In the library thinking....

....I'm back.

I am back.
and when i say i am back, i really do mean it. I am back to the same two girlyfriends, the same boyfriend, the same house, family, even my job is the same! Some things have been jazzed up a bit (my room got painted), and some things have dulled down ( my obsession with the TV show house). But mostly, i feels the same.

I'm currently at Uni, which is a pretty good indicator that i have also started study again. Man... i was so ready for study, to start stimulating my brain on a daily basis reading and listening, but i forgot about the assignments apparently, and am now rushing to finish them off in time!

I have come back with a new zest for my Adelaide life though, a hunger to do things i wouldn't usually and even make some lifestyle changes (that are still mostly forming in my head, but will hopefully be implemented eventually :P).

One of the exciting changes for me this year is that i have joined the Oaktree Generate team, which is a group of kids like me all learning and acting upon our uneasiness with injustice and our thirst for a fairer world especially for those in developing nations. It really is great to be a part of something that is so much bigger than just me, but knowing that I in my small way, may be able to assist in creating that bigger change.....

I'm going to be doing something a little out of my comfort zone soon, for the sake of raising funds as well as enhancing my 'hands-on knowledge' so do stay tuned, you're gonna laugh when i tell you because it involves detaching myself from something that i am so very fond of.

All my love x

an apology

you know that feeling when you know its going to be too little too late, then you leave it a time longer and only then decide that maybe you should have done something about it when that original thought popped into your head? and now...well, you may as well not bother.

that's sorta how Ive been feeling the past few weeks, when i think that the last i posted was about Italy, an entire month ago! what adventures i have had since then, but where has the writing gone to? well, some of it is on the computer that was stolen in Madrid from my youth hostel locker, andthe rest is in my head waiting for an opportunity long enough to spit it all out into the page!

Borrowing youth hostel computers has the disadvantage that i do not get to save and come back to my work, and when i have the opportunity to write, it is not long enough to actually produce something. so I'm gonna leave this until i get home and update those of you who can be bothered reading very out of date information, in a couple of weeks!

Just a brief taster if i may though...

Barcelona is now one of my favorite cities and i have fallen in love with their leading artist, Gaudi.

Seville is the only city of have seen that has orange trees growing along the main shopping strip.

Madrid is a city, and in a city there are annoying fellows who steal things, and my laptop, Jamie's phone and all my photos fell victim to such a fellow.

Paris- oh Paris how can i describe you in just a sentence??? it's OK, i will not bother.

Scotland the only land where men are permitted to wear skirts and carry handbags and this be seen as manly, i am sure of it.

to be continued my friends. only a week until i get home!

thank you for reading

all my love xoxox

a paradise for a lover of pizza!

Rome was my highlight of Italy, for obvious reasons. 

It’s  a city I have wanted to go to ever since I saw the Lizzy McGuire movie (as a little kid), where she visits the scenes on the back of some hot Italian guy’s vespa, and eventually gets to sing in front of thousands in the coliseum. While I knew none of that would happen to me, especially cause I lacked the hot Italian bloke, I deffinitly loved Rome anyway.

Firstly, we were planning to be there over Christmas time because...well actually, just because! Rome is as good a place as any isn’t it? So we arrived and had to get to the sightseeing pretty quickly because we were afraid major sights would close over Christmas and we’d leave Rome having missed stuff! So of course, the first stop was to the coliseum. What a monster of a place that is! It was so surreal seeing it for the first time, knowing that this existed in the time of Julius Caeser and the gladiators for goodness sake! We passed the many gladiator wannabes wanting to get tipped for having their picture taken with you, and managed to avoid the many souvenir hawkers to eventually enter the place. It was bigger inside than I thought it would be, but just as crumbled and as grand. Pretty amazing to say the least.

I would love to go through all the different places we saw but really, that would just be boring for you all so I will just say that we explored all the main sights (including the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps which are majorly hyped up and overrated) and some that we were able to appreciate better just for the mere historical value, such as Palatine hill which had bits and pieces dating back to the first emperor of Rome!

