I should be punished for how infrequently I have used this...
I am nearing the end of my Spring Break and it has been an incredible trip. Today is Easter, and I toured the concentration camp in Dachau outside Munich and visited Nymphenburg Palace which was the home of the Bavarian king Ludwig II.
Our trip started on March 29th in Amsterdam with about 15 or so people in our USAC program, and we stayed there for tour days. Amsterdam is like a twisted Disneyland for grown-ups. The debauchery is surreal, and the coffee shops and the Red Light District held up to their reputation. We were surprised though, at how beautiful the city is and how nice the people are. There are more canals in Amsterdam than Venice, and they don't smell like they do in Italy... There are bikes everywhere, and the city is very clean. Our hotel was amazing even though there was a little mix-up with the rooms, but the staff was awesome and the breakfast was great. People were spread out in the city but we hung out mostly every night.Ā
Sandeman's New (City Name) tours are awesome. I highly recommend doing the free walking tour whenever you are in a new city. You get to walk around the main areas of the city and learn your way around while learning the history and stories behind the city itself and its landmarks. We did one in Amsterdam, Berlin and Munich.
While in Amsterdam, we also saw the Van Gogh museum, which was really amazing. There was a temporary exhibit Called "dreams of nature" about the symbolism movement throughout different periods and artistic styles with art from Kandinsky to Van Gogh. We also saw all of the permanent pieces as well.Ā
After living it up in Amsterdam, we headed to Berlin. We were a bit disappointed at Germany's capital, simply because it is so urban and expansive that it was hard to get a feel for the city. It's main attractions are museums, WWII sites and historical places, and the nightlife. We did a walking tour here, but only made it half-way through because it was so cold.
The night is primetime in Berlin, and the first night there we wandered out looking for a bar or club and stumbled on a line of people waiting to walk down the door to a basement. When we asked a couple of Amazon women (professional Euro league volleyball players from the States) what was going on they said there was a club through the doors. Inside, the walls were all painted black, with minimal lighting, small doorways and twisting tunnels. Several rooms were scattered around through Alice in Wonderland-like doorways, such as a mini sex shop, a projection room showing random film clips, and other lounge rooms. There were also three bars and two dance floors playing old school rap and hip hop or electro/trance. German people are very good looking. Lots of blondes with good skin and nice smiles. The only bad thing about this place was that people still smoke a lot in clubs in Germany, and the next morning our clothing was absolutely stanky.
The next night, we met up with Trevor and Lys, who were CouchSurfing with a girl named Annika from Hamburg. She took us out to get SpƤtzle, a dish made with sauerkraut, onions, meat, and noodles made out of potato. After that, we met a bunch of her fellow CouchSurfing friends from Colombia and hung out at a bar for a few, until we left to go to a Salsa club. Despite being culturally confused, hanging out with Colombians and salsa dancing in Germany, we got to practice some Spanish and see some really cool dancing. I am not good at Salsa dancing.Ā
After Berlin, I left with Trevor and Lys to Munich. The rest of our group split up to Italy and other places. We got to Munich and were planning on CouchSurfing, however our original person fell through. We met up with my roommate Paul and went to a Bierhaus called Augustiner until we could decide what we were going to do for the night, besides spend our first night in Munich homeless. Since it was the beginning of Easter weekend, the bars and clubs are closed. It is actually illegal to dance on the Friday before Easter. The beer here is amazing, the food is awesome too. We ended up luckily crashing on the floor of Paul's hostel and then leaving our luggage there for the day while we went on the walking tour.Ā
Munich is much prettier and cleaner than Berlin. There were a lot of tourists for the holiday weekend but we saw most of the main attractions. We only did half of the tour here as well, partially because of the cold again, and partially because we had to meet the guy we were CouchSurfing with. His name is Michael Shreck, and he is an ambassador for CouchSurfing. He has hosted hundreds of surfers and been to over 100 different countries. He works for BMW developing GPS, started a company that is contracted by the Air Force, and has two PhDs. We stayed here with a Brasilian named Louis who is studying brewing in Chicago and Munich, a long-term surfer named Julien who is taking a year off school, and a student from U of Cincinnati, working an internship at BMW.
That night, Michael made us a dinner of tacos with Mckormick's taco seasoning and salsa, and then took us to a couple beer houses and the famous HofbrƤuhaus and we had a few different beers.Ā
On Easter Sunday, it snowed overnight, and we woke up to a couple inches of white over all the Springtime green. We left for Dachau and spent two and a half hours walking around the camp and through the museum. It was cold, and even though we were freezing, we recognized that it was hard to complain about being cold when you are visiting a concentration camp... The camp at Dachau is the first camp, and the only camp that functioned throughout the entire 12 years of Hitler's power. The experience was very interesting and very somber.Ā
When we got back to Munich, we met Michael and he led us through the grounds of Nymphenburg Palace, the old home of Ludwig II, King of Bavaria. He was very rich, and built a massive park and estate with numerous houses, topped by a large garden and beautiful palace. We walked through this park to Hirschgarten, the world's largest beer garden, which during the summer houses more than 100,000 beer drinkers andĀ picnickers. That night we had awesome chicken wings and Livercheese, which has no liver, nor cheese. It is like German meatloaf and has the consistency of Spam with a sausage-like taste. Once again, the food here is BOMB.Ā
Trevor and Lys left at noon the next day, so I went to check out some stuff on my own. I went to see the famous, but somewhat unknown Eisbach, an river branch off the Isar River that flows through Munich and the English Garden. At the Eisbach, there is a man-made obstacle underwater that creates a standing wave in the river that allows people to surf there. There were about 10 guys surfing when I got there, and even though I debated getting in to surf or asking to borrow a wetsuit, I decided it was way too cold and resigned to watching. After that I went to the BMW Welt, offices, museum, and factory grounds in Northern Munich with my friend from high school Fabian, and his fiancee Shelyce, who is another friend's older sister. He is in an apprenticeship program with BMW and showed me around the museum, and then they walked with me through Olympic Park, which was built for the Summer Games here in the 70s.
i will upload the photos and finish the post when I get home tomorrow. my plane leaves at 10am, with a 3 hour stopover in Barcelona and then finally arriving in Bilbao...
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