I actually managed to recover from my Iron-debacle pretty quickly. The next day I was feeling good and my stomach was pretty much back to normal. After hanging out for another day in the Hilpoltstein area, My parents and I headed down to the Munich area for some sights and suds. For anyone who has driven on the highway (autobahn) in Germany, you know what I am talking about when I say you have to constantly check in your rearview mirrors for fast approaching vehicles. As you may or may not know, there are long stretches of the autobahn where there is no posted speed limit. As a result, if you are not flying down the road at 130 mph, you had better keep your ass in the right-hand lane. Even passing people requires some careful analysis and good depth perception. You may look in the mirror to see that no one is behind you and it is clear to pass and as soon as you move out, someone has caught up to you and is about to crawl into your tailpipe. The funny thing is, there are a fair share of supercars out there (Ferrari’s, Porsche’s etc.) but the people that you really have to keep your eyes out for are the people going down the road at 120 mph in their grocery grabbin’ mini vans.
About an hour south of where we were staying in Hilpoltstein and just outside of Munich is the town of Dachau. Dachau was home to one of the first concentration camps built by the Nazis. Given that you have to be exposed to the good, bad and the ugly to experience all a location has to offer, we decided to stop by and take a look at the camp grounds. The Germans have done an excellent job of maintaining the camp in its original condition. This was done on purpose, so you feel the full power that a place like this has to offer. They have also put together a very impressive collection of photos, artifacts and audio/video presentations chronicling the life of a "resident" at the camp. In the grand scheme of things, not that many people lost their lives at Dachau. Only 30,000 people were killed here over the course of its operation before being liberated by American troops in April 1945. Most of the inhabitants of the Dachau camp died from being put to hard labor, or as a result of medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors. There were ovens built within the camp perimiter, however, according to witnesses, the ovens were not used to exterminate people, just as a means of disposing of the bodies of those who had perished there. Still, 30,000 people is a staggering number, and Dachau was the model from which the Nazis built subsequent death camps. Walking around the large grounds of the Dachau camp gives you a very uneasy feeling. Not too many people are talking and an unsettling silence looms over the entire site even though over 1,000 people are present learning more about the horror that occurred here. Again, words and pictures really can’t describe what you feel walking around a place like the Dachau concentration camp. It is one of those places that you have to experience in person in order to get a true understanding and comprehension of the magnitude of one of the darker moments in human history.
After spending quite a bit of time touring the grounds of Dachau (we literally had to sprint for the gate or risk spending a night there) we headed down to Munich. After unwinding from the experience of viewing the concentration camp and the site where thousands of people died, we decided to head into the heart of town to grab some food and get consumed by the rage that is the World Cup. Munich is famous for its beer halls and one of the most famous is the Hofbrauhaus. People have been drinking beer at the Hofbrauhaus since 1592 and it is home to some great beer, traditional Bavarian music and more Korean tourists that you would ever expect. My parents don’t really drink that much and I don’t think my mom has had a beer in nearly 20 years, but since we were at the Hofbrauhaus, I made her get an original haus beer ( I did end up finishing about half of it for her, but I give her an A for effort). After throwing down a few liter beers and some wurst, it was off into the hordes of French and Portuguese football fans that had descended on Munich. We were lucky enough to be in town for the semifinal match and the whole area was crazy. Fans were dressed in country colors, beer in hand walking around pretty much everywhere singing one of the many national fight songs of their respective squads. Based on my experience of the whole night, I think a lot of people would have liked to see Portugal win, but it was not in the cards for them as France put on a good show, although they would go on to loose to Italy in the finals. Munich was a great place and I definitely want the chance to go back and enjoy more of the beer halls that I did not get to see.
For more pics of my trip, visit the following link.
