Danke Schoen

Sydney Druckman
Oct 24, 2017
2 min read

I'm writing this on my phone, because I didn't bring my lap top. Hopefully this works.

It's Reading Week here at Roehampton -- a whole week off of school. Usually people use that time to catch up on their studies or work on essays and such, but not us. We are going traveling instead.

We left Thursday morning towards Munich, took a three hour flight and a taxi ride over to our Air BnB. Our host, Cecilia, was sooo lovely. She made us muffins.

Since we stayed in Munich for almost a week, I'm just going to break it down for you.

Day 1: We took a free walking tour of Munich. Our tour guide, Tom, was hilarious. We saw the Glockenshpiel and town center, and on every hour, figures would dance and joust in the clock tower. We also went to a local market, where we had lunch in the beer garden. Then we headed towards the English Garden, and watched people surf (yes, SURF) in the river. We sat there for hours.

Day 2: We took a train to Neuschwanstein Castle, also known as "Sleeping Beauty" castle. It was built for King Lewdwig at the time, but he died before he could live in it. They found him face down in the lake -- no one to this day knows how he got there.

We also saw Hohenschwangau Castle, where King Lewdwig lived, before venturing into town to have some hot chocoate and coffee (chai for me, of course).

Day 3: Next was Residenz Museum, a hugeeee castle with even a theatre. It was beautiful and eerie, because we went on a rainy day and it was kinda empty. Also I saw a hippie van, my fave.

Day 4: For our last day, we started on a more somber note and visited Dachau concentration camp. It was one of the first camps established, and lasted all the way up until the end of the war. There was definately a heaviness in the air as we walked around, looking at how they lived and where they died. We saw where they burned the bodies. We even got to see and stand in the gas chambers. The ceilings were very low and the room was very claustraphobic, I couldn't stand in there very long. I didn't take many photos of it, not because I wasn't allowed to, just cause I couldn't.

This statue is of the unknown prisoner. In the camps, they were all in uniform, not allowed to put their hands in their pockets, and were forced to lower their heads to show that they were less than human. This statue is to show that they are respected, and powerful and strong. The inscription says, "honor the dead, warn the living". A powerful message.