January 28th, 2013 - Munich and Dachau Trip
Glockenspiel!
This weekend we went to Munich! And I have to say, it is my favorite city so far. It was so much cleaner than our Milan stay, most people spoke English, and the history and culture was so much more my kind of place. Our trip started out with a small group of us taking a train to Zurich on Friday afternoon around 2, with an hour layover before our train from Zurich to Munich. In Zurich, we had our first taste of what it's like to have to wait hours to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to pay the 2 francs for a PUBLIC bathroom. Absurd, but I knew we would have to deal with it at some point in Europe. We grabbed a bite to eat at the only reasonably priced place in the train station which was a seafood place, wasn't the best, but it worked. We got on the train to Munich finally around 8...I think. We didn't reserve seats prior to getting on, so we all ended up getting split up throughout the cabin in the open seats we could find. Luckily I made friends with who I was sitting with! It sure made the 5 hour train ride go by much quicker. It also didn't hurt that he was American so we could exchange stories about how different Europeans are. He was on leave from the coast guard in Bahrain and was traveling Europe for about 2 weeks. By the time our 5 hour train ride was over, I had convinced him to go to Munich instead of his original plan because there was going to be a total of like 30 of us from Lugano in Munich this weekend and I knew it would be fun for him. We got to our hostel (Meininger) and we could already tell it was going to be a good weekend. There were so many people our age hanging in the bar/lounge inside and we ended up getting a room for the 6 of us with our own bathroom! It was really spacious and so much cleaner than the hostel in Milan. Our first night we ended up staying in the bar that was located in the bottom of our hostel because our train had gotten delayed so we didn't even get settled in til after midnight. We had our first taste of German beer, we all got an Augustiner after it had been recommended to me by a German guy that was also sitting near me on the train. We all went to bed not long after because we had a tour of Munich on Saturday morning.
On Saturday morning we woke up and got ready for our 10:45am tour of the city. We met up with our tour group in Marienplatz at "Mary's column" which is a statue in the middle of the square of the Virgin Mary, and it is pure gold. We continued on the tour by watching the Glockenspiel which shows a set of two mini shows including the marriage of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata of Lorraine as well as the dance of the coopers. We walked all around the different bell towers and town halls in Marienplatz and then we walked to a street called Dodger's Alley. This was a street where people would escape from walking down a separate street where Hitler's guards would enforce a "heil Hitler." If the dodgers didn't have a good enough reason for walking on that alley, they were most likely sent straight to Dachau, which I will go into more detail about later. We walked into the church called Frauenkirche which is most famous for the "devil's footprint" that is inside which you can see in one of the pictures above. The story goes that the devil had spoken to the architect of the church and the devil decided that he wanted the church to be one of his own because when he stood in the entryway he could not see any windows. When the devil returned after the construction of the church was completed, he stood in a part of the church and saw that windows had been put in and he was so mad that he stomped on the ground. And that's the story! Our 3-hour tour ended with a brief introduction to the Hofbrauhaus which is the most famous beer hall in Germany. In our quest to find authentic German food, we followed our tour guide to her recommended restaurant for lunch where we got schnitzel, sausage, beer, some things we didn't really know what they were, and FREE water, woo! After a brief stroll throughout the markets and boutiques, and a brief mishap with Torie breaking an ornament...oops, we decided to go back to the hostel and get ready for the night. We got to the Hofbrauhas around 7 and it took about 20 minutes just to find a table because it was so packed. The German band was playing and we ended up finding a table with a British couple who were happy to let all 9 of us sit with them. I got the Radler which is a beer mixed with lemonade and it was so good! I know its not very traditional but someone recommended it to me. Afterwards, we wanted to meet up with the rest of our friends from Lugano in their hostel called Wombats which is really popular in various cities across Europe. It had a bar on the bottom floor of the hostel and we met so many people from around Europe. We ended up playing a few rounds of Kings as well as Thumper with a large table of people, and some of the Europeans had never played Thumper so it was fun to introduce it to them.
Dachau
Sunday morning we made a trip to Dachau, the concentration camp. This camp was primarily a working camp rather than an execution camp. On the gates to the camp which you can see in the picture on the left, the words "Arbeit macht frei" which means "work sets you free." We walked around the camp including the barracks, the crematorium & the gas chambers which fortunately were never used at Dachau, and no one knows exactly why. I think the snow & cold temperatures made it seem so much more real and somber to understand what the prisoners went through. After about 2 hours of walking around the camp, we finally made the trek back to the train station and ended up finding a "Pizza Hut Restaurant" which we later realized probably wasn't the best decision in hindsight...live and you learn. I definitely want to go back to Munich at some point in my life and I encourage anyone else to go who has the opportunity. Ciao for now! Next weekend I'm off to Interlaken for some paragliding over the Alps (don't worry, Mom) and Bellinzona!