The Vatican is also worth a mention, as it was for both Jamie and I, the highlight of the trip. We decided to take a tour and get all the art etc explained to us, so with the help of Ryan we were taken through the museum full of priceless art ,through a courtyard of statues dating back to BC times, through the popes old quarters and even de Vinci’s living quarters for a part of his life! The highlights were the Sistine Chapel, what an INCREIDBLE feat that was by Michelangelo. He was not a huge lover of painting, sculpting being his main passion, so he basically dedicated 3 and a half years of his life to the hugest task you will ever see, with his neck constantly twisted upwards and with the most talent you will see on any other painting.

of course cant take pics in the sistene chapel but this is one area of the vatican museaum. how elaborate is that ceiling?!

St peters basilica was the other wonder, the most decorative, extravagant church you will ever enter, not to mention the SIZE of the place, HUGE! On show are a number of incredible mosaics that are replacing the original painting to preserve the art, some dead popes wearing wax masks and of course Michelangelo’s famous Pieta statue which was probably the absolute highlight for me. When we first caught sight of her I got a bit disappointed because she was behind glass, which was unlike all the other statues in the area…. I thought it was because she was so valuable, but we found out that a number of years ago they had a psycho enter the church screaming that he was Jesus, and that Mary in the statue wasn’t his mother, and he started hacking at the statue with a hammer he had brought in. Needless to say security stepped up a bit since then, although the pope has been knocked down twice by the same woman wearing the same clothes on the same day two years running…either way, experiencing this incredible place, the smallest country of just 900 people, the richest per capita and the country with the lowest birth rate in the world, was a most fantastic experience!

St Peters from the enterance :O

Pieta

Since we were there for christmas we went to a christmas eve mass at St Susannas catholic church, which was the only english one we could find but was realy great anyway (our first real catholic experience, not as "interesting" as i was expecting actualy!). Then on christmas morning we skyped with jamies family, then went off to get the popes blessing from st peters square outside the vatican. We got home and skyped my family then went out for a lovely christmas dinner. Presents were not a huge event this year obviously, jamie recieved some Pj pants, deoderant and a bigger SD card for his phone/camera- all necessities. I recieved some shampoo cause id run out, a new wallet cause mine had fallen apart and some money for new underwear since a lot of mine got destroyed in the indian washing sytem! haha

enjoying my panna cotta after christmas dinner

Us skyping :)

 A boring video shot from Jamie's phone, but it shows the surroundings as we were waiting for the pope. it was raining, but like a minute before the pope came out the sun shone through and it was a beautiful day! no joke!

I'll finish off with a couple of tips we picked up.

How to eat pizza the Italian way:

Enter the pizzeria and there will be a selection of 1m x 0.5m rectangular pizzas with oven baked crust and all sorts of different toppings, including oval mozzarella slices, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, cheese, rocket, spinach, onion…..you name it! Select your flavors. They cut off as wide  a  piece as you desire of the different flavors, then they will, depending on if you are taking away, put them onto a tray for you to take to your table, or place them on top of each other and wrap them in paper for you to enjoy on the run. Either way, this is the best pizza you will ever have, I am sure of it. Man I could go  a slice now…

How to have a latte the Italian way:

Standing up. Order your macchiato, espresso, latte macchiato, Americano, cappuccino or whatever else, then pick out a pastry and just stand at the counter socializing with your barista and fellow coffee lovers.

Scams to avoid.

Those lovely men holding bunches of flowers are not giving the roses away from free. They will pick out a lovely couple and then hand a rose to the woman, as you walk away they will follow and turn to the man for a tip. Mostly the woman will then try and give the flower back while the man looks sternly at the hawker to take the flower and hope his girlfriend won’t be too disappointed she didn’t get a flower… Watch out though, they are persistent creatures, refuse to take the flower in the first place, and he will insist over and over again and even continue as far to put the rose basically up your nose (as was in my case.  I was holding an ice cream at the time also, boy if it hits my gelato buddy, this is gonna get ugly...)

Hold your kids hands tightly if you don’t want toy venders to place a little something into your child’s hand, making your kid cry when you give it back, but the man demand money if you keep it.

