Sunday, June 10, 2012

Weekend in Munich

Lots to write so bare with me!

Saturday morning our group woke up early to catch a tour at Dachau. While we were waiting for it, my roommate saw one of her good friends who is studying abroad in Germany and coming to visit Prague in a couple weeks. SUCH a small world. We ran into him two more times on Saturday, so random.

We didn't think Dachau would take all day but it did and none of us were complaining. No words or pictures can really explain the emotions I felt there. It was a huge life-changing experience and I'm thankful I was able to see it. Our tour guide knew so much history which made the day really enjoyable, I definitely wouldn't have felt the same way if we hadn't had a guide. Each place on the site made me shiver in horror. I was so angry and disgusted by what the Nazis did to the people in the concentration camp. I can't believe the torture, both physical and mental, that they came up with, so sickening.

Our guide made a good point at the end though, Germany is the only country that has really accepted and is open about their past. German schools teach about Hitler starting in kindergarten and by 3rd grade, children have already been to multiple concentration camps. He also mentioned how everyone is disgusted by the Nazis but we fail to realize that genocides are still occurring in history even after the 1940s, and some are even worse.  Definitely makes you think.

After Dachau, we all felt emotional but decided to head to Hofbrauhaus, an infamous beer hall. It was such an amazing and fun atmosphere, we stayed for over 5 hours! The only size beer you could buy was 1 liter, which at first I thought was ridiculous but then we kept ordering more throughout the night! They also had the bessst pretzels. We met some Italians and hung out with them for a bit. It was fun (and sometimes frustrating) to attempt to talk to them because they barely spoke English and none of us knew Italian! I think lots was lost in translation. One of our friends is from New Jersey and they screamed Jersey Shore!!! and proceeded to take multiple pictures with him. We think they thought he was on the show...hahha

We moved on to a sports bar (Hofbrauhaus beers were 8 euros each!) and met a group from SMU there. One of them knew two people I grew up with! Soo random! The girls went back to our hotel while the guys stayed out...their bus was at 7am so they didn't book a hostel!

In the morning, Sam and I went to Nymphenburg Palace, the summer palace just outside Munich. It was incredibly beautiful and so much land! We walked around the forest for bit, finding small palaces along the way. It's crazy all these royal people had palaces within their palaces...

We headed back to catch our bus at the main train station, Hauptbahnhof. The train station is so clean and so many shops and people. It was a really fun atmosphere.

We got back to Prague after 5 hours on a bus...so done with travelling for a bit! Bitter sweet to be back in Prague. I'm so happy I was able to go to Munich and it's probably my favorite city I've been to ever! Germany exceeded my expectations and I can't wait to head to Berlin in mid-July!

No school tomorrow which will be nice, except I have two presentations due Tuesday and Wednesday because my class is over on Wednesday and new classes start Thursday!

DONE! Thanks for reading! Time is flying here, heading to Krakow Thursday night!

Love and miss everyone and hope you're doing well!

Sbohem,
Whit

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