No Pictures Post: Munich Tour and Dachau

Ok, I would like to preface this post with an apology. Remember how I said that my camera went on the fritz in Copenhagen? Well, it threw a full blown hissy fit in Munich. The first day it refused to focus unless I zoomed in a touch but I managed to get some pictures (see the last post). The next two days it decided that it wanted to say "Lens Error" and make a feeble little buzzing noise every time I turned it on, which was rather disappointing. So, there aren't any pictures for the next two days of the trip.

The day after we arrived in Munich, Kun-Wei and I took tour of the city from the New Europe Tour Group with the incredible Sonja. She was super cool. The awesome stories from the last post? Those came from her. She's a comparative lit major working on her Master's Degree in Munich on violence literature and if you're in Munich be absolutely sure to take her tour. She'll do a wicked impression of the Glockenspiel dance for the group. So, we came into Marienplatz, met the group near this awesome statue and explored the area around there. Very cool!

That night Kun-Wei and I did a beer tour! We had a lot of fun. I learned a valuable lesson that night: when you do a beer tour with someone and agree to split a...fair number of beers with that person, make sure that person drinks at least as fast as you or make sure you slow down. And if that person says, "Oh, I just want a sip, you should drink more," you should not drink more. We're gonna go ahead and leave it at that except to say a big thank you to Kun-Wei for being a good person to travel with and having my back. Thank you. :)

Ok, remember earlier in the post when I said that there would be no pictures? Well, I talked to Kun-Wei and she was nice enough to send me some pictures! I considered removing the note at the beginning but then I was thought, "wouldn't this be a lovely surprise?" So, surprise! This is from the night of the beer tour. That was at the second to the last place. I think we held our own! Kinda...

This next picture is of SPAETZEL. I love love love spaetzel! It is mac and cheese on STEROIDS and it goes quite well with beer. YUM.

Incidentally, I also got this picture:

Recognize it? Maybe? I'll give you a hint. THE DEVIL IS IN YOUR PANTS.

The next day we woke up and decided to do a tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. And this is officially where the blog takes a turn for the very serious. I have to say, I'm rather glad that I don't have pictures of this part. It was one of the most moving and, frankly, disturbing experiences of my life. We were once again touring with the fantastic Sonja but there was no joking and Glockenspiel dances today. We took a train and then a bus to the memorial site. I don't really know what I was expecting but...wow, it was a really hard thing to see.

In middle and high school we read a fair number of books about the Holocaust and learned a good deal of World War II history, but nothing makes history come alive like walking around the places that it occurred. This is one of my favorite parts of this trip so far-that feeling of genuinely interacting with history-but here it was really troubling. I realize now that the Holocaust and concentration camps had been rather abstract for me, but visiting the memorial made it far more real than I think I anticipated. The thing is, concentration camps weren't just about starvation and death. That would have been bad enough. The systematic and...mind-blowingly awful torture that went on at Dachau and other places makes my stomach clench even now. I don't know that I want to go into specifics, but I would highly recommend reading more about the subject or, if you can, visit a memorial.

Sonja emphasized two things on her tours that I thought were really important things to keep in mind. First, Munich (and Germany) has dealt with it's legacy from World War II. From a very early age, German students are taught the history of Germany's part in WWII and in Bavaria students are required to have visited at least two former concentration camps prior to graduation. It's illegal to deny the Holocaust in Germany. The Germans have taken responsibility for their history in a way that I think is really admirable. It's a good example of how to deal with painful pasts and perhaps the best preventative measure for a historical repeat.

The second point that Sonja made is that the atrocities committed during Hitler's reign were not German atrocities, they were human atrocities. The thing that kind of sucks about humanity is that there is a great deal of room for terrible cruelty in human nature. A lot of potential for evil and hate and all of that horrible stuff in addition to complacency and unquestioning obedience. What happened in Germany could have happened anywhere. To anyone. It's still happening in places like Darfur and Bosnia, and pretending that it could never happen in other countries (including our own) is very naive. So we need to be vigilant and keep things like the Holocaust and concentration camps in our memories. Because for all of the evil in human nature, there's also a lot of good and a lot of noble and we shouldn't forget that either.

Sorry about the soap boxing, visiting the Dachau Memorial was a profoundly moving experience and has kept me thinking since.

More updating soon!

Much love and cheers!

MÜNCHEN

Hello lovelies!

Oh my goodness, I feel like a posting champion. Thankfully, Doctor Who and Buffy the Vampire Slayer keep me entertained during the rather tedious process of adding pictures to posts. And once that's done I get to do the fun part! Explaining!

Our next destination was....dun dun DUN...Munich! We left for the Copenhagen airport bright and early in the morning and after some desperate last minute Danish Krone spending in the form of pretty postcards and VERY palatable pastries at the airport, we boarded our plane. Kun-Wei wasn't feeling very well so I naturally took total advantage and nabbed the window seat. :) If you are wondering what the flight from Copenhagen to Munich looks like, look no further!