We had been very good at avoiding all the scams that we saw other tourists fall into while we were going around sights in Italy, but one we had never seen before suddenly came upon us and we (well Jamie in this case) was powerless to stop it. haha A man walks casually up to Jamie out of nowhere while we were on the Spanish steps, as soon as he started to talk to us I walked away, however Jamie had been sucked in by a compliment to his beard, and was now stuck with a man busily holding his hand in a shake and with the other hand making a friendship bracelet over his other wrist! I scattered off, and took some photos of the secret undercover street hassler that ruined our streak of avoidance. After the  minute operation the guy asked for 5 or 10 euro for the 20 cent piece of string, which of course Jam didn’t give him…Oh well, Jamie is now sporting a pretty bracelet that he adores with all his heart…

From Rome we went onto the beautiful coast of Italy to witness firsthand the beauty of Cinque terre, a collection of 5 tiny little fishing villages that protrude from the side of the cliffs in their stand out bright orange, yellow and pink houses, making the coast line even more marvelous to view. We were there for only a full day, but we enjoyed a hike from our village to a viewing area that looks over the cinque terre then leads to another of the towns, where we explored through the extremely narrow and steep steps. Lovely experience. Did I mention we passed through Pisa on our way from Rome to CT? Well it wasn’t  a particularly standoutish city, apart from seeing the amazing leaning tower, which is indeed, on a lean!

Jam with our pizza selections..that was deffinitly a case of eyes being bigger than our bellies!

the amazing cinque terre (view from our hike)

We then spent new years in Nice which was a nice place to just relax for a few days.

Only a month to go until I’m home! Love to you all!! xox

Italy begins

My image of Venice, created from movies is one with permanent orange/red sky and that glow of a summer evening, women in beautiful floral dresses walking the canals, and gondola men wearing horizontal striped t-shirts that compliment their stiff straw hats with a ribbon tied around the brim….

 My first experience of Venice however, was trudging through slush and snow that clearly did not belong on Venice’s cobbled streets, turning them into death traps, especially with a 17kg pack on your back. The boats around the canals were all filing up with snow and it was pelting into our faces as we made our way to our accommodation. Of course there are no cars in sight and buses are also impossible to fit in these tiny canals, so we knew the only way would be on foot weaving through tiny alleys (which, night time as it was, was never gonna happen for fear of getting very lost) or finding a way to move on the water (which we did in the end by ferry). The first morning we woke up however, it was like the snow hadn’t happened at all and the sun was shining, just for me to get my picture of Venice back into focus I think.

First of all, I will just dash all fantasies and confess that we did not ride a gondola, for a few reasons really. The first is that these men are a little freaky looking and their gondolas far too regal for plain old us, the second is that they asked for the equivalent of about $100 for just a 45 min ride and thirdly, it was so incredibly wonderful walking those tiny streets over the little canals with the tiny bridges, staring up at the houses that looked like they belonged only in movies because they were far too cute to be true... I am glad that we never had a particular place that we needed to find cause quite frankly it would have been mighty hard, nearing impossible. Instead we basically discarded the map and just wandered our days away. They have a fantastic sign system that allowed us to find our way back to the main square wherever we wandered so we weren’t concerned about getting lost. The fact that there are about a million tourist shops, mostly selling overly decorative but lovely masks, also made us realise that this town was almost like one big Disney land, who knows where the real inhabitants of Venice actually live (all 60,000 of them). The tourist is well catered for, plenty of overpriced food, gondola men at every footbridge (and there are A LOT of bridges in venice linking up the 150ish tiny islands that make up the city), the flashy designer stores that I swear do not get any more than 1 customer a day maximum, and hotels on every other corner. It is an incredibly amazing city though and definitely a highlight so far. Because it was our first hit in Italy, we did the pizza/pasta/gelato thing breakfast, lunch and tea so by the time we left we were getting a little over the carbs. Well, I was anyway!

