May 31st, 2011 - Munich

We had a wonderful free breakfast again from our hotel again.  We had it three mornings in a row and sat at the same quiet table in the corner every morning.  I order the ham omelet and Mark had fried eggs and bacon.  Bacon is a lot different here, bigger fattier strips, not cooked as well.  We headed to Marian Platz together.  Mark wanted to go through the Residenz castle and I just wanted to walk around and look in shops.  I walked him all the way to the castle and then we split ways.  We had planned to meet in 45 minutes under a kodak sign in Marian Platz, the town square.  When I left Mark, I turned around to head to the main shops and there was a Starbucks directly in front of me.  I HAD to stop!  I went in, ordered my usual grande cafe mocha light-skinny.  I used the restroom and headed on.  I was on a mission to find sunglasses.  My pair had broke the previous day and I was very lost without them.  I went to two stores with no luck.  Then I headed to H&M.  They are everywhere in New York, London, Paris and Munich.  At H&M, I found a couple cute things, went to try them on, but the line was too long.  I didn't have time before I needed to meet Mark, so I bought a cute blue and white striped scarf headband and headed to the kodak sign. We had planned to meet around 12:15 or 12:30.  We thought Mark would be done by 12:15 and if I was walking around the square, I would look under the sign for him.  I waited about 20 minutes until I saw a very handsome, tall, dark, American heading towards me!  I could breathe again!  Every time we separate, I panic and think of all that could go wrong.

We headed to the hotel, used the bathroom and headed on to the train station to meet our tour guide for our Dachau tour.  There were 7 people in our tour plus our tour guide.  We took the train to a bus and the bus took us to Dachau.  It was warm there, very somber, sad, erie and quiet.  Only about 5 buildings remained, then just concrete foundations and barb wire.  We saw the bunk houses, gas chamber, inferno, jail and three miniature memorials - jewish, catholic and presbyterian.  There is a catholic convent on the other side of the concentration camp walls and everyday at 3 pm, the nuns ring the bells in the memorial because that was the time of the day they were liberated.

The tour was very long and emotionally draining.  I went back and forth about whether I should have come.  I don't want to forget about the history and want to be educated on it, but it was devastating to hear about.

When the tour ended and we got to the train station, it had started to rain.  We ran to the hotel in the rain.  Just one of the many times we would get stuck in the rain!  We decided to just lay around the hotel, read and have wine while we waited for the rain to pass, so we could go to dinner.

After about an hour and a half, the rain stopped and we headed to dinner.  We walked to the same beer garden as the night before, but it was closed due to the rain.  We had originally planned on trying Hofbrauhaus, but had been advised not to by two different locals we talked to.  We were told instead to go to the pub/bar across the street from it.  We headed there.  The place was packed.  No open tables, so the bartender told us to sit at the end of a table with 2 older German men on the other end.  We forgot they share tables in Europe!  They share tables, space, personal bubbles, streets, sidewalks...everything!

We had saurkraut, mini-brats (about the size of breakfast links) and a side of fries.  I LOVE the fries in Europe!  None have disappointed!  I had a Radler again and Mark had a Dunken-Weiss (Dark Wheat).  During dinner it started to rain again.  Mark insisted on taking a taxi home, which was wonderful!  It was weird being in a car - we had not been in one for almost 9 days!