  
June 18 - June 21, 2003
(**New pictures are in! Thanks Freya for her amazing
photography.
The new full size pictures are a little bigger than my standard 3x5,
but
I think you'll agree the quality and composition requires it.)
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| JUNE 18 : Off
I go with only a backpack for an entire month?!? Who would have
thought?
I was in Munich, Germany for the first part of my trip. Although a bit
jet lagged from the trip, after a shower and walk around, I was getting
there. The first day was basic sight seeing and walking to see the
famous
Hofbrauhaus and Glockenspiel. Unfortunately the clock does NOT move
every
hour like you would think. Ah, guess I better come back another day to
see it. Oh, there's a Gap here! Excellent!...jeans for 45 Euro, you
must
be joking. The day ends with the "authentic" German meal of egg rolls
and
chop suey...What can I say? I'm a sucker for Chinese food! I did order
in German though, does that count? The hostel that my friend, Freya,
and
I stayed in had a TV, which was nice...what is it with this bad German
music obsession though? We also had two very cool artist roommates who
were from America too. |
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| My backpack for everything on the trip. It weighed over
22 kg. by the
end of my trip. Hellooo, back pain. |
The main bahnhoff. You can catch the U-Bahn or S-Bahn
from here. Note
the "Trink Coca-Cola!" |
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| The famous Munich Glockenspiel that is NOT playing on
the hour. |
Frauenplatz (ladies place)...Ooooh, Gap and the Body
Shop! |
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One of the guard towers with the barbed wire,
electric fences,
and ditch
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The shower room where new arrivals were robbed of
their belongings,
shaved, and given the blue stripe uniform.
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The ability to reach the higher beds often
determined survival.
(Top bunk life expectancy was about nine months versus three or less.)
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A symbolic sculpture and replicas of the prisoner
housing in the
background
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I'd like to know who exactly was becoming free by
working...
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Memorials for the thousands of unknowns who died |
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JUNE 19 : Dachau...These
pictures give a fraction of what I saw. No furnace, church prayer
buildings
or single cell torture room photos here, as those are blazed in my
memory
without them. There really aren't words to express the visual of it.
You
kind of just look around dumbfounded that you are standing where so
many
atrocities took place. The overcast sky was very appropriate. It's just
something that even though everyone reads about it in school, you
really
can't understand it unless you are there. Just look at the pictures and
see what I mean.
The pictures are a tiny glimpse of the
information
found in the museum and camp structure, and it would take pages to tell
about everything that is there to see. One memorable piece is the
"attempted
escapes," which most often was a guard who threw someone's uniform cap
onto the forbidden lawn and either watched him/her run to grab it or
beat
them up until they crawled for it. The outcome of both was the same of
course, but the prisoner was given the label "attempted escapee" in
history
records.
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Ashes of an unknown (Note the stones placed
to symbolize
the person has been visited)
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No matter the language: Never Again
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| JUNE 20 : Today
it was time for something a little more lighthearted. Off to the Munich
Stadium where the 1976 games were held. It was cool looking at the
place
where the platform diving and swimming took place. Isn't this the
Olympics
that Mark Spitz won the seven gold medals for swimming? I'm still in
shock
that kids were jumping off the highest platform. You couldn't pay me
enough
to do that! We also went into the "Football" stadium where Germany's
two
major league teams play, the more well known being FC Bayern. I got to
see the locker rooms, VIP areas, and walk on the field and try to shoot
a goal. I missed, but what can you expect? I played in the under 8
league
forever ago! Super fun, and I recommend it even if you are not a soccer
fan. The views from the Olympic Tower were pretty spectacular and well
worth the few Euros for the view. |
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Inside the stadium where I took my stellar shot on
goal
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A view of the stadium from the Olympic tower
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Another view from the tower
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Oktoberfest and the town of Munich
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JUNE 21 : Last
day in Germany which means I better have the authentic food experience.
Bratwurst, pretzels, sauerkraut, but no beer thanks. Although
Hofbrauhaus
has become more touristy, you better have your basic German vocabulary
ready because you can't count on the staff knowing English well...which
makes sense seeing you would be in Germany! Anyway, we stopped off at
the
Toy Museum where they were celebrating the teddy bear. It was pretty
neat
seeing the old toys. We also walked around looking for the Daniel K.
CD.
How to explain Daniel K....well, he looks like a male version of
Jennifer
Garner, and he has infectious songs. "So don't tell me
liiiiiiies....like
a devil in disguiiiiiise."Ask Freya to hear a sample. We sat waiting
for
the overnight train to Amsterdam and this wonderful grandmother type
sat
down with us and tried to have a conversation with us. It was so funny
with our limited German and her limited English, but she was very
gracious....Added
note: a few months after I got back to the states Daniel K was on tv
here!
Who knew he was the German Idol runner up?! |
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