It looks like that!

Kun-Wei and I took the Munich underground from the airport to the stop near our hostel, got a bit lost, passed some pastry shops, made a mental note about the pastry shops and finally dropped our stuff off and left to explore!
This is (I think) a picture of Munich's Rathaus AKA the New Town Hall. It is a GORGEOUS structure. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that Munich's New Town Hall is older than Munich's Old Town Hall because the Old Town Hall had to be rebuilt after the war. However, the Old Town Hall still looks as it did before WWII because Munich made a HUGE effort to rebuild the city how it was. So it's really the Faux Old Town Hall. I think that's really cool. The day after this we took the free walking tour with New Europe Tours and our tour guide told us all about how the citizens took very detailed notes and pictures of the city before the bombing started in order to preserve the city. It's really incredible!

Here's another view of the Rathaus! I think! I should probably apologize in advance for any dreadful inaccuracies and falsehoods that I put forth on this blog. Any errors are unintentional and totally correctible if you let me know!

This is in the Frauenkirche AKA Cathedral of Our Dear Lady. Remember when I said you'd get a lot of church/cathedral pictures? Ha ha, we are only just beginning.

This church is actually really cool. Mainly because of it's crazy cool history. Also, take note of this perspective of the cathedral from this angle. Note, perhaps, the apparent lack of windows on the sides from this view point. Spoiler: It's going to be important in a few pictures.

Ok, I LOVE stained glass. Love love love it. Europe has itself some HAWTT stained glass windows. Seriously, I loved them so much! This is but a small sample of lots of really lovely glass.

Ok kids, it's story time! This is another cool story from the tour. But first, this is a picture of the cathedral's beautiful ceiling. Pay particular attention to those little dot things at the center of the sort of flower petal patterns. See how they appear to have different colors and maybe designs? Excellent!

This cathedral suffered major damage in World War II. The roof caved in and one of the towers was destroyed. After the war extensive reconstruction was needed to restore the cathedral to its former glory. It required both labor and money, and for their help...um...helpers got their family crests and little signifiers on these little discs on the ceiling. Included among these disks is one that has a Jewish star. What? Welp, here's the awesome story. Folks at the Cathedral of Our Dear Lady got word of the ransacking of Jewish establishments before they were set to occur and approached leaders in the Jewish community to tell them about it and agreed to take and safeguard important documents and objects. After the war was over, the Jewish community was actively involved in the cathedral's reconstruction as a thank you. I really like that.

SHINY!

Yeah, that's really all I have to say.

More stained glass! I'm sorry if it's excessive but I absolutely love it.

Story time again? Yes! Woo! Here's another fun one. But first, remember that picture from above? The one without windows? Where I said "Spoiler" and then some other stuff I don't exactly remember? Fantastic! Ok, now we're ready.

This is...dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNN...the Devil's Footprint!!!!! AHHHHH!!! Ok, so, to start the story: the Frauenkirche was build quickly. Remarkably quickly. Almost...tooooooo quickly, in fact. Local legend has it that this awesome speed was achieved with the help of the ol' Scratch himself and his minions. See, the Devil went down to Georgia... Oh wait, nope, wrong story (ok, I'm sorry about that joke but...it's staying). Ok, for realsies, the Devil apparently visited the architect when the Cathedral was in its early stages of development. He stood where I was standing when I took the above picture and he noticed a lack of windows in the building. So, being the Devil, he decided to make a deal. He told the architect that if he (the architect) didn't add any more windows to the Cathedral, he (the architect) could borrow the Devil's helper buddies at night to finish the Cathedral real quick like. See, the Devil figured that this would be a fantastic way to make the Cathedral all dark and dreary and, well, devilish. He figured that people would enter the Cathedral and want to worship him instead of God due to the whole dark and dreary and devilish thing. So, the Devil's minions built the Cathedral in record time and when it was finished, the Devil visited the Cathedral and the architect to see the finished result of his dastardly plan. And what did the Devil find? A bright and lovely Cathedral that would definitely not help him in the slightest! Naturally, the Devil was enraged and said something along the lines of "WTF, man?" to the architect. The Devil saw a ton of windows all over which seemed like a breach of the agreement. The architect then took him to the point that he had originally pointed and said something along the lines of "See, you done got tricked! Oh snap!" This made the Devil very angry. In fact, it made him so angry that he swelled to three times his size and stamped his foot in anger, leaving this footprint.

Of course, if you actually see the footprint, you may notice that it's a bit small to be a super big Devil's footprint. In fact, I think it might have been slightly smaller than mine. There are two possible explanations:

1) This footprint actually belonged to the architect, or, more likely...

