hello europe!

getting there…
the travel plan included a flight to memphis, a flight to amsterdam, a flight to munich, and a train to the hotel. the flight to amsterdam was typical: blah food, a movie or two, dozing in and out of sleep for a few hours. we got to amsterdam pretty tired and headed toward our new gate so we could try and catch a nap in a comfortable airport seat before heading to munich. en route to the gate, we were herded through an “american” line for passport checks. and just like that….PFLOMP….our first official passport stamps! i actually stared at mine for several seconds, relishing this unexpected surprise…it’s the little things :)

munich 1…
we arrived in munich a few hours later to find that there was literally NO customs check. in fact, not a single person even asked to look at our passports. we just breezed through the exit without an inkpad or stamp in sight. despite our disappointment, we illiterately (my new word) navigated our way through the atm, train system, and 18 letter street names to our hotel by 5 pm. my old college roommate, mary, lives in germany and we were set to meet her for dinner. we headed out into the bustling city and gorgeous weather toward the allocated augustiner biergarten. the place was huge, so we searched the entire patio/garden area and inside dining halls twice. assuming she wasn’t there yet and without a cell phone to call, we finally decided to sit down, grab some beer and much needed food, and just wait. 2 liters, 3 pretzels, 5 kinds of meat, and 1 ½ hours later….still no mary. we figured we had better find a pay phone. i left marcus at the table and walked 3 dark blocks to a lonely booth. come to find out, there are about 6 of the above mentioned biergartens scattered around munich. guess which one she was not at. being able to speak german, she kindly told us to stay put while she came to find us. by the time she got there, marcus had finished another liter and I had had ½ of a ½. i was still reeling from the lack of sleep and i wanted to be able to talk to her coherently, so i quit drinking. marcus, on the other hand, was ready for anything and everything! we headed back to mary’s first location and met up with some friends of hers. let me just tell you…people in germany like to drink, shout, and sing….all at the same time. this loud beer hall was full of such people, mostly at our table. marcus, trying to keep up with the boys, must have said about 12 times, “i want to live in germany!” and i think i spent the entire rest of the night smiling and/or laughing. i honestly have no idea what the majority of the shouting and singing was about, but it sure was fun to watch. almost as much fun as having them speak to us in broken english and try to make jokes. it was exactly the kind of welcome i would have wished for…

munich 2…
remarkably hangover free, we headed out of the city the next morning for the dachau concentration camp. within seconds of arriving, i got this knot in the pit of my stomach. it lasted the entire 3 hours we were there. i don’t have much to say except that the somber and heart-wrenching reality of this place consumed me. the three of us hardly said a word the whole time. it was just the sound of the gravel crunching under our feet, the wind blowing through the trees, and the ten million pained thoughts running through my head. it is an experience i will never trade yet wish i’d never had all at the same time. tragic.

we grabbed lunch at a local place. i attempted to stumble through some german while ordering, but mary had to rescue me. it’s very intimidating! and having her there made it easy to give up trying. we asked her about a hundred questions about pronunciations and what certain words meant and about the cultural differences. it was actually a really nice way to “break us in.” prepared us for the next 4 days of austria on our own. after lunch, we headed back to munich and went into the main part of town. we wandered the streets, snapping pictures of beautiful historic buildings and giggling like we were back in college again until we ended up at the famous hofbrauhaus for dinner. this is your typical beer hall...servers dressed in traditional clothing, oompah band striking it up in the midst of scores of long wooden tables packed with total strangers sloshing mugs of beer together. classic. we ate in the biergarten and watched pregnant mary down an entire liter of alcohol-free beer (what a champ!) before heading out for more sightseeing in the dark. when our feet hurt from walking and our stomachs hurt from laughing, we took a train back to our area and stopped into a local bar for a final drink. here we witnessed a likely hooker hustle an elderly man with tears, a man get ripped from his bar stool and forcefully dragged outside, and some fabulous german dance moves to the backstreet boys. i don’t think any of us wanted our time in munich to end, so we all stayed up talking in our room until 3am despite our early train the next day. i think a rendezvous in 2011 with marcus, molly, mary and munich may just be in order...