On our last day in Venice we thought it had rained over night because the streets were very wet, then as we went we realized that there were huge puddles everywhere and water had seeped through the ground or something…. cause patches around the main square was now ankle deep in water! To enter the main basilica, which is a stunning piece of architecture as most churches in Europe are, or to enter the bell tower which you can go to the top of and get a fantastic view of the city (and I’m told Slovakia and Croatia on a clear day), people were walking on top of these tables which had now been constructed in a long line around the main entrances! I would hate to be here when it gets high enough to really absolutely need these everywhere! Gum boots would be in order I think, although that wouldn’t be too much of a big deal here because they are the height of fashion in Europe at the moment, even channel have their own designer wellies for around $250.

Moving on to Florence now. Jamie what did we do in Florence? Here is your opportunity to see your name in print!

“Saw David.”

Well actually we saw multiple David’s, one was the real one by Michelangelo and the others were fakes scattered around Florence. Jamie was particularly taken by the fine form of David, so much so he received a David puzzle and David playing cards for Christmas. Pictures really speak louder than words when it comes to this home of renaissance, so I will post a few here for your pleasure. The highlight (apart from David of course :P) was walking up to a lookout point over the bridge where you can see a view over Florence and hills surrounding. The marvelous bell tower and basilica stand out spectacularly. Such a beautiful place also in possession of some really good gelato!

st marks basillica GORGOUES (Venice)

view of venice from the top of the bell tower

Me in florence, near the large church

View over Florence with Jamie

YUMMMM lemon and coffee, the best!

the lovely florence bridge

jamie with his new best friend

xxxooo

Sledging + Dissapointing + Inspiring

It’s always a toss up on trains, what to do. The last few rides I’ve had a great book (called “white tiger” it is amazing you should read it), other times its just been too crowded to anything but keep my elbows tucked in and my feet held firmly on the floor to not kick or bother anyone and just stare out the window.

Right now though, its blog time.

OK so a little confession incase you haven’t noticed already, I am pretty behind in these! But I still want to share as much as possible with you guys so please bare with me.

After Germany Jamie and I caught the train to Switzerland. Now I have heard a fair bit of gossip about Switzerland since I’ve been in Europe, those who travel there are of two minds. The first is that it is completely worth it because there is beauty beyond imagining, but that always seems to always be drowned out by their follow up of “but…it’s really expensive”. Now when other Europeans are saying that Switzerland is expensive, you know you’re in for big bucks quickly disappearing from your bank account. So our plan was to hop in, see what we absolutely wanted to see, then get the heck out of there before we had to call our parents for financial backup.

Absolutely on my list for Switzerland was Lucerne, the humble town of the Lucerne lion. I read about this statue briefly when I was looking into where I would go, and this lion basically cemented my need to go to Switzerland. We were only in Lucerne for one full day so that was first on our list to do. Lucerne is a town of absolute amazing beauty, it is split between a large lake and connected through bridges as most well structured towns are... It is home to the famous water tower that you see on all the postcards and pictures of Switzerland. This particular day we were In Lucerne was one of incredible beauty, it was a nice crisp (though not freezing cold) morning and the sun had just come up and the lake made everything seem fresh. As the sun rose and it became lighter, gradually all around us appeared these incredible snow capped mountains. They felt so close like if you just went out the perimeters of Lucerne you would touch the base of them. Surrounded by such beauty we headed towards the lion. Following a map we made our way to the tiny lion signs in no time at all, but of course nothing can be this simple to find so of course we got sidetracked by the most common of all side trackers….

A slippery dip.

