Fall Break Chapter 3: Munich

October 31st - at this point I was

• sad about leaving Salzburg
• growing increasingly stinky as I had few changes of clothing and was reusing excessively (but no worries - I had been showering!)
  

Actually, I wasn't smelling too bad. I was honestly just trying to gross you out. Did it work? No? Aww.

Anyway, the train ride was pretty short and uneventful, and I arrived to Munich before noon, and quickly found my hostel. My room wasn't ready yet, so I stashed my stuff in the luggage room and headed out to see what I could do until my room was ready. They had free maps at reception, and I saw an advertisement for a tour of Dachau on it, and so off I went to try and make it to the meeting spot on time.

I walked through the main strip of Munich and it is, honestly, not a very impressive city. It's a city, and that's about it. Sorry Munich, but I never loved thee.

The day was pretty cold, but I layered up well and didn't really have a problem. The tour guide was from Scotland, but had lived in New Zealand before moving to Germany. There were two Californians and three English folks. Dachau was everything one would expect a concentration camp to be. Here's a picture of the gate, but when I got inside, it didn't feel right to take any more pictures.

Afterwards, I was invited to dinner with the British lot. Imagine this: I was an American in Germany with three people from England eating dinner at a Mexican establishment where we were served by an Asian server. It was a fun night - they were travelling around Europe basically until they ran out of money and had to go back to work. One of the guys introduced himself as Kyle, but I have a feeling his real name is Terrence and that he goes by Mr. T. And Scott was just funny. The woman (whose name I unfortunately can't remember) worked with wildlife and had a nasty scar on her wrist where a marmoset bit her. They were very pleasant to be with!

The next day, I didn't really feel like doing anything but go back to Brussels. I tell you the truth, I flipped a coin to see if I would cut back my planned vacation and head back early or if I would push on and visit Neuschwanstein Castle. Thankfully, my 2 euro coin landed face up, and I gathered my belongings and headed out to Fussen, Germany - about a 2 hour train ride from Munich.

At first, Germany seemed gross and unspectacular, but when the train got far away from Munich and down into Bavaria, I was so glad I had made the trip out! The castle is situated just at the beginning of the Alps, and below it is sprawled the flat, green, German country side with small towns interrupting the fields.




The castle itself was neat - a lot of the decoration corresponded to German folklore and the rooms were beautiful and the technologies were pretty interesting (example - running water in Ludwig's bedroom and a type of telephone which he used to call down to the town to see what was going on).



I didn't take this picture - I coudn't get to the place where they got this shot. But it helps put in the perspective of how gorgeous it was!


However, my favorite part of the afternoon was playing billy-goat up on trails like this!
It was the perfect ending - something straight out of a fairytale!



That concludes my fall break! It was a time of stretching and excitment and relaxation and neat destinations and memory making.

My Love from Belgium!

Gracie