Munich and More!

My weekend in Munich has now come to a close and the fun I had lies in stark contrast to my miserable time in Amsterdam last week. This will probably be a blog of considerable stature seeing as we spent 4 days and nights in the city, so be forewarned! But to begin, I must say that if ever you are given the opportunity to visit the capital of Bavaria, do so and try to spend several days there! This city actually has a lot of culture and history to offer.

The trip started with a 10+ hour overnight train in which we crammed ourselves sardine style into a small room of triple bunk beds. In most circumstances, I would be uncomfortable sleeping so tightly packed with people I've known for only a week but the people I was with are amazing! We woke up Thursday morning about a half hour before arriving in Munich to see overcast clouds and rain drizzling out of the windows. After rushing to our hotel and cleaning up a bit, we all agreed that the gloomy weather was conducive to visiting Dachau, Hitler's first and model concentration camp built nearby his home of operations, Munich.

I wish I could describe the sobering experience we all encountered at Dachau but words cannot do the injustices committed there justice (ironically enough). Concentration camps and Hitler's final plan of eliminating differing cultures from society are not a new idea to me; I've read the history books, seen the movies, discussed WWII with friends and family, but seeing the camp in first person blind sided me with an intense feeling of loathing towards the intolerance and hatred of the Nazis. The sadness of what occurred not even a century ago still resonates within me and will always stick out in my mind for years to come.

We sat in quiet reflection on our way home with no one quite knowing how to come back to the real world so quickly from Dachau; it took dinner and a few hours to fully rebound from that experience but we all reached positivity by that evening. We had seen advertisements in our hotel about a popular pub crawl through Munich's famous bars and beer gardens so we took advantage of our discount and began drinking beer, wine, sangria and shots in the late evening. From bar to bar, through the beer gardens, drinking cocktails, beer, having a few shots, doing a Jager-bomb (because it's Germany, right?), all seven of us had a blast roaming around Munich. By the last bar, our larger group and 'guide' had become separated (read: they left without telling many people) so we put our engineering minds together, which at this point were not functioning so clearly, and got ourselves across downtown Munich to our hotel before passing out from exhaustion.

The first part of the next day was spent groggily trying to piece ourselves back together; some had a much more difficult time with this than others although I didn't feel bad because I really didn't drink that much. We milled around and finally decided to visit the Deutsche Museum which housed a history of science and technology through the eyes of Germany. Putting a group of engineers together in a science museum is typically a great way to waste a few hours and this was no exception. The three guys (myself included) basically had nerd-gasms for 2 solid hours and I realized the full extent of Lucas' knowledge on anything science related.

I finally got to see an authentic castle the next afternoon; Neuschwanstein castle almost didn't look real but cut straight out of a medieval fantasy novel. We hiked up to the castle's base and took breathtaking pictures of the fog-enveloped fortress before taking a short tour of Ludwig's masterpiece. The spring to the bridge afterwards took out most of our energy but was well worth it (you can see what I mean in the pictures). We spent that night visiting Munich's largest (and possible the world's largest) beer garden where I drank 2 litres of authentic German beer mixed with delicious lemonade! We milled around the streets of downtown Munich half drunk but totally happy until we made it back and passed out in our hostel.

Munich definitely beat the hell out of Amsterdam as far as fun, sites, entertainment, and company. I've said it a few times but these 6 are incredible people that I look forward to spending the next years of my life getting closer to (despite their quirks, lol). We got back to Paris after 8 hours on a train and I've just been going to class and to sites around Paris ever since!