This slippery dip, curling in all its majesty from the top of a large courtyard, to where we were standing a little way down the hill. It wasn’t long but I swear it was put there because the locals get sick of walking up and down the steps all day. Once we had a go on it each however, we quickly forgot which direction was the right one, so just wandered off. Then after realizing the streets we were in were not marked on the tourist standard map, we wove our way back to where we started and eventually came to the spot I had come to Switzerland for. Mark Twain wrote that the lion “is the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.” It is a memorial for the Swiss guards that were massacred in 1792 during the French revolution. It was bigger than I imagined, and there were of course details that you don’t get from a photo. What struck me the most was that the lion was larger than life-size but it’s exactly what I imaged Aslan from Naria to be like. Mark Twain best describes it best though, so I will attach his words at the end of this blog for those who would like to read it…

From Lucerne we got the train to Interlaken where we didn’t have any particular plans for what we were going to do, it’s the extreme sport capital of Switzerland, but neither of us are particularly extreme sports types…The train ride through the alps just to get to Interlaken was worth it in itself. WOW. Breathtaking beauty of the alps and the Swiss countryside. I shouldn’t have started taking pictures, because once I started I couldn’t stop snapping!

We reached Interlaken at nighttime so we didn’t get to see what was surrounding us, but this place was a lot more snowy and cold than Lucerne was. We got to the hostel and upon checking in we were issued with hostel tokens that were, in my opinion, better than gold. These tokens would get us- FREE LAUNDRY. Yes folks, for the first time in 4 months my clothes were treated to the gentle wash of an automatic washing machine. Of course they would have been a little more comfortable if we hadn’t filled the machine to full capacity (and then some) trying to save our tokens by putting both our clothes in one load. Oh well, I got some extra coffee with the leftover tokens.

So…we were in the capital of extreme sports and needed to chose one, one within our price range and one that wouldn’t send our mothers into a tizzy….hmmmmmmmmmm..

Sledging!

Now this isn’t like tobogganing, as we discovered while heading up in the cable car towards the top of this alp which is popular for skiers and snowboarders. First of all this slope is not just one single hill, but rather a collection of slopes that create one big marathon slope designed for those serious about their sledging (or more commonly skiing…). The run weaves in and out of the ski track which, while crossing these areas while dodging skiers and snowboarders, is where I think the extreme part of the sport comes into it. Partly because we are cheap, and partly because we didn’t think it would be THAT much fun, we only got one sledge. This was a mistake at first cause really; neither of us knew how to do it right so it was more like we were pulling the sledge for the first part. Then once one of us worked out how to correctly use this contraption (I’ll leave you to decide who it was) we took turns, one would slide down parts of the hill, swerving along the track, while the other would run behind that person and try and not get too far behind. Then we decided to up the ante and both get on together. Without giving much thought to our area choice we both sat on and kicked off. Nothing happened. In that particular snowy patch we were too heavy together to float lightly along the top….but we tried a new area, pushed off and BAM we were off! It was ridiculous fun, we got ridiculed by some snowboarders in the open cable cars above us at one section of our journey, because obviously there is a hierarchy on the slopes and we were at the bottom of it so that was their prerogative. That day I was the coldest I have been this trip, my fingers were frozen my toes were numb, I was speaking funny cause my cheeks had become so numb with cold and my butt was both wet and icy, but it was seriously good fun. And the fact that it was that night that we had scheduled our laundry day, this soon became one of the best days on the trip! Happy.

The next day we were scheduled to leave for Geneva (our last destination in Switzerland) but before that we had scheduled in a number of hours to explore the town of Interlaken itself (because the slopes were about 45 mins by train outside of it). When we asked the lady at the reception if she had a good route for us to take to explore the city for the day, she laughed at us. We soon realized that allowing half and hour was enough time to explore Interlaken, there was no way we would need all day. So we checked it out, though what little there was, was charming, then hopped on the next train to Geneva.

