Day 19 Munich:

Today we get out of bed to weather that is a little better than yesterday, not quite as cold and no rain but still very overcast. We get ready for take 2 of Dachau Concentration Camp. We head down to our closest U Bahn stop, Josephsplatz, and get a ticket. Because of yesterday’s poor effort when trying to purchase a ticket I took photos of the ticket machine and wacked the info into Google translate and worked out what ticket we needed to buy so this time around I’m armed and it’s a 10 second exercise to get a ticket. By coincidence, the ticket is the same one we bought yesterday, WOW!! We make our way to Dachau, exit the train and board the very squishy bus for the final short leg to the concentration camp. We are packed in like sardines and it is a struggle to hang on and not fall over while the bus driver does his best Sebastian Vettel effort around the tight streets to get us there. We arrive in one piece and purchase some audio guides and start the walk through the camp. The start of the camp is very depressing as you enter through the gates with the words “Arbeit macht frei” (work will set you free) shown on them. As you continue through the grounds you see the prisoners living quarters which are just diabolical even before you hear how many people had to squeeze into them. At the far end of the grounds is the gas chamber where apparent mass murder took place and the crematorium is next to that. It was hard to imagine while we were walking around the grounds the atrocities that took place in this very spot only 65-70 years ago. It was also very hard to imagine just how much the people in the camp had to deal with as this camp was extremely brutal and extremely cruel. We leave the grounds and grab a bite to eat and make our way back to town for the Oktoberfest. We couldn’t get over how massive the Oktoberfest is. I was expecting to see a street with a stack of beer halls and a couple of boring old show rides shoved over to one side for the kids. Instead, this is a massive royal show like atmosphere. The main drag appears never ending with food stalls selling sausages, crepes, roasted nuts, pretzels, you name it and it’s packed full of weirdo dressed Germans. I was expecting the whole beer hall thing to be massive but I wasn’t expecting the side show to be even more massive. We spend a bit of time wandering around, playing a few games and grabbing a snack. Kris finds this souvenir shop selling Oktoberfest wood love hearts where they burn your names into the face of it. She’s like “look at this, whataya you reckon we get one Paul and I get all our names put on it?” I’m thinking, what a piece of junk, just add that to the pile for me to lug half way around the world why don’t ya, so I say “Wonderful sweetheart, that sounds great”. We get slugged €11 for that and I figure it’s time we see the inside of a beer hall, so we go in and I get myself a stein. They don’t serve wine so Kristine found she was a bit left out. Tyler was a bit of a hit though because he was wearing his Hawthorn footy jumper with his No 23 on the back so we had a lot of Aussie dudes yelling out “BUDDYYYYYY....BUDDYYYYYY”. In one tent on the way to the toilet one dude walking back in the opposite direction gives him a “BUDDYYYYYYY” and sticks his hand out for a high five and in another tent some dude walking behind us gives him a kiss on the head!! We call it quits and head back to the apartment. We have a short break and get ready for dinner. I wonder what restaurant we will end up at????

"Not so tough after all a you Mr U Bahn ticket machine?"

 

"The front gates at Dachau Concentration Camp"

"Oktoberfest front entrance"

"Mmmmmm, donut....thing"

"The start of my first stein"

"The end of my 12th stein........ok it's still my first"

"beep, beep, beep......weirdo alert,weirdo alert......beep, beep, beep"