Dachau

It's taken me 24 hours, but I think I got the hang of Munich. Well, everything but the trains. Imagine a train station with 36 different tracks leading into it. And that's not counting the S-Bahn, the newer intercity train system, and the U-Bahn, the old underground system, all using that same train station for a hub. To call it confusing would be to understate it to such a degree that it actually becomes criminal. My shoulders hurt too from walking around with my big heavy pack trying to find the hostel yesterday.

One canadian guy I'm staying with just came back from two weeks in the middle east. He had a plane out of Israel today, but since it's the Sabbath, there was no public transportation and he had to walk ten miles to the airport. While this may or may not be an exaggeration, it is possible that he was able to do this because he fit everything that lasted him that long into a regular school backpack. Meanwhile my filled travel pack with all my junk weighs 40 pounds. I think I brought too much stuff. I brought 5 changes of clothes. Ridiculous! Turns out each change is good for at least a couple days.

Anyways, today I managed to score both a cell phone number and some cash by redeeming a traveller's cheque, so I'm ready to roll for the rest of my trip. The way phones work here is it's free to receive calls from same-country phones, but not free to receive or send a call while outside the country. And since calling cards and Skype both use local lines, my Germany number is available for communication from the U.S.

On the sightseeing front, today I took a daytrip by train outside of Munich to Dachau, the site of the infamous first concentration camp upon which all concentration camps were based. I went there only expecting to stay a few hours, but ended up spending the whole day there until they closed. The place is huge, and well upkept with lots of interesting exhibits and original buildings. During its operation, the site had over 30 long dormitories, a prison building as long as two dormitories (about a fifth of a mile!), and two crematoriums. The prison was very cold and dark inside and is basically a narrow hall with cells as large as a standard bedroom on either side for the entire length of the building. In constrast, the dormitories were very hot and stuffy, even without them being actually occupied. They were divided into four segments with each segment containing a bunk room, crammed full with triple bunks, and a locker room. Ironically, the crematoriums sat in a very idyllic setting with well-manicured lawns and flora surrounding it. There was also a gas chamber at the site for "liquefying" lots of people at once, as they put it, but it was never used because they already had more bodies than they could deal with. Anyways, a very interesting site that not only showed the conditions of detainees, but also elaborated on the reasons why the Nazis came to power as well. They didn't pull any punches in describing what had happened, they even showed graphic images and film that probably wouldn't have been shown in the states. Anyways, truly an educational and historic site.

Going back to Munich, I explored the rest of the city (since all the museums close at 5, but daylight lasts until about 8:30). There's a large river flowing through the city called the Isar, flanked by strips of rocks without any grass or sand. But still, a large number of people congregate around the river, either picnicking on a blanket or just sitting around in groups. I suppose that if there were a river like that where we live maybe people would just go there and sit as well, but I highly doubt they would in such numbers.

Tomorrow will be a museum day.