Now Geneva. It’s one of the places everyone knows the name of but doesn’t necessarily know what is located there. That would be me before anyway. The only things I knew about Geneva was that that is where the Geneva Agreement gets its name and it was home to the UN. And that was enough for me! Once we checked into the most youth hostel-y youth hostel I have been in so far (when first entering it feels like a public swimming pool because it had light blue walls, concrete walls and the smell of chlorine) we went out to get dinner. That dinner almost sent us home bankrupt. The prices of food were absolutely ridiculous! Even McDonalds was hardly affordable, a simple Big Mac meal was about $17!! The next day we went to explore the actual town of Geneva and find out why it is that here is the place chosen to house the International Red Cross as well as the UN. Well for a start they claim to be the inventers of the humble watch, which I suppose is a good enough reason to sell watches in every shop right along with the Swiss army knives. They also have a large garden clock which was pretty cool (once we found it after walking right past it, but on the other side). They are also famous for a water fountain that sprays up like a sail, but of course we were there wanting to see it, so it had to be switched off. Home to the most confusing city it took us a number of hours to find the old city which is actually rather lovely with its cobbled streets, coat of arms on every building and charming little cafes in the alleyways. We went to the wall of remembrance which is a dedication to the leaders of the protestant revolution and depicts the likes of John Calvin in giant size.  The park that leads to this wall is home to a number of giant chess boards with giant chess pieces with giant boys smoking cigars while playing their games like they’re serious professionals playing for each other’s house deeds. Very amusing to watch.

We kept the best for last when we went to the UN on the last day we were in Geneva. We caught the train to the stop “nations” and got off to be greeted by the UN gate with flags lining the large entrance area and a huge chair monument across the road. 

Warning: biggest disappointment of my trip so far happens next....

After making sure that we arrived with plenty of time to catch the 10 o’clock tour of the inside of the building, we wandered around looking for the meeting point. We wandered, asked someone, then wandered some more. Finally (at 10:15) we found another entrance by following delegates and official looking people with lanyards with official badges, we got to a security checkpoint where people have to show their passport, and acting like I belonged there (which I most obviously didn’t, dressed in what I was wearing) I went to go through security and was told that the tours weren’t running until Jan 11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In case you didn’t catch my exclamation…

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 I was at the united nations building, the reason we had come to Geneva, and was being told now by a lady who clearly doesn’t realise what she is doing to me, telling us the tours aren’t happening. We were directed by this other official looking guy to this area, they have to have tours here, he said they would so why aren’t we being let in? and why aren’t there any other tourists…and why didn’t that lady at the tourist office tell me about this sooner…why did they need to be sorting out important international stuff today….why couldn’t they just wait until I had seen inside…..................can we come back on the 11^th Jamie? No.

I left extremely disappointed and unimpressed, while Jamie just sympathized and tried to keep a straight face at all my incredible overreaction and lead me away before I started abusing the UN security force.

Geneva made up for it however, when I was brought to the doors of the International Red Cross. This museum was so incredibly inspiring and educational, an absolute highlight of my trip. We spent about 3 hours in the fairly small museum pondering over the prisoner of war files that are all held there (there were no Graetz’s) and were gathered by the Red Cross back in the day. Over 4 million files. They had a very inspiring section on the Red Cross' work during the second world war, which after Dachau was particularly moving. While the concentration camps were around, the Red Cross wanted to send in care packages to the people in the camps and have people visit the prisoners, as they do in other jails. Surprisingly, the Nazis agreed. However although they could send some people in, they made a stipulation that those who went in would need to stay there for the entire duration that the camp exists. 10 people voluntarily went into a concentration camp to help others in whatever way they could. How incredible are those people, I’m almost sure they didn’t know the extent of the suffering in there, but they wouldn’t have been stupidly ignorant either… Anyway, a special museum that I am so happy we visited! How could we not when we got 50% off…:P

Anyway, this is becoming way too long and I have the habit of rambling on terribly in these things don’t I?

I hope you are all doing splendidly, only 1 and a half months left! UGHR! Where did all that time go?!

All my love xoxox

Mark Twains bit about the lion:
“The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff — for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.

Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.

– Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 1880”

Munich and surrounding

My train ride from Salzburg to Munich was the shortest I have been on so far, just 1.5 hours, but it felt like the longest by far. Jamie!

Got off the train and went to the tourist info place as arranged, however Jamie had decided to alter the plans already and instead went and waited at the train coming in from Salzburg. Unfortunately, he got the wrong train and missed me completely. Great start haha. Eventually we did meet up and were reunited for the first time in 4 months, yay!

