More From Germany!

I'm behind in updating the posts! That's alright though since we have a little bit of time this morning. We'll just -pretend- I'm packing up my stuff while I actually update posts. Besides, most of it is packed anyway! (Sorta...).

I don't think that I'll be able to upload pictures here since they upload so slowly. But I'll be putting some albums of our trip up so that people can see all that we've done! Now, onward with the brief overview - and yes, it has to be brief since breakfast is waiting for me downstairs.

Day 2 in Germany consisted of a LOT of walking. We toured the shopping district of Munich and saw the Marienplatz with its iconic tower. On the hour there were figures in the tower of the building that moved around, like a giant cuckoo clock. It was definitely a sight to see. There were some churches that we were able to walk in and see and they were stunning. The amount of work that must have gone into those creations is mind blowing. We saw numerous German shops and made our way over to a beer garden (Biergarten in German) for lunch. We bought some food and beer and enjoyed the beautiful weather. And then we were back on our feet, touring some more. We went to the Englischer Garten, which is absolutely huge. It's very beautiful though - green grass and trees. There's even a little spot in the river that creates enough waves to allow people to surf on them. We watched people surf for a while there and then we were off again to see the pavilion in the garden. After that, we walked to a little restaurant near our bed and breakfast, where we all sat down to...you guessed it, more beer and food!

After that, we wandered to a little ice cream shop and had some delicious icecream before bed. Exhausted, I went straight to bed. Some of the others went out for another drink before calling it a night.

On day 3 in Germany, our little group decided to split up. Tom, Sonya, James, Katie, Todd, and I all went to visit Dachau. For those that don't know, it is one of the concentration camps in Germany. We all felt that while we were here, a visit to one of the concentration camps was appropriate. You can read about Dachau on the wikipedia page and there will be pictures later. The museum was quite large and had a lot of panels to read. We walked through the maintenance building where prisoners were first brought in and had their possessions taken away. It also served as the kitchen for the camp. We were able to walk through the barracks. Two of them were reconstructed and the other 30 or so just had their foundations laid out. There were a lot of little memorials around the camp. I think that the crematorium, where they kept the ovens that burned all those bodies, was the most emotional site we saw. During our tour of the museum, we saw pictures of the bodies piled in those rooms...and then walked through the empty rooms. We also saw the gas chamber, which we were told was never used in Dachau. The camp was extremely large and after spending hours there we had only covered the prisoner section. We left after that and didn't see the SS part of the camp, the execution grounds, or the cemetery. We had neglected to bring lunch along with us because I don't think any of us realized how large the camp was. You can certainly spend all day there.

We made our way back to Munich by train and met Eric at the train station in town. We all got our lunches to go from various little shops and headed to a beer garden to eat (and drink, of course). While there, we decided that Nymphenburg Palace would be a great place to spend the rest of the afternoon. The grounds were absolutely huge, with stunning views. We also were able to tour some of the rooms of the palace. The pictures are definitely something to see.

By the time we finished touring Nymphenburg, it was dinner time. So we made our way back to the Englischer Garten - this time to the Chinese Tower. We had more food and beer there, yum! By that time, some of Eric's friends had gathered around. They had planned on going out with Eric for a little bachelor party. So all of us girls said goodbye to the menfolk and made our way home (with a stop by the icecream shop first, of course!). And the men...well, we heard stories (and maybe some groans) the next day. Needless to say, they were out late and had quite a bit of fun.

Whew! Now onto day 4. We woke up and prepared ourselves to take the train to Salzburg, Austria. It is a simply gorgeous little town that was the birthplace of Mozart. We walked through the town and to the gardens at the Mirabell Palace. The flowers and gardens there were amazing to see and we took plenty of pictures.

After the beautiful flowers, we made our way towards Hohensalzburg Castle. It was truly amazing! The view from the castle towers is like nothing else I've ever seen. And you were allowed to tour the castle, which we did extensively. I think that the visit to Salzburg and the castle were my favorite part of the trip. We then caught the train back to Munich, which took about 2 hours. Once we arrived in Munich, Todd and I decided to wander around and find a place for dinner. We found a nice little pizza restaurant a few blocks away. The waiter didn't speak English and we didn't speak German, but we were able to order pizza, beer, and dessert without a problem!

Then it was back to the bed and breakfast to fall into an exhausted sleep again. Now we're awake, on Day 5, and getting ready to leave the bed and breakfast for the wedding site. We'll be there until Sunday! I don't know what our internet situation will be like, but you might not hear from me for a while if there's no internet there.

I apologize for glossing over so much. Truly, each day has been packed full of sights to see, pictures to take, and places to visit. But right now I need to rush to get ready, pack up, and move on to the next leg of our trip.

Besides, I'm sure that you'll get a better taste of what we've been doing once you see all of the pictures!