, simply for the sights seen, was probably the saddest and most depressing of them all. We went to Dachau, the former concentration camp. We decided to go with a tour, which was a good idea because we didn't have to figure out transportation there and we got more information than we would hav by reading the signs or listening to an audioguide (let's face it, there is probably only so much signage that one can read). Instead we had 3 hours of helpful information. The tour was a large one, which was annoying but oh well, I still got a lot out of it. Just entering the camp was depressing. First you pass through the gate with the infamous, awful sign "work will set you free". Then you are in the middle of roll call square and everything was so bleak, so desolate. There is no way that a prisoner could be there, everyday for a number of years, and not have had their spirits crushed. It would suck the life out of anyone. As the group moved through the camp it was all so sad; there was nothing to offer even a glimmer of happiness or hope. At the Berlin wall museum there were all these stories of people who successfully managed to cross over to West Berlin, which was a little bit of light in the dark Communist regime, but Dachau had no light whatsoever. As the tour progressed, things got darker (literally and figuratively as the clouds moved in) and my skin crawled as the guide talked about the physical and psychological torture prisoners went through and how awful life really was. But the worst part was the crematorium and gas chamber. The crematorium was realitively easy to get through because it was kind of like any funeral home furnace but the gas chamber was terrible. I know it wasn't used (or at least according to paperwork, but a couple experts belive it was used at least a couple of times), but I still speed-walked through it. The ceiling was a lot lower than I expected and it made me feel extremely claustrophobic. And peoplee were taking pictures and I thought to myself, how can you stop to take pictures? Don't you just want to get out of here? I'll take pictures of memorials and front gates but gas chambers that were the models for other chambers that killed millions of people? No. So yes, the tour was horrible and terrible but educational and completely worthwhile. I'm glad we went. After we got back, we headed out to dinner at the oldest beer garden in Munich. I had a .5 L Radler which is half beer and half lemonade (Sprite) and this weird sausage salad that I didn't really like and wont have again. Then back to the hostel where we had a nice long conversation with this girl in our room, played cards for a while and headed to bed.
The third day in Munich was relatively easy. At about 10:00 we headed to Marienplatz (the main square of town) for the free walking tour like the one in Berlin (in fact, from the same company that we took in Berlin). As usual, it was excellent. The guide was witty, interesting and full of information about Munich's history. Some was repetitive of what we heard in Berlin, like about hyperinflation following the first world war, but most was new. The tour covered information about Munich as a Bavarian kingdomw, the seat of Nazism and reconstruction following WWII. Munich has such a long history (obviously since the city was celebrating it's 850th birthday- luckily the festivities had died down by the time we did the walking tour) and it was nice to learn more about it, despite some of the repetitiveness. After the tour was over, the groups went back to this pub place that had a deal for the tour groups for lunch- a beer and unlimited amounts of stew for 5 euro. It was a pretty good deal and pretty good stew. However, when we got back to the hostel at 4ish, my stomach started to hurt and I felt nauseous and I blamed the stew. We had originally planned on going to Hofbrauhaus early for dinner to beat the crowds that would be there to watch the Euro game, but because I was feeling poorly, we didn't go, deciding to hit up Hofbrauhaus another time. Eventually when we did go get dinner, I was feeling better and ate stuff but it most definitely wasn't my best feeling day.
3.5 days in Munich was definitely a day too long, especially when you are tired of travelling and ready to go home as I was. So on the last day in town we didn't do much. The morning was spent looking for souvenirs and shopping for presents. I finally completed my shot glass collection with one from Germay and I also managed to complete my present shopping. The next time I should have to buy a gift for a member of my family will be Mother's Day, 2009. After getting our shopping out of the way, we returned to Hofbauhaus to eat there as every visitor has to. It was what I expected. Huge, filled with people and dressed up waiters/waitresses carrying massive liters of beer, and an oompah band serenading the diners. I had spatzle which was good but I declined the liter of beer because a)I don't think I could physically drink a liter of beer and b)I had a pretty bad headache the night before and I didn't want to push it with that amount of alcoholl. Besides the food and atmostphere, it was interesting to be at the Hofbrauhaus for historical reasons. Hitler basically started the Nazi party within the Hof and you can still see where swastikas were painted over with Bavarian flags on the ceiling. After a long lunch (our beer wench wasn't the most efficient of waitresses) we moseyed back to the hostel before a rest before heading out to dinner and a final pretzel. As we were walking back, post-pretzel, the sun broke out for the firs time in 3 days. A fitting end.
Reflection on Munich: A nice city, though it would have been better if we were there a day less, hadn't had such crappy weather and it wasn't the last stop on a trip when I was tired and done with sightseeing. Despite all that, I liked Munich. The atmostphere was incredibly friendly (especially during the 850th birthday celebrations) and their way o flifee ssmes nice- even made me appreciate beer more. It would be wild to come there during Oktoberfest, though. I would like to return there some day. Preferably when I am less tired.
Wahoo I made it through another tour! And now I am back in Brighton, after quite a long trip back (Stansted Airport is very very far away). I had a lovely time, my sister and I managed to get along very well for three weeks and I am going home the day after tomorrow! AMAZING!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment