Munich and Heidelberg aka July 9-10!

So, this weekend was pretty awesome. Thankfully also, it was a lot more relaxing than last weekend. I feel like this weekend we experienced more of the cultural things in Germany rather than merely sight seeing, which was really good. I also feel it is good that this weekend was more laid back because we only had four days to recover from traveling in Paris, which by the way is still number one on my list of favorite places I have been ever ever ever. So to begin this weekend off, we started out Saturday morning at like seven or so at the Landhaus, Stuttgart station by the base and got on an 8am ec train to go to Munich. Everything was great, the lady checked our "happy weekend" ticket (I'm not sure what the German spelling is, but it is a ticked for 39 euro that up to five people can use on the regional trains for the entire day throughout the entire country, which is really nice. This is way way way cheaper than paying for individual tickets by far, and we were good. So we got into Munich around like ten thirty, which is still pretty early, so there was plenty of time to do everything. The first thing we did was go to Dachau, which is a city right next to Munich that had a concentration camp. That was probably the first and last concentration camp I will go to while I'm here. I mean, it is really cool, but it is so in a super depressing, creepy, not fun to think about too much way. We walked from the train stop near Dachau to the actual concentration camp, which was really interesting because there is a footpath that takes the same path that the captive people who were on their way to the concentration camp took. There were signs every so often that like explained what was happening to the prisoners along the way and everything. It was extremely sad. We didn't take any photos of us with anything, because that just didn't feel right at all. It was awk enough at Hiroshima when we did that, cuz we didn't smile and stuff. hm...But it was really interesting. The most interesting part of it was the quarters that they had to stay in. They had torn most of the original buildings down, but the ones in the front were preserved. They had like their beds, which were just rows and rows of these tiny wooden bunk beds stacked, and the bathrooms were just open urinals with no doors or anything. It was so sad. I wouldn't have wanted to live there for sure, and I think its horrible that people could put another human being through that. Anyways, we only stayed there for like an hour, because one can only take so much of that, and then we took the bus back to the station we had originally walked from. Then we took another train and went to the exact opposite part of Germany's culture, and that was a huge beer house! When we got off at the stop like two from the main station to try and find where we wanted to go, we turn around, and there is this massive building with a huge like clock on it and thousands and thousands of people standing everywhere and a massive stage. And....rainbows? It was a massive lesbian festival. More on that later. This one is a really famous beer house called the Hofbrauhaus is the one we went to first. It is like a huge restaurant where the waiters and waitresses are dressed in traditional garb with traditional food and stuff. There was also live music playing when we were there (traditional of course) and sometimes there are dancers and huge performances. We all got a beer (mine small and the others large. I am not cut out for Germany man) and sat and drank and ate. It was really relaxing and fun. There were these like Beer maids who would come by and sell pretzels too (called bretzels). At the end of it, we very stealthfully and very illegally all took our glasses. Yes, we are very awful people, but we didn't get caught. Plus, karma came back and slapped us in the face later. After we did a little souvenier shopping, we went to the Augustiener, which is another beer house thing. I just got fries there though, cuz I was still feeling the first beer. After we were done with all of this, we went back to the huge lesbian festival, because it is part of the culture here. There were tons of people in drag, and it was really interesting. There were also lots of booths everywhere and stuff. We got lots of free candy like suckers and gummy bears in rainbow colors at the booths (all in closed packages of course), and we also saw a lot of very inappropriate stickers. We didn't know what they meant, because they were in German, but it was a definite teenage giggle moment when a guy who spoke great English tried to explain them all to us. After we were done with this, we were ready to head to Heidelberg for the night to stay with my friend Madeleine, who was an exchange student at Shadle like my sophomore year of high school or so. She lives in a town right next to Heidelberg called Mannheim, where she also goes to college. So we get on the same EC train going to Heidelberg, and we are on our merry way. It is not until we are like an hour from Mannheim that the ticket guy comes to check our ticket. Apparently the lady on our train there didn't know what the heck she was doing and didn't tell us that the EC trains do not count as the regional trains and that we were on it