Now accompanied by a travel buddy, we went off to explore Munich and work out just why this city is raved about by all the other backpackers I have met so far. On our free tour the answer soon became apparent quite strongly, Beer. This city has a LOT to do with beer. Not being a beer fan myself, I was starting to wonder if I would enjoy Munich as much as I was supposed to. The fact that this city is where Hitler really started to develop a name for the Nazi party, where he had his failed revolution and was thrust in the limelight, made the cities history more appealing to me than its favorite beverage.

I did learn a thing or two about beer however which was quite interesting. For one beer is more or less so the invention of the Monks, who used to make it for their private consumption. Now they have commercialized the beverage just a little bit and it is now at the disposal of every person from the age of 16 (legal age of beer drinking in Germany) and up. Not to mention worldwide. Anyway, apparently these beers with the history of being made in the monasteries are still considered to be the finest by the locals. One beer has not needed to do any marketing for the last 200 years! In fact the pope, who is from Munich, loves his beer so much that he gets a barrel of his favorite sent to the Vatican every month, making this beer known to the locals as “Gods Beer”.  The Hofbrauhaus is arguably the world’s best known pub, and although we didn’t make it in there (there was a soccer match on this particular day so the place was jam packed) we heard enough to make me not want to go in there. This pub has been around for a LONG time, so long that when it was first built it was built without any toilets and the hundreds of men would urinate on the street. There are still ditches running along the path from the doorway, where the pee used to run along. When the men started to get sick of having to leave the hall, which meant losing their seats and even worse, their BEER (not to how chilly tinkling in the winter would be), they started to get pretty inventive. They decided that the waste system worked fine, it just needed to begin a little earlier, so they created a “gutter system” running under the tables and then outside, so that the men didn’t even have to stand up, let alone leave the room! And just because that isn’t revolting enough, they also needed to come up with a system to make sure that they didn’t spray everyone else around the table on the legs while they did their business, so they invented a walking stick system where they would tap the leg of each person to warn them they were gonna go. The walking stick also served as a useful tool to help one aim, especially after a few. YUCK. 

Anyway, enough about that. Munich is a very pretty city and has the famous Glockenspiel which is considered to be one of the most overrated tourist attractions in Europe. Jamie and I never actually saw it, we saw the beginning one day, but the music plays and nothing moves for about 5 minutes, so we gave up and had to leave (we were late for our tour).

We were able to go on a few excursions outside of Munich.

The last day we were in Munich we took the train out to Fussen, which is where the giant castle built by King Ludwig (I remember the name cause it was Jamie’s favorite word to use for everything when he learnt it), which is also the castle that inspired Walt Disney when he saw It and so the castle for Sleeping Beauty was modeled on it. The hike up was a lot of fun dodging the ‘authentic’ 1800s horses lugging up their carts of camera yielding Chinese tourists while enjoying the beautiful snowy wilderness. I had wanted to get an action shot in front of the castle when we got to the top, unsure of how Jamie would take it I told him briefly before we started the hike and then quickly asked a Spanish lady to take our picture while we did our appropriate poses. Thank you Jamie.

The first excursion was to Dachau Concentration camp, the only concentration camp to last the entire time of the Nazi rule. It was originally set up to house the politicians who part of the communist and social democrat parties, and who were suspected of plotting to overthrow Hitler, or who would not vote him in after the Reichstag fires.  As the Nazi reign went on Jews, immigrants, gays and anyone else from minority groups where thrust into Dachau (one of the MANY camps around northern/eastern Europe). I will not even attempt to try and describe what life would have been like for the many that were overcrowded into this camp, because I would never be able to do the suffering and the terror that they went through justice. I have no idea. I will just say however, that the day we went was cold. Very cold. Jamie and I were both shivering and our limbs were feeling the chill particularly bad. It was snowing and my shoes were getting a little wet from all the slush that was on the ground. We were both wearing thermals, 2 socks, long sleeves, fleece vests and big jackets. The clothes that the prisoners were issued with back in the 30s/40s were a single set of flimsy pajama pants and a button down top, with a cap and a pair of fabric slip ons. They had to stand out in the weather (Jan through Dec), in the dead of winter, for at least a couple of hours every morning and evening for roll call. Roll calls, if things weren’t perfectly in order, could sometimes last up to 13 hours. Doing that in the freezing cold, the strong wind, the wet slushy snow on the ground wearing next to nothing…can’t even begin to imagine the torture. The rest I will just briefly explain using the pictures I took.

