Girl's Trip to Munich

Well, this post is very out of order, so I apologize for any confusion. But, as some of you may have noticed, Peter has been the sole blogger this summer. I think my concentration has been devoted to other areas, such as prepping for Baby Mallory's arrival and satisfying my food cravings.

But, now that we are back in Strasbourg, things have settled back into a routine and we are almost finished with Baby Prep 2010, so I finally have time to post some pics from the trip to Munich that I took this past June with two of my best friends, Elizabeth and Leah. Now that I'm actually looking through the pics, I'm realizing that we spent more time talking than we did taking pics.........definitely less pictures that I normally take. Catching up with them and laughing together was much more fun and important than the sightseeing though. But here are a few of the moments I did remember to capture:

Here is our hotel. It is right next to the Octoberfest sight and was a great spot.......including very cute dogs that greeted us when we arrived.


We spent our first day exploring the city's highlights. This included a climb to the top of St. Peter's church to check out the phenomenal view of Marionplatz, the city's main square.


The view was totally worth the the climb:




The highlight of the view was deinitely the "New Town Hall." This beautiful building was completed in the early 1900's.




After a quick map check, we made our way to Munich's famous park Englischer Garten. The park is huge and lovely, complete with a fast moving creek that locals float down as a way to cool down in this AC-free city.


We found a great beer garden in the middle of the park where we ate delicious greasy food and where I drooled with envy while watching Liz and Leah drink the freshest of Pils.....

The next day was a little less festive, but something that we all agreed we needed to see. We spent our second day at Dachau, one of the most infamous of concentration camps in Germany. It wasn't technically a "death camp", but a prison/work camp. From what I gathered, however, death was definitely not a stranger to Dachau. The eerie quiet starts the moment you cross through the main gates, which say "Work will make you free.".

Originally used for political prisoners, Dachau wasn't a mass killing camp. By the end of the war, however, due to over-crowding of other camps, Dachau was used to house and work many jewish prisoners as well. As over-crowding increased, the living conditions worsened.
By the liberation, 500 men were sharing one bunk house with this as their sink area:

This as their sleeping area:

And this as their toilets:


Even harder to see than the bunk houses, were the "showers" and the crematorium. Almost 32,000 people were cremated after their death at Dachau. At least this is the recorded number.



Like I wrote earlier, while I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to visit Dachau, I must also confess that it was one of the more upsetting, even to the point of nausea, days of my life. I do believe it is important that we force ourselves to face the reality of this horrific history, though, so that we can ensure that the sentiment expressed on this memorial inside the camp holds true in the future:


Thanks Elizabeth and Leah for an amazing trip! It meant the world to me.