Dachau, Munich

Morning accidentally came too early and we fumbled out of my apartment and took a taxi up to the airport to fly out to Munich. I walk on the plane and it was rockin' like there was turbulence, except we were still at the gate. It wasn't a huge deal except that I didn't know it it was the plane or me that was wobbly. I fell asleep before we took off and didn't wake up until we landed in Munich. I'm pretty sure everyone on that flight was hungover. But it was good to finally be in Munich.

Matt Meier or Ted Kaczynski?

EPISODE I: EXTREME DORITOS
We took a train into the city and met Joe's friend Drew and he hung out with us that afternoon. The four of us decided to take the train to Dachau Concentration Camp. So, we're waiting in the Hauptbahnhof Central Station waiting for the next train to Dachau and Joe decides to find a bathroom. He leaves and we're waiting and waiting. And the train is coming. And he's still gone. And we're still waiting. And the train came. And just as it's about to pull away, Joe shows up. But it was too late. The train left us in Munich. Best part is — Joe never found a bathroom.

So, we had twenty minutes to kill before the next train showed up. We decided to make some sandwiches right there in the dirty subway stop. But there were no places to sit where we were, but there were plenty of seats across the tracks on the other side of the platform. Of course, there was no way to get to them. Unless you're Meiers. When the next train showed up we got on, walked through, and out on the other side. We sat down, made our lunch (complete with Extreme Doritos!) while all the German people standing on the other side looked at us like we were the stupidest Americans they'd ever seen.

As the Dachau train was approaching, Joe decides to take a picture of Katie, Drew and I. I was a little edgy that he'd make us miss that train too. (Hence my concern).
But we made it on the train and to Dachau. We explored the concentration camp for a few hours. It was really cool. I don't know what else to say about it, so I'll just post some photos to say it for me.

Front Entrance to Dachau

Hallway in the Barracks

Original Crematorium

After Dachau, we just went back to our hostel (The Wombat — Probably the best hostel in the world) and had dinner and our free "welcome" beer in the "WomBar." Katie and Joe played pool and hung out there all night and I was so exhausted that I went up to bed. Which leads to...

EPISODE II: THE AUSSIES
After I went to bed, Katie and Joe started playing pool with Ceara and Tiernan, another brother/sister duo from Australia who lived in London. They were there with their friend Nick and another guy from New Zealand that randomly joined up with them named Mark. (Or Spikey Mikey, or Sparky Marky, or any combination of the previous). The six of them hung out that night in the WomBar and made plans to meet for breakfast and hang out during the day (Monday).

After breakfast, all seven of us walked to Marienplatz to see the Rathaus-Glockenspiel go off. It's a huge clock in the platz that has little people that move around like a giant cuckoo clock, I suppose. It was pretty cool cause it was built in 1908.

We left Marienplatz to see the Jagd-und Fischereimuseum (Hunting & Fishing Taxidermy Museum) for some reason. It was completely random, but apparently this was all planned out the night before over Jäger shots.

After the museum, we wandered to the Viktualienmarkt. And man, oh man. Ceara bought some salami sticks that were so good. And Katie bought a brick of cheese and Tiernan cut it with a giant display knife that was outside the cheese shop. We walked around the outdoor market and we all bought food—bread, sliced meat, Turkish spread stuff; found a picnic table and had a little lunchtime snack with our Aussie friends. It was really cool to hang out and share everything.

We had our good German food and now it was time for good German beer. The Aussies took us to the Hofbräuhaus for one liter steins of beer. I had a giant pretzel with my stein and we invented a game of flipping coasters onto the tops of our steins. I got 18 on my stein. I won.

Tiernan, Ceara, Joe, Katie, Matt
Mark, Nick at the Hofbräuhaus, Munich

After one or two beers, we rushed out because Ceara, Tiernan and Nick had to catch their flight, but even still, Ceara was insistant on Jäger bombs for everyone. So we hurried back to the Wombat so they could get their luggage and over to the Hauptbahnhof (train station). We found a bar there, but they didn't have any Jäger. So Sparkey Marky bought us all a shot of Bailey's, Kahlua & Rum. We made Ceara play us a quick song on her guitar — and then they were off back to London and Mark was off wherever the wind blew him.

We were back to three.