Sally arrived on a Friday morning beaming with pride as she survived her first solo trans-atlantic flight. She even took some advice from me and finagled her way into a first class seat! Amazing, huh? She made the flight attendants love her, basically.
After a quick stop at the Deutsche Bahn counter to validate our Eurail Passes, we were off for the first day of adventures. My plan was for us to do the concentration camp in Dachua the first day so we (a) stayed outside as much as possible to allow Sally's body to understand the time change and (b) got the sadness out of the way at the beginning of the trip. Dachau is very significant and an incredible memorial. That said, the time with Sally marked the second time I had been to Dachau in a two-week period and the third time overall. It's not exactly the type of place you want to visit over and over again.
The only problem with my plan was the museum's movie about what happened in Dachau. It is very informational and all, but the man's voice is somewhat droning, the auditorium is very warm and dark, and Sally was running on very little sleep.
So, naturally, she fell asleep. Whoops! Maybe Dachau was a bad idea that day.
Once we were back outside in the cold, she perked up a bit.
We then headed back into Munich to visit some sights including Marienplatz, the English Gardens, and the Sophie Scholl memorial. We started at the English Gardens. Sadly the weather was pretty blustery that day. Therefore, we weren't exactly keen to stay outside for extended periods of time. We did catch a glimpse of some surfers in the river doin' their thing despite the weather.
The Sophie Scholl memorial is probably my favorite memorial I have ever seen. Besides the fact that I think she has one of the most inspiring life stories, the creative memorial to her, her brother, and the others involved with the White Rose movement during WWII is not to be missed. And it might be very easy to do just that. The memorial is actually on the ground at the entrance of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. If you don't look down, you might miss it. If you don't know the Sophie Scholl story, you should look it up.
Marienplatz is always a fun thing to Americans because these large beautiful old buildings are generally what we think of when we think of Europe. Believe it or not, the big stone one is actually considered the "New City Hall". (I don't know why they won't rotate)
Because we needed to take a long train ride to Bregenz that evening, I decided a trip to the Hofbräuhaus was in order. Yes, it's extremely touristy. However, it is lively with good food and good beer, which is perfect for sleepy first day travelers. So, that was a good idea. We also had to help this large group of British guys with some sort of draft pick or something. We asked something like 5 different times what exactly it was and never got a satisfactory answer.
Stay tuned for more Sally and Ashley adventures!
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