Adventures Elsewhere - Munich & Dachau

Wow, it's been far too long since I've posted.  I was thinking that setting a goal to finish writing about our trip would help me post more often and include other posts about visiting family in North Carolina and San Diego, as well as just the usual happenings of me and Newel here in Birmingham.  But it didn't, and that's okay.  How about I set another goal.  Do you think I can write about the adventures of our trip to Europe by the end of this month?  I'm going to try.

So after Prague, we drove to Munich.  It was a really rainy drive.  It reminded me of the rain we get in Birmingham.  There was so much rain, that a ton of water splashed up on our windshield from the other side of the freeway and I thought it was going to knock our car over.  Newel thinks that's an exaggeration, but I'm not kidding.  It was a BIG splash/smack.

When we arrived in Munich, my right hip and ankle were feeling really sore.  I'm in good physical shape, but I think all of our walking every day for the last 6 days caught up to me because that's what I remember the most when I think of Munich - my hip hurting and feeling like I was slowing Newel down with my oldness even though he's older than me, and we're both not old!  Well, Newel is kind of old.  But not me. :)

Anyway, Munich.  Really neat city.  We walked around Old Town Munich and Marienplatz and saw the Glockenspiel, Hofsgarten/Residenz and Frauenkirche.  I remember there was a lot of shopping.  Not as much as Prague, but a lot.  Munich was a lot like what we saw in East Germany but nicer.  And by nicer, I don't mean better; just different in a cleaner, newer, more well-kept kind of way.

The next morning, we drove to Dachau and saw the concentration camp.  I remember planning for our trip and telling my mom about all the things we were going to do.  After telling her about each thing, I would say, "and that will be fun".  When I told her about going to Dachau, I automatically said, "and that will be fun", but then I thought that probably wasn't the best way to describe a concentration camp.  I followed with "well, not fun, but..." and I couldn't find the words.  My mom said, "Not fun, but important.  It's important that people see it and remember it."  True that, Mom.

After that, we went to Residenz, a royal palace of Bavarian monarchs now turned huge museum.  No pictures of the inside because we couldn't take any.  And all our pictures of the outside didn't really turn out.

What we want to remember:
1) What remained of the barracks and crematorium at Dachau and all the significance of what happened there - a truly tragic chapter in the history of our human family.
2) The decorative details throughout the halls and rooms of Residenz and the fact that you could easily get lost there without the museum maps and docents.
3) How there were so many people everywhere, especially in Marienplatz while a soccer game was being broadcast.  There are SO many hardcore soccer fans in Germany.  And can I say that we were really happy about Germany winning the World Cup last summer?  I think they won because we visited their country. :)