Munich has been a blast! The last time I was in the city, it wasn’t the best time so I’m happy that I can overwrite my old memories with great ones.

I stayed at a hostel called Wombats and it’s so much fun. If you ever go to Munich and need a hostel, you better stay there. It’s so social and international and a great location. It’s a 5 minute walk with your luggage to the train station.

Ok, so I got to the hostel really late on the 29th, around 11:30. I couldn’t find Matt and Kyle so I decided to just go to bed. I had climbed up on the top bunk and right when I closed my eyes, I heard a knock on the door. I doubted it was for the 3 sleeping Korean girls in the room with me so I answered it. It was Matt and Kyle! I changed and we went to the bar in the hostel. Kyle was commenting on some guy’s Italian soccer jersey from afar and I was like, “C'mon, let’s go make friends!” Turns out the guy is Swedish and just loves Italy. We talked a bit, then Matt and Kyle went to another bar and I stayed to hang with the Swedish guys (there’s 5 of them). They’re so nice! And ridiculously tall too. I think Alex is the tallest from that group and the top of my head just skimmed his breastbone. That tall. Well, we all hung out until like 3 in the morning and it was so much fun.

Mallory and her friends arrived the next day and I went to Neuschwanstein with Matt and Kyle. We took some great pictures. I haven’t had any time to upload them though (I’m writing this post as a note on my phone on a train). But anyway, the castle is beautiful! There was a 3 hour wait to get in and we decided it wasn’t worth it. We walked around the perimeter and viewed the castle from a footbridge a little distance off. To get to the castle we had to walk about 30 minutes. We have hiked in the Alps!

After the castle, we went to find the surfer wave in the English Gardens. It’s part of a river but it makes a wave and people surf on it. We went to a beer garden after and also grabbed some food. I had a knödel, a doughy dumpling served in a broth. From there, we walked more in the English Garden to another beer garden! This one is by a lake and the view, especially at sunset, is beautiful. The English Garden is a park and no where near as beautiful as Retiro. I was exhausted.

Matt and Kyle went to another beer garden that night and I stayed back and hung with Mallory and the Swedish guys. This time, their whole group was there. I had only met Alex and Philip the night before. They all speak English pretty well and they taught me a couple Swedish words that took me a couple tries to pronounce correctly.

The next morning, we went to grab breakfast at the market right off of the main square of Marienplatz, Viktualienmarkt. Two of the Swedish guys joined us! From breakfast we went on a guided tour of Dachau. It’s a day trip and we got back to the city center around 4:30. Dachau is the first concentration camp and is considered to have been a model for the others. It is on the grounds of a former ammunitions factory and this was useful because some basic structures didn’t have to be built. Dachau began as a rehabilitation facility for men and intended to release them. When you walk in the main gates, you see Arbeit Macht Frei, work makes you free. This was true at the camp’s foundation because of its rehabilitation goal. However later on it became a sort of mocking phrase.

Unlike Auschwitz, train tracks at Dachau stop before the entrance to the camp. The whole site is a memorial ground now. The foundation for the barracks is still there but the buildings have collapsed. There are a few buildings left: the main office building, one barrack that you can’t view, another that’s been reconstructed, and a fourth that the prisoners referred to as the bunker. This was the punishment barrack. Inside the reconstructed barrack, you can see the transformation of bed styles. There were 3 bed levels, ladder to reach the levels, and dividers for each bed space. A couple years later the ladder was removed, and a few years after that, the dividers were removed and 10 times the amount of people were expected to sleep there. People were literally sleeping on top of each other. The changes seem gradual, but if you skip the second version, the bed change is drastic. Compared to other concentration camps I’ve seen, this one has actual toilet bowls and sinks. At the back of the camps there are 3 memorials: one Jewish, one Catholic, and one Protestant.

Facing the memorials, there is a small bridge to your left and this takes you to the gas chambers and crematorium. There are 2 crematoriums, one small one with maybe 2 ovens and a larger one connected to the gas chamber with maybe 8 or 10 ovens. Three bodies could fit in one oven at a time. The second crematorium had to be built because it wasn’t efficient enough for the Nazis’ liking. The bridge was built after the fact. Prisoners going to the chambers thought they were going to the showers and exited the camp. When I looked at the inside of the gas chamber, the walls are stone. The ones I have seen before are concrete and you could see and touch claw marks left by people trying to escape.

I met a Gator at the Dachau museum. I was wearing my anorak and he said, “Go Gators! I just graduated!” We had a small conversation, but to think I’d meet a Gator at Dachau…

After Dachau, Mallory, Rachel (her friend), me, and two guys we met on the tour went to a beer garden for dinner. They had just just graduated from Cornell. It was fun and after dinner, we parted ways knowing little more than a first name.

We went back to the hostel, it was about 8, and hung in the lobby for a bit. I took a nap and showered. Mallory and I had befriended the two Australian guys staying in my room and we went to a bar called Kafé Kosmos that night. Then we went back to the hostel bar. One of the Aussies went back to the room, Mallory talked to the other, and I found the Swedish guys - I promised I would go out with them that night. We just stayed in the hostel bar though. They taught me a few more words in Swedish, one being their version of “Cheers!” We all hung out until late again and I said bye because I checked out the next day and said that if they’re ever in Florida to let me know.

On the 1st (which happens to be my friend-iversary with Lauren, 16 years yay!) I took a free walking tour. It was really long! I saw the Glockenspiel go off, the Devil’s footprint in the Frauenkirche, the palace, Hofbräuhaus, and everything else I wanted to see. I even went back to the chocolate store, Elly Seidl, that we found a few years back. The tour ended and I went back to the market for lunch. I went to the Deutsches Museum, this ginormous science museum! It’s more of a museum in the traditional sense as not too many things were interactive. I got there with an hour until they closed and lucky for me entrance is free for the last hour!
I had about an hour and a half until I was to meet up with Mallory again so I wandered in and out of the shops around Marienplatz. It was killer hot and the air conditioning was welcome. We ate dinner (weinerschnitzel!) at a restaurant around the plaza, picked up our luggage from the hostel, and took the over-night train to Berlin. We happen to be in the same room as Matt and Kyle in the hostel so that’s really convenient. I’m excited to see what’s in store in Berlin!