Munich

Wombats hostel with its own Wombar

After a great time in Berlin, we were off to Munich or as they pernounce it Muchen on Wednesday the 30th. Our flight was quick and we hopped on the train to the main train station, which thank heaven our hostel, Wombats, was a five minute walk from. Wombats was just as nice as JetPak, except this time we shared the room with four other boys. We didn't really talk to the ones we shared with the first night, but the second night we hung out with two of them. One of the boys is from the states, goes to Georgetown, and he is studying in Munich for the semester. We arrived at Wombats around 12 and couldn't check in until 2. So we went off to walk around the city. It was such a nice day out and warm so we found a Biergarten and just lounged in the park for a few hours. We headed back to our hostel to get to our room and then Lex and I registered for classes for the fall. Who would have thought I would be registering for classes in Munich?

That night for dinner, we decided to go to the train station, which had every possible food you could think of, and find something for dinner. We went to sleep pretty early because the next day we wanted to hit Dachau, the concentration camp, the BMW museum, the Olympic Stadium and another Biergarten at night.

After sleeping for what seemed like only a few hours, we got up and got ready to head to Dachau. We all had pretty mixed feelings about going to a concentration camp; none of us really knew what to expect. It was an overcast morning, and kind of chilly, which made the experience even more real like. When we arrived we got headsets to listen to, which explained the different parts of the concentration camp and had real life explanations of people who actually were in the camp during the Holocaust. It was amazing to hear that the camp was built during the World War I as a factory and then transformed as a concentration camp. It was only supposed to hold 6,000 people, but by the end of the war more than 20,000 people were housed. As you walked in the gate you entered this huge, cleared area, where they would have roll call. At times they would have to spend hours there, standing at attention; you couldn't even help those who have fallen.

Sign at the entrance

Roll call area

I won't go into specifics, but I would definitely suggest going to one if you ever have the opportunity. It was a really neat experience to just get a glimpse of what these people lived through for years. There is no way to describe the feeling you get walking around where thousands were fighting for their lives, while others were dieing every day.

After going to the concentration camp in the morning we headed to the BMW museum and Olympic Stadium, which was really cool to see. I choose to just go to the Olympic Stadium and just walk around. Unfortunately, you can't go into any of the buildings, but it was pretty neat to see the place.

Main venue on the right

Looking across to the venue

View from the hill

Across the venue, there was a hill that you could climb up and look all over the Olympic park, but also on the other three sides look over Munich. It was a nice break from the city and walking around those streets, to walk up the hill and just sit up there looking over everything. You could even see the mountains. Afterword, we went into the BMW area to look at some of the cars. I think I found my new car...or I should say ride!

I look good!

After literally going form one end of the city to the next we headed back to Wombats, to take showers and get ready for the night. Well, we didn't really make it to the Biergarten. We were having to much fun in the Wombar, meeting all sorts of people from all different places that we decided it would be more fun to stay there for the night. The next day we woke up and were going to take part in a Walking Tour around Munich, but came to a group decision that it would be best if we just walked around the city close to Wombats because we needed to be head to the airport around 2:30 to catch our flight to Rome. The city was really pretty, or I should say the part of the city we saw was really nice. It was such a beautiful weekend that it just made us want to be outside, enjoying the nice weather. I don't really know what we saw, but here are a few pictures.

Lex and me and this huge "O"

BierGarten

Munich was a lot of fun and I think most of us liked it more than Berlin. I do wish we went on the Walking Tour because that is the best way to get some history, as well as be able to see the city. After walking around, we got our bags, headed to the airport, where we caught our plane to Rome. Most of our thoughts at this point was "I am definitely a frequent flyer now"!! This being our fourth flight in eight days is pretty ridiculous, but we were determined to get through it.