Dachau

On Saturday Marissa and I rose early to go to Dachau, the first concentration camp and the only camp to be open for all twelve years. It is one experience that I will remember for a lifetime. It was odd being at a concentration camp, first because it was a beautiful day, I always imagined it being cloudy and snowing. As we walked by the orginal gate the haunting words, "Work Will Set You Free" were placed above the door. The orginal train tracks still lay outside of the gates as well.
The first thing we did was watch a short film about the liberation of Dachau, filmed by the American Liberators. It was a work camp built for 6,000, however, 32,000 where liberated and 34,000 died there. The 34,000 is only part of the truth, many prisioners were set to other camps to died. The film was incredibly hard to watch- especially when they showed the towns people of Dachau seeing inside the camp for the 1st time the look of shock and fear in their face, you could see that they understood that Dachau would never be looked at the same again. The whole movie as hard as it was to watch it was a million times harder to grasp.
As we left the main building (orginal) we stood in the a flat stone covered place, the place where prisioners stood every morning and every evening for atleast an hour until their number was called. The one thought that cylced in my mind was how much fear the noise my feet where making on the stone used to strike into the hearts of the prisioners who didn't know whether today or tomorrow or when they would die.
On our two and half hour tour we learned that the average wieght of a man was 80lbs. They were able to fit 400 in a bunk made for 40. We walked down the path where the barracks used to be- but the only thing that remains in the outline and the number of the barrack. There is a Jewish, catholic and Protestant memorials for those who died in Dachau.
On the tour the most chilling part was the gas chambers- however they were only used for experiements not for mass killings. We also saw the orginal 4 ovens, I couldnt bear to take pictures of the ovens, it is something that will be forever ingained into my memory.
The Gas chamber was a cold place only to contrast with the warth of the sun on the outside.



Later that day after taking an long break we went to the Haufbrou house.

On Sunday we walked around and saw the Glockenspeil go off!

The day Marissa and I lost our travel dignity

Friday will be written in Chapter form due to the mass amount of comical and pathetic events that took place
Chapter 1- Hungry and denied
With rumbling bellies we walked on a mission towards pizza. But alas, it was close- shut down for eternity! What to do? No worries, we (meaning Marissa and I) are intelligent. Let's go to the other pizza place. One of many plan "B"s of our long day to come.
Chapter 2- Trier How I Loath Thee
We confidently got on board our oh so short train ride to Trier. Easy right? Wrong! Well wrong if you are deficient at reading a train schedule. So we had to get off at Trier Sud right? NO! So, we prematurely exited the train where we were greeted by an empty single track platform. So we started walking north?!
Chapter 3- A Lesson Learned
Thinking we were being intelligent in asking, we asked two men where trier nord was. Just our luck they were heading there too. So, we started following blindly and without any doubt in their capabilities- that is until the time of our train had passed and we were mosying throught an unknown town. Then the two men abandoned us and told us to walk straight and then right for 400 meters. What is a meter again? Deserted and flusters we headed straight down the street
Chapter 4- German Skills
We made the executive decision to turn around. Should we go back to Luxembourg? We were confused and puzzled. So, We asked random sales women if she spoke English in German. (Note: this event occurred twice) We butchered their language and both times the response was "Niegh" *nine- or no We still feel that they only said no because of the mispronunciation. This is about 2 hours into our fun filled travels
Chapter 5- Chocolate Reward
After a few minutes of cursing, we decided to head back towards random Trier station #1. It took awhile, but we made it and rewarded ourselves with chocolate. But now what? Where are we? Good Question......
Chaper 6- The Real Trier
We made it. Phew. After a two minute train ride from Trier Sud to Trier HBF all our worries briefly were relieved. We ran into David before figuring out how to continue our screwed up journey. Thank goodness there was a train to Koblenz in 2o minutes. Now our problem was to get ahold of Adam Payne and tell him we were no longer arriving at 10:30 but at 12:13 am!
*A Brief recap of the short telephone call to Mom
I quickly try to explain the complicated realm of AIM and AIM express so she can IM Adam. But I convently left out my username and password, so after another phone call the details are straightened out. *
A quick thanks to Mom for going to all end to get a hold of Adam!
Chapter 7- One more delay
As our 2nd to last train come to an end, we learned that because of our 7 minute delay, we will no longer be able to catch our connection train to Munich. Great, of course this would happen. In the Conductor's Germanenglish we heard something about staying on the train. Okay.....so we waited..... We, however, did make friends with the conductors.
Chapter 8- A Light at the end of a dark dark tunnel
Things are looking up. We made it on our last train to Munich! Only 3 more hours til we reach our final desination. The night ended in the best reward ever! A free bed to sleep in!