illegally. Thank goodness he did not fine us, I don't think I could have handled that after losing my camera last weekend, and then already not being legal here. Thankfully he just kicked us off at the next stop and told us a regional train to take there. So we make it to the regional stop, and...... the train switched tracks due to maintenance.....and did not show up at the track we were told it switched to....and there was not another train to Mannheim that got us there before one in the morning......and it was only seven pm. No thanks. We took the next train back to Stuttgart and told Madeleine we would be there in the morning. Stuttgart was only like an hour away. It was kind of nice sleeping in my own bed I will say, although I'm sad we missed the free concert that was going on at her college where we were supposed to be staying. Regardless, Molly and I got up in the morning, (Kristina and Lindsay had been with us in Munich, but decided they were too tired to go out to Heidelberg) and made our way to Heidelberg to meet up with Madeleine. We got there at like 10 am, and since it was Sunday, we were literally the only people on the streets for like two hours. It is so interesting to me that Germany completely shuts down on Sundays. Basically everything is closed, and not many people go out. I would say probably 90 % of the people were tourists. Heidelberg is this gorgeous little town that is in the middle of a valley, so each side has a beautiful mountain side covered in green trees. The castle, like the one in Salzburg, was up a little ways and we had to climb to it. The buildings on the way there were amazing, and just beautiful to look at. The steps on the way up were numbered, which I thought was almost worse because at the beginning Madeleine told us there were three hundred and sixty something stairs. We were panting when we made it to the top, partly because at least speaking for myself I am out of shape, and partly because Molly and I had thought that it was going to rain, which the forecast had said, so we had long sleeves, pants, jackets, etc. Whoops. Super sunny and nice. But the castle was really pretty and had a beautiful view of all of the old part of town from the top. There was also this museum of like pharmacy there, which had tons of old jars and stuff in the rooms that they used to use. There was also the largest wine barrel in either Germany or the world, I don't remember. It was massive to say the least. Madeleine said that because of its size the King at the time never had to worry about the wine running low or empty. After we were done with the amazing castle, we headed back down the stair path and went to get food. Starving! I ate pizza, which was nice. While we ate, we just talked and stuff. It was really interesting to hear Madeleine's perspective about certain things. Like their universities are about 500 euro each semester. Even with the exchange rate that is so much better than in America. I guess they are like really big on education. And we talked about cultural differences, like how they rarely pay with credit cards and always pay cash, and how German people don't smile at strangers or ask them how they are. It is too personal to do to a stranger. Americans do this all the time and expect a certain answer. For example, when you are at the store and you ask they clerk, 'hey how are you today?' you don't actually care what the answer is. The correct response it 'fine, how are you?' with a similar answer anticipated. Germans think this is impersonal and superficial, which I guess it kind of is, but its just part of the culture. They can always pick out who the tourists are based on who smiles at strangers and who doesn't. Interesting. Then after we finished eating we went to the most famous bridge that overlooked the castle, and there was this monkey statue that had space for you to put your head in it. Aubrey would have loved it, although it smelled like metal. There was also this shop that sold this like lovers chocolate. It was super cute. We saw one asian couple that was getting married and their limo driver gave them the gift of this special chocolate that is native to Heidelberg that we kept seeing everywhere. Then we just walked around through town and made our way back to the train station. We walked through this like festival type thing for kids where there was like a mechanical bull, blow up obstacles, ponies, etc. It was cute, and very opposite of the lesbian festival the day before. We then sat with Madeleine's friends for a bit on the grass next to the lake until we headed back to the train station to call it a day. I am so glad that we went, and it was awesome seeing Madeleine again! It was also nice getting home rather early. On the train ride home I finished my 8th book, and was bored for like 40 minutes. I should have brought another one. I will start number nine tomorrow. Tomorrow Dr. Edgington, who is like the original founder of camp adventure, is coming to Stuttgart on his annual tour he does of camp where he makes appearances and checks out different sites. Basically because he started it, he gets a free trip to Europe. Could have used that money to send us to director's training in Iowa! (yes, still bitter) Suffice it to say, everything must go perfect tomorrow.