The entry gate of Dachau, the gate has the inscription (Hard work makes you free) in German, a form of psychological torture for the prisoners who would never get out, no matter how hard they worked. Today there is a open gate policy, to signify that this camp should never be closed off again. There is also a side path entry so that the returning victims from the camp do not have to enter the same gate they were forced through years ago.

The large space is what you see as soon as you get through the gate. At first it seems large, but when you consider how many people were confined to this area, it would soon become small. The long flat building to the left is a reconstruction of what the 30 originaly on the property looked like. this free space in the centre of the camp was used for roll calls every morning and evening.

One of the most common forms of torture that the nazis used on the prisoners. This particular one involved a person kneeling on the right raised platform while he lent over top with his arms outstretch. the guard would then whip the prinsoner with a whip 20 times. The prisoner would need to count outloud in perfect german after each whip. If the prisoner did not say the number loud enough the count would start again. There were also a lot of foreign prisoners which meant that if they could not count to 20, or had bad pronounciation of the number they would be whipped until they either got it right or passed out. THis torture was one of the three most common, so understandably one of the first things that the older prisoners would teach the new prisoners when they first got into the camp, was how to count to 20.

THis monument was erected to commemorate the many prisoners of concentrations all over europe who took their own lives by jumping onto the electric barbed wire fences. THis form of suicide became a sort of "movement" to send the message to the Nazis that although they had taken all their dignity, all their possessions and families they could not dictate how they would end their lives.

Communial toilets in the bunkers, there would have been very long waits as there were far more prisoners than toilets and absolutly no privacy whatsoever. The nazis thought of these people as animals, and animals have no need for privacy.

These bunks are replicas of what the bunks looked like towards the 40s, thare are no dividers and no pillows or matteresses. The bunkers are built to hold a mazimum, of 250 people. There is a large copy of a nazi documentjsut outside this room that shows that the number of people in some bunkers were up to 1000, 1500 and one even had 2000 in it. The overcrowding is just unimaginable, the people would have to sleep intop of each other, in piles and piles, and in the morning they would wake up to carry the many dead out to roll call.

Imagine grass instead of the snow for a clearer picture first. The captives weren't aloud to touch the grass at all or else they would get shot at by the guards in the watch towers. But often a guard would take a prisoners hat and throw it on the grass, ordering him to go and fetch it. If the captive ran to get his hat, the watchman would shoot at him. But if the prisoner refused to get it, then the officer on the ground would shoot him for disobeying. If somehow the prisoner was successful in run and getting the hat without being shot, the officer would throw it back again and in the end the situation was a lose lose for the prisoner.

The crematorium used to cremete the dead bodies. Nearing the end of WWII and the closure of this concentration camp, there was a lack of coal and such enormous quantities of bodies that they had to stop using the crematorium and instead throw the bodies into mass graves. When the americans came in to take over the camp, they found hundreds of bodies piled up outside of this crematorium.

 

This statue is called "the unknown inmate" and the words below translate "To honor the dead, to admonish the living." It was erected to commemorate all those unknown people who were killed and died in this concentration camp. It is a particularly powerful piece because it shows the prisoner in his anti-nazi state. For on the prisoner is wearing an overcoat that is not official unifrom, and it is also too large which means he does not look neat enough. IF he had been in the camp he would have been punished for this. The prisoner is also standing in a relaxed position, he is not at attention and this would also have been punished by the Nazis. The part that strikes me the most I think is the fact that he has his hands in his pockets. The Nazis put the pockets his these unifroms for the sole purpose of psychological torture, the prisoners were not allowed to put their hands in them under any circumstance or they would be tortured by the guards

It was an incredibly sobering experience but one that is invaluable I think, I am very thankful for the oppertunity to see it as is Jamie. 

On to Switzerland next my friends,

Love to you all! xoxo