February 19th, 2013 - Berlin Trip
The Brandenburg Gate
We left Prague early Thursday morning to arrive in Berlin at 3:30pm. It was Valentine's Day, and well...since my small travel group doesn't have any Valentines, we had a nice single ladies dinner at a German restaurant, haha. It was called Marcus Brau, really good, and not expensive! We all ordered schnitzel of course, and mine had a sort of mushroom sauce on top, yum! FYI, schnitzel is a thin slice of veal coated in breadcrumbs. After a couple hours to digest, the 6 of us (me, Jackie, Lindsay, Torie, Steph and Caitlin) all went to the bar inside our hostel, Wombats! The bar was really cool because it was on the top floor so you could see pretty far over Berlin. Even though Berlin isn't exactly the prettiest city (it's kind of ugly and gray in my opinion), it was still a good view. The bar was decked out in Valentine's Day decor and made special drinks called "love juice" so we of course had to try it. It was a mix of apple and strawberry juices, some sort of orange liquor and cream with little candy hearts on top. We ended up going out to a bar called "White Trash," don't be alarmed by the name, it was actually really cool. It was actually a restaurant, club and tattoo studio all mixed into one, kinda strange. All of the furniture was vintage and was from places around the world. We did find out though that in Berlin, Thursday nights are actually not big on people going out. Clubs are usually open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, so we didn't stay out that long.
On Friday morning we woke up early to catch our "free" walking tour of Berlin. We started the tour at the Brandenburg Gate which is an icon of Berlin that was partially bombed and rebuilt after the war. We continued on the tour and saw sites like the Holocaust memorial, the parking lot that now stands 50 ft. above where Hitler's bunker once was and where he eventually married and committed suicide. It was crazy to believe that I was standing in and around places that I have learned about in history books for almost my whole life. We saw the building that still stands today as a tax building that once was the headquarters of the Nazi air force. We saw a part of the Berlin wall that still stands, and also Checkpoint Charlie, which is where back during the war, it was the checkpoint between the Soviet sector and the U.S. sector. Some other points of interest we walked around: Humboldt University (Einstein taught here at one point), where the book burnings were and the "twin churches." After our tour, we walked for another hour to see the part of the Berlin wall called the "East Side Gallery." Most of my pictures of the Berlin wall are from that area. This is a mile and a half of wall that still stands that has tons of huge paintings by various artists, it was amazing.
On Friday night we ate dinner at the restaurant inside our hostel, and we ended up going back to White Trash for a second try since Thursday nights were clearly not very lively there. We were happily surprised at the Friday night atmosphere. So many people and great old American music played the entire night, and we danced the night away.
Our train from Berlin back to Lugano left on Saturday afternoon at 1:30pm so we didn't have a whole lot of time in the morning for activities because we had to get to the train station in time. The train ride back to Lugano was 12 hours, ugh! So we were incredibly excited to be back in our own comfy beds in the Montarina at 1:30am Sunday morning.
That's it for my first 10-day trip! And this weekend I am off to Nice, France for Mardi Gras/Carnival!
Ciao for now!
On Friday morning we woke up early to catch our "free" walking tour of Berlin. We started the tour at the Brandenburg Gate which is an icon of Berlin that was partially bombed and rebuilt after the war. We continued on the tour and saw sites like the Holocaust memorial, the parking lot that now stands 50 ft. above where Hitler's bunker once was and where he eventually married and committed suicide. It was crazy to believe that I was standing in and around places that I have learned about in history books for almost my whole life. We saw the building that still stands today as a tax building that once was the headquarters of the Nazi air force. We saw a part of the Berlin wall that still stands, and also Checkpoint Charlie, which is where back during the war, it was the checkpoint between the Soviet sector and the U.S. sector. Some other points of interest we walked around: Humboldt University (Einstein taught here at one point), where the book burnings were and the "twin churches." After our tour, we walked for another hour to see the part of the Berlin wall called the "East Side Gallery." Most of my pictures of the Berlin wall are from that area. This is a mile and a half of wall that still stands that has tons of huge paintings by various artists, it was amazing.
On Friday night we ate dinner at the restaurant inside our hostel, and we ended up going back to White Trash for a second try since Thursday nights were clearly not very lively there. We were happily surprised at the Friday night atmosphere. So many people and great old American music played the entire night, and we danced the night away.
Our train from Berlin back to Lugano left on Saturday afternoon at 1:30pm so we didn't have a whole lot of time in the morning for activities because we had to get to the train station in time. The train ride back to Lugano was 12 hours, ugh! So we were incredibly excited to be back in our own comfy beds in the Montarina at 1:30am Sunday morning.
That's it for my first 10-day trip! And this weekend I am off to Nice, France for Mardi Gras/Carnival!
Ciao for now!