2) The Devil is super tiny naturally, like a hobbit or leprechaun or fairy, so swelling to three times his natural size made him roughly the size of a modern female human.

Hey guys! It's our old friend the Rathaus! And it's glorious Glockenspiel! We had the extreme pleasure of seeing the Glockenspiel in action and woah, it is almost as exhilarating as watching fast-drying paint dry. Ok, that's not entirely fair, but it was a bit silly. There were these little figurines that turned slowly and a slow motion joust (spoiler: the Bavarian wins). It goes on for fifteen minutes but we only stayed for a few minutes (another tour memory).

It's the Alter Peter! AKA the Old (Saint) Peter Church! Goodness, that is one lovely ceiling! Let's take a close-up look at it...

*Swoooooooooooooooooooon*

Ok, I know that I've already been generous with the story time but I've got another one for all ya'll! YAY!! Ok, so, on the doors of the Alter Peter there is a sign with some rules. You've got your self-explanatory no drinks and no ice cream cones. Presumably the ice cream cone rule can be extended to all food. You've also got a pretty understandable no hat rule. If God wants to non-lethal lightning bolt some pearls of wisdom into your head, the thin cloth of a hat may cause unwanted interference or even full blockage. There is also a sign with an "X" through a dude's pants with his pockets full of...oh man, I'm almost embarrassed to type it...ok, his OWN HANDS. Yep, that's what I'm saying, NO HANDS IN YOUR PANTS IN THE CHURCH! Kun-Wei and I giggled at this for sometime. Our tour guide noticed this too. A while back she dragged a church usher out to the sign and asked him what the deal was. He looked at her and, in all seriousness, replied, "The Devil is in your pants." So...that left her with the question "What the hell could have happened in that church to inspire that rule. I would like to hear that story." So would I, Sonja, so would I.

IT IS A BATTLE AXE OF JUSTICE OR SOMETHING. RAWR.

More shiny! Sparkly sun-rays of gold! Yum!

See these stairs? These are the stairs of Alter Peter's tower. These are just a small taste of the many stairs that we climbed to reach the top of the tower and an absolutely spectacular view of the city. The stairs were crazy narrow and there was a crazy number of them but it was so worth it. There's probably a metaphor for life in there but I'm going to go ahead and just let you see the pictures.

It's my awesome travel buddy! And the beautiful city of Munich!

The Alter Peter view of the Rathaus and Glockenspiel!

Aren't these rooftops fabulous? I like 'em! I can't tell you how much I loved the old feel of Munich. It was such a cool place.

Ice cream! Yum. :)

Dramatic view of the Glockenspiel!

'Tis the Theatiner Kirche! It's a Roman Catholic church.

See how pretty?

This is Feldherrnhalle! It is a monument built on the orders of King Ludwig I of Bavaria! Note the noble lion statues that you can't really see that well but are the light teal blobs. According to Wikipedia it was "a symbol of the honours of the Bavarian Army." This was also the site of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 when Hitler tried to overthrow the government.

The Hofgarten! AKA The Court Garden. This is, I believe, a pavilion for the goddess Diana.

This is me soaking up all of the huntress's fierceness/admiring the beautiful scenery.

More pretty!

More pretty stuff! I'm so sorry but I'm too lazy/tired to google this. Isn't it enough that it's gorgeous? Ha ha, it doesn't matter if it's enough! I call les shots! Ahahahahahahaha. Oh dear. Sorry, I went on a little power trip there. My b.

This is in the English Garden. It was lovely!

Kun-Wei and sneaky flowers in the English Garden! I know that the flowers were in pretty plain view but they felt like they were in their own little plot of fairytale land or something, though.

Wanna hear something crazy? All of the states of Germany weren't unified until 1871. That's right, we beat the Germans by almost a hundred years on the whole becoming a country issue! Hells to the yeah.

And on that happy note, I leave you until my next post.

Much love and cheers!

Copenhagen: Day 2

Day 2 in the Motherland! After sleeping an obnoxious amount (see last post...15 hours woot woot!) I was ready for more adventuring with Kun-Wei. And what better way to start the day then with a Jensen sighting! Seriously. The Jensen name was flipping everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Danish pride.

After a scrumptious breakfast of Danish pastries whose names I couldn't pronounce at the time and can't remember now we headed to Frederiksberg Slot (Frederiksberg Castle). This is not to be confused with Frederiksborg Castle which is an entirely different castle also located in Denmark. The castle had a BEAUTIFUL garden that we wandered around in for quite a while.

