Guten Tag aus Munchen

Guten Tag! I realize that I have been horrible at updating my blog... sorry for those who actually read it. This past weekend I spent time in Germany. First, it was amazing that I could actually understand the language and speak a little of it as well. Our trip started out on Thursday afternoon. I swear each trip I take I learn a totally different lesson. Total there were 8 of us making the trip to Germany. We caught a train out of Florence to the Pisa airport. From there we flew into Frankfurt. I have to say that I have never landed in such dense fog. I thought we were still in the clouds and then all of a sudden we landed. The visibility was horrible and I feel like in the US a plane would never land in such conditions. When we initially booked the tickets we thought we were getting a steal...again we were wrong. The airport in Frankfurt is actually about two hours from the city, meaning we had to get on a bus to take us to the train station where we would take a 3 hour train ride to Munich. The day of traveling actually went pretty smooth. There was minimal running through terminals and no tears. The ICE trains in Germany are sooo nice and we were able to sit back and relax, while being entertained by drunken US Army soldiers on break. We finally arrived in Munich at about 12:30 a.m. We found our hostel, Wombats, and called it a night.

On Friday we woke up early to see as much as we possibly could. Three of the girls and I headed out to see the market. We were shocked when we walked outside and the temperature was below 30 and there were snow flakes falling. I guess I take the weather in Italy for granted. And I feel so bad for you all stuck in the horrible Minnesota/Wisconsin weather. We finally found the market and wondered around for a bit. It was way different from Italy's market. Each person had their own stand/store front making up a cluster of shops. Next we stopped at the grocery store to stock up on some snacks for the day. After the market we wondered back to the hostel to meet up with the other girls. Next we headed to Dachau.

Dachau I have to say was a very interesting experience. The fact that I was standing on the same ground as so many people that were killed was eerie. The mood is automatically set when you walk though the iron gate with the phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" on it. The camp was enormous and very well preserved. There were two sets of bunk houses still standing. The quarters where they had to sleep were so barren and small. It makes you think about the life of luxury you live. Next we walked around the grounds. Various things I saw were the crematorium (creepy), several religious monuments, the watch towers and a large museum that once was the headquarters. We did the audio tour that tells you descriptions of what you were looking and what took place at each site. We finished out three hour tour with walking through the museum and watching a video. The rest of the night we spent at an authentic German restaurant having dinner and just hanging out.

On Saturday we met up with the boys in our program that came to Munich. Immediately in the morning we walked over to the train station to get Starbucks. It fabulous to get a soy skim latte. I know that sounds so bad, but in Italy the coffee cup is smaller than a juice glass and they don't have soy anything. Mainly we spent the day just wandering the city. The architecture was so neat and different compared to Italy. It was interesting to see how they mixed modern architecture with the past. We also stopped at one of the department stores to look around. Their candy section was huge and I can now say I am obsessed with Ritter Sport Bars (coconut and marzipan being the best). At night we went to the Hofbrauhaus. Which is a famous beer hall. Quite the experience. It was fun to see people from all over the world getting wasted together. There was a bachelor party behind us, so we were highly entertained for the night.

On Sunday we opted to take the train back to Florence. We figured that it was cheaper then the train ride from Munich to Frankfurt to then catch our flight. We also figured the amount of travel time was equal. Eight hours on a train wasn't too bad, minus the last hour because we just wanted to be home. We passed through the beautiful scenery of Germany, Austria and the Italian country side.

And now....My parents come tomorrow! For the next couple weeks I will be traveling around Italy with them, followed by spring break in Croatia. I will be updating my blog every once and a while. And pictures will come soon.