Days 8-10

Day 8: Friday, March 27
We woke up, had tasty breakfast at the Jugendherberge, and then went and dropped our stuff at the train station so we could finish exploring Freiberg. We went to the church, and it was shiny and special... I think it was around here that churches began to not impress me much anymore. Now, don't get me wrong, they're all very pretty and large and impressive, but nothing will ever again compare to being in Liverpool and walking up the hill to the church there and then having my jaw drop at the church there. Anyway, this church let you go to the top (like so many others), and so we went up, and one of the levels is the one with all the bells, and there happened to be a guy there working on them, so we got to hear a couple of them go off. They also named all their bells (like most other churches) and there was a Jacob bell, which took us forever to find, turns out it was the one that the guy was sitting on, which was why we couldn't find it immediately. After that, we wandered around a bit longer until we decided to go ahead and leave for Munich. We had gotten our ticket the night before, and the person we spoke with had given us two different times we could go that were two hours apart. We had to change in a little town Neustadt and then go on to Ulm and then to Munich. Well, we found there was a train inbetween those times to Neustadt, and figured there'd be one to Ulm at the same time after the hour as the other two... well, we get there, and that train only runs every two hours, so we had an hour to burn. We started off following this drunkish guy around, till he led us past a chocolate shop where we got distracted by the truffles and bought some. Whisky truffles are tasty. After that, we just wandered around some more, till we ended up at a grocery store. Jake found some "Cherry Water" that he wanted to try. So he got it, and we ended up having it two nights later in Munich. I will get to this in a bit. Anyway, then we headed back to the train station, and barely made the train... we thought it came at :35 after, but really it was :25. Luckily I was all, "we should be there early to get seats," otherwise we wouldn't have made it and would have been there another two hours. We eventually get to Munich at night time, and head toward the hostels there. Conveniently, there are three right in a row, so we try them all, and end up in a 6 person room with two other people. Not too bad. But that hostel didn't have room for us the next night, so we went to a different one to get a reservation for the next night, ended up getting a 3 person private room with bathroom. After taking care of that, we set off in search of food, and decided that we'd get donners since they're cheap & fast. Our choices were a place that is not named "talk like a llama" but whose name looked close enough to that that that's what I called it, and another place. We ate at the other place, and it was SUPER DUPER TASTY!! Then we went back to the hostel and slept.

Day 9: Saturday, March 28
We woke up, checked out of the hostel we were in, went next door, and put our stuff in their luggage room. Then we set off for Dachau Concentration Camp. One train and a bus later and we were there. Now, I don't know what exactally I was expecting, but... dunno. It was mostly torn down, and the buildings that were left were mostly empty. They turned one building into a museum. Concentration camp buildings are... really, really huge. And it was full of words. Everywhere. I started off reading everything. After the first three rooms I was only reading titles and interesting things. Three rooms later I was looking at pictures and reading the quotes. Then I was just looking at pictures. Also, I'd like to point out that we had been doing a ton of walking every day. Walking through one building should not make you tired. But for some reason it was. Because this building was huge. HUGE. I ended up not even looking at stuff in the very last room because I was just so tired of looking at it. Also, I don't know if it was the content or the skipping breakfast, but my stomach was starting to feel weird toward the end. So, yes, everyone should probably visit a concentration camp if they have the chance, but.. I dunno, pick a smaller one? And eat breakfast first. Only reason we didn't eat was because Munich takes all their pretzels, and cuts them in half and puts butter in. No one wants that. But yeah, it was very informative. And a bit sick. But that's just because it's a concentration camp. After that we had some lunch at an Itallian place by the Dachau train station that was ok, then got back on the train and went back to Munich. We had earlier decided that we wanted to see the Glockenspeil at 9pm since it did a fancy thingie, so we ended up wandering around that area and listening to street performers for a couple hours until it was time. Then it did it's dance, and we went and got dinner at a *gasp* crowded restaurant! They had these fun to play with kartofelknoedels there. After, we went back to the hostel and saw our room. Our room was pretty kickass for only like 20 or 25 euros a person. It was pretty much a hotel. Almost the best place we stayed the whole trip. Euro Youth Hotel for anyone interested. I needed to check some stuff online, so I went downstairs to use the computer, which was next to the bar. German hostels like to have bars for some reason. In the middle of checking my email (which took entirely too long due to their incredibly slow connection), some drunk guy leans over and looks at the monitor and asks me what I'm doing. He eventually goes away. While I was downstairs, the guys decided to bring out their various alcohols. This consisted of: beer, mead, honey schnapps and the infamous cherry water. The cherry water was not so much water, but more like fire. In your mouth. Eventually we went to sleep.

Day 10: Sunday, March 29
Adam had to leave early to catch a train back to Italy since his break was ending, so he left, then Jake and I got up, had breakfast at the hostel (they had toast! and a toaster! and hot chocolate!) and then wandered around a bit more. We went and saw the Glockenspiel do it's usual routine, since the one we saw the night before was different. After that, we went to the palace, but we didn't really have enough time to do the palace rooms and the treasury, and you have to pay for both parts separate, so we only did the treasury. For some reason, they don't like people with big purses going in, so they made me check it. I didn't think to take my camera out first, so no pictures. Oops. I had planned on buying souveniers for people that day in an attempt to minimize time I had to carry things around, but, for some reason I don't understand, MUNICH SHUTS DOWN ON SUNDAY. Every single store was closed. The crazy souviner people weren't even out. I don't understand, especially since the previous Sunday in St. Goar, a town a fraction of the size of Munich, had stores open. So, unfortunately, some people who I said would get stuff from Germany probably won't. After realizing it'd be impossible to get anything, we picked up our stuff, and hopped on a train to Innsbruck. We eventually got there after an uneventful train ride, and found our way to the cheap B&B we decided to stay at. Why we picked it, I don't really remember. But we dropped our stuff off, got advice on where to eat, went, had food, went back, watched Bambi, went to sleep.

I would write more, since I'm kind of on a roll, but Jake wants me to go clean the kitchen and then we're going to watch MIB, so.. maybe no more tonight. Imma try and finish it all up by Monday, only 13 more days to go. :)