The highlight of the garden was probably the wicked duck fight that Kun-Wei and I got to watch at the garden's entrance. DUCK FIGHT. It was crazy vicious, and reminded me of my favorite "Mighty Ducks" quote EVER. When Coach Bombay needed to inspire his team to win despite their rather painful lack of ability, he came out with this gem:

"Ducks never say die. Ever seen a duck fight? No way! You know why? Because the other animals are afraid. They know, that if they mess with one duck, they've gotta deal with the whole flock. I'm proud to be a duck, and I'd be proud to fly with any of you."

Well, it turns out that this is probably an incorrect assessment of duck teamwork. If another animal wanted to mess with a duck, it would appear that causing infighting within the ranks wouldn't be that difficult. I've gotta say, this has shaken my faith in movies as sources of information. Aw man. However, the speech was enough to inspire a ragtag bunch of kids to win with only cooperation and cheap/painfully obvious gimmicks on their side. So that's cool!

This is a very regal statue of King Frederik VI. Sexy.

It's the castle itself! Rather backlit! It's all yellow and sunny and makes me proud of the Danes. Because it's bright and happy. And surrounded by crazy weird trees. I don't know how well you can see those trees on the side but they look like they came out of a Dr. Seuss book.

What's this? Um, this is a tree that has a crazy amount of baby...stuff tied to its branches with ribbons and strings. Pacifiers. Lots of pacifiers. I don't know what the deal with the baby trees is but this was not the only baby tree that we saw.

Update: I googled "Baby trees Denmark" and this is what I found:

"What you see here is the Pacifier Tree in Frederiksberg Gardens, close to Copenhagen. All year round the tree is being decorated by small children who give up their baby pacifiers and donate them to the tree.

In return, the Pacifier Fairy gives them a special gift.

This is a year long tradition. Often combined with a great picnic, outing to the nearby Zoo or some other activities.

In Denmark you reach a milestone when you become 3 years old. You are not a baby anymore, but just about to leave your day nursery to start in kindergarten. Which - among other things - means giving up your pacifiers.

That's pretty hard to do. So to ease the pain many parents make this giving-up-day a special day by taking their toddlers toFrederiksberg Gardens or other places, where they have pacifier trees.

Usually the children attach some small, personal and touching letters to their pacifiers when they hang them on the tree.

Next, we wandered down into the city center again. We got to see more gorgeous water. I have to say, this trip has given me mad appreciation for canals. Those things are the BOMB. Seriously. Loves me some canals.

I don't know what this is!

HORSE STATUE! Another horse statue! I think this is a statue of the apocryphal founder of Copenhagen?

Update: This is a statue of the ACTUAL founder of Copenhagen Bishop Absalon who was an archbishop and statesman in the 12th century.

This was my lunch at the Nyhavn canal!!! Oh man, Kun-Wei and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch at one of the many lovely restaurants along the canal. I had this DELICIOUS salmon on crunchy bread and this tasty sauce/dressing stuff. Oh man. It was some of the best fish I've had. Simple but om nom nom.

THIS IS WHERE WE ATE. Do you see how pretty these buildings are? So pretty. Oh man. Nyhavn canal...GO SEE IT. After lunch we left from this canal on a boat! We took a canal tour! It was fantastic!

BOAT! It's a boat! And a...famousy boat...in Copenhagen.

Canal tour!

More canal touring!

Fancy bridge on a canal tour! You have to appreciate a city that makes its bridges fancy.

This is The Old Stock Exchange of Copenhagen (Børsen). It's one of the oldest buildings in Copenhagen.

This is Kun-Wei and I in front of the Town Hall!

A noble stag! The real question here is, is this a statue in honor of Bambi and his family or Harry Potter's family? Lily=Doe, James=Stag, Baby Harry=Fawn. Much as I love Bambi, my vote is for Harry and the Potters.

The clock tower of City Hall.

I don't remember what this building is and google is totally failing me. Sorry.

UPDATE: Steven's magic iPhone (Seriously, it runs on magic) has informed him that this building is the Royal Danish Theatre. I remembered something about a musical or something and was trying to search for that but just kept getting pictures of the shiny new Copenhagen Opera House (I don't think I have a picture of that but google it to see a very sleek building on the waterfront). Thanks Steven's magic iPhone and Steven!

It's 47!!! Nyhavn 47! We saw lots of 47s in Copenhagen, thereby making it number one awesome city of awesome. Cecil totally agrees.

It's the Amalienborg Palace! The winter residence of the Danish royal family! There are four buildings but the one with 5 chimneys is the one in which the Queen actually lives.

Pretty!

Water at sunset! See the spire in the background? Apparently you can see Sweden from the top! We didn't see Sweden because we didn't make it over to the tower, but it was nice knowing that was an option.

Nyhavn at sunset! We kept going there. Kun-Wei got some beautiful night pictures of the place but...my camera decided that it did not want to cooperate.

So that was Copenhagen!

Next up...MUNICH!!! City of BEER. Mmmmm. And pretzels! Even more mmmmm.

Much love and cheers!