Concentration Camp

Today, Tiffany and I planned on going to a concentration camp. We weren't sure which one to go to, or even how to get to one, so we woke up early to go into town to talk to the people at the information center and the train station. The lady at the information center wasn't much help, she didn't even know what a concentration camp was so I had to harshly say "the place where the Nazis killed the Jews." Then she knew what I was talking about but hadn't been to one, so she couldn't tell us which was the best. Chris told us the one called Dachau was the best, so we decided we'd go there. On the way to the train station, we stopped at the bakery for breakfast and bought sandwiches to eat on the train during lunch. The guy at the train station was really helpful, and we ended up taking a few trains to Dachau which is near Munich. He gave us a public transportation day pass, which only cost 28 euro, so that we could take all the buses, trains, and subways we wanted. We had to take 2 trains, the subway, and a bus each way.
We arrived at Dachau and went through the front gate which said in German "work is freedom." When you first step into the camp, it's kind of weird thinking how many people used to pack the place and how many died there. The whole place is surrounded by cement walls with barbed wire on the top. There are also watch towers every few meters. The maintenance house was the first building we went into, it was really big and the Jews built it themselves. It was filled with historical quotes, stories, and artifacts to look at while walking through, so it was more of like a museum. Some cool things we saw in there were their uniforms, the whipping table, some of their belongings, memorials, pictures, and sculptures. After that, we went to the open area in front of the maintenance house where more memorials and sculptures were built in honor of the people who worked there. The sculptures were made up of skeleton-looking-people joined together to make shapes. It looked painful but cool. Next, we went to see a bunker, where the prisoners lived. The beds were bunked with 3 beds on top of each other and were really close together. They also had a locker area to keep their clothes in. They had to keep everything spotless and make their beds for inspection. This also meant that they couldn't carve things into the wood or have any stains on it or else they'd get beaten. We saw their bathroom which didn't look so bad except the toilets weren't in stalls, they were all just together. There were only 2 bunkers remaining, but there used to be around 30. After the bunkers were a few large memorials to pray in if you wanted. I took a picture of Tiff in one, and it looked like there was some sort of ghost in it. Then, 3 current churches are on the grounds of the camp. There was a christian church, a Russian orthodox church, and some sort of convent. I would be too creeped out to go to my church every Sunday in a mass grave. Next, we went to the Crematorium and "Showers." This was the creepiest part. We saw the old crematorium, which was pretty small, and so many people ended up going to Dachau that they had to build a bigger one. In the bigger one, there was a holding room where the victims were told they'd be taking a shower and then a "shower room" equipped with faux shower heads that were used to pour the poisonous gas in. We got to go in the shower room, and it was really dark and scary. We got out of there fast into another room where the dead bodies were dragged. The next room had 6 body ovens in it that could fit up to 3 corpses at once to burn. The last room was for people that already died due to work conditions and disease. They would just burn those people in the crematorium without gassing them. It was really crazy to think about what happened just a few decades ago right where we were standing. I'm glad I went.
Before leaving, we stopped at the visitor center cafe and ate some spaghetti. Then, we caught a bus and the subway back to Munich and bought a few souvenirs before catching 2 more trains back to Landsberg. When we got back, we had dinner at an original German fast food restaurant. They sold burgers, fries, and chicken and everyone was eating their fries with forks. We also went shopping and bought 2 sweater dresses that looked really cute. Tomorrow, Chris says he has a surprise planned for us so I can't wait to see what that is.

more shopping

Today, we did more shopping in town. It was while we walked there, then it stopped while we shopped, so of course when we were walking home it was raining. On the way there, we stopped at the post office to send some post cards. In this one part of town, the street is really busy, so instead of having a cross walk, they have an underground tunnel to walk through to the other side. It’s kind of a smart idea because that way, they don’t have to put a stop light there just so people can cross. Tiffany and I bought some shirts, I bought a present for Kevin, and we all bought presents for different relatives. We stopped at the same bakery we did before, and the lady called us the “senoritas” because she thinks we all speak Spanish. We also got marