Munich

This past weekend we went to Munich with my friend Mattie. We flew into Munich on Friday around 11. After our cab dropped us off at our hotel, we headed into the city center to walk around. Unfortunately, it began raining. Hard. My shoes were soaked. But we walked around a food market to try and find a dry place to eat. Two restaurants later, we were still out in the rain. Finally, we stumbled on a restaurant with dry tables under umbrellas, so we settled down and ordered sausages and pretzels. Let me tell you, I have never had a better pretzel. (And I had like 6 this weekend) It was still warm with a nice salty crunch on the outside but soft on the inside. We then climbed a tower of one of the oldest church's in Germany. But it was freezing, and still raining, so we didn't stay and look long. :) Then we went shopping for a new umbrella for me (since the wind blew mine apart) as we waited to hear the Glockenspiel. The Glockenspiel is the giant clock at the City Center with cute little wooden figures that spin and dance and what not. At one point, these two jousting figures came out and did a little joust! It was very cute. After the Glockenspiel, we jumped on the S-bahn, (One of their undergrounds) picked up a dessert, and went back to the hotel and watched a movie. The next morning, we decided to go to Salzburg for a Sound of Music tour. So, we headed towards the train station and hopped on the train to Salzburg. Just as we got on the train, we realized Mattie had forgotten her passport. After we grabed her passport, we went shopping while we waited for the next train. At 10:35 we realized we had walked to far to make back to the station by 10:45. Unfortunatly, we were in the middle of a public square, so there weren't many taxis. And of course finding a 6 seater taxi is near to impossible. Anyway, we finally found two taxis and arrived at the station minutes before the train was due to leave. We hopped on and settled in for the two hour ride. (Thankfully we had Ketchup Pringles and Paprika Pringles to help pass the time!) In Salzburg, we saw the mountain where Julie Andrews sung "The Hills are Alive", the gardens where "Do, Rei, Mi" were filmed, and the front and back of the von Trapp house. They were actually two different houses! The inside of the house was recreated in Hollywood. We also saw the gazebo where Liesl sung "16 going on 17", the church where Captain von Trapp and Maria were married, the abbey where the nuns lived, and the lake district, which was displayed prominently in the Sound of Music. After the tour, we  wondered around the gardens (the ones where "Do, Rei, Mi" were filmed) then we headed up a hill to a beer hall, which oddly enough was attached to a church. Guess what I had? A sausage and pretzel. I know, it's a shocker. :) And Dad even got a beer stein! He was quite happy. We then headed back for Munich, we unfortunately did not arrive until 11ish. I was pretty much sleep walking. The next morning, we visited Dachau Concentration Camp. It was one of the first Concentration Camps and therefore was a model for all the other camps to follow. The camp had been turned into a housing development around 1948 for refugees and the homeless. This meant that the original barracks and what not were torn down. But you can still see the original Maintenance Building and Crematorium. And the foundations of the old barracks are still there. The words, "work makes freedom" on the entrance to the camp were the last thing prisoners saw of the outside world before becoming slaves for the Nazi nation. On the roof of the Maintenance building were words that are no longer readable, "There is a path to freedom. It's milestones are: Obedience, Honesty, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Hard Work, Discipline, Sacrifice, Truthfulness, Love of thy Fatherland" All day, while the prisoners worked, these cruel words stared down at them. Regular citizens had no idea of how prisoners at Dachau were treated. The Nazi's fed them propaganda that assured them that these prisoner were better off a Dachau. They called Dachau a "re-education center" because the purpose of the camp was to teach the prisoners the true faith, Nazism. Obviously, that's not what happened. The sad thing about this propaganda was that the Nazi's themselves actually believed it. They thought that they were helping these poor people by showing them truth. "They honestly and sincerely believed that their task was pedagogic rather than punitive... They felt sincerely sorry for the misguided non-Nazis who had not yet found the true faith.” (Nazi Prison Camps to be Permanent, The New York Times, July 27, 1933, p.7) Those who did conform to Nazi thinking were released, once they proved themselves to be reformed, and those who didn't, where worked to death, or murdered. Finally in July of 1945, the camp was liberated by US soldiers. After visiting Dachau, we went to an art museum, walked in a garden, found some lunch, then headed towards the airport. And no, I did not have sausages and pretzels for lunch, I had vienerschnitzel! It was pretty good! 

OH MY GOSH! THERE'S A TARDIS A HEATHROW! I'M GOING TO FAINT!!

WHAT???? A DALEK TOO???

LOOK! JORDAN'S THE DOCTOR! (I'M CLARA!)

Mattie and I in Munich 

I tried some of Dad's beer.... just an FYI

Those were the best pretzel's ever. They were still warm!!

The Glockenspiel 

Salzburg

The back of the von Trapp house

The Gazebo (and our guide)

An Austrian coke. It tasted like apple ginger ale with more herbs. It was good!

The lake district 

Isn't beautiful. Let's all just go for Christmas guys! 

hehe! we stopped for a little snack! (Apple Strudel) 

The church where Maria and Captain von Trapp were married

The Do, Rei, Mi gardens

A view of Salzburg from a small footbridge 

The beer garden

Dachau 

The gates 

The foundation of the barracks 

The old maintenance building 

The Englisher Garten 

Ok that looks like so much fun. That's the river that runs through the garden.

Yum! Apple fritters!!

                                                             The Do, Rei, Mi song. 
                            You should be able to recognize a few of the place from my pictures! :)


Then finally, here is a video of the Glockenspiel. I took a video of almost the entire thing, but I cut a bit off at the end. So the video is almost 8 minutes long, if you don't want to watch the entire thing, the characters start moving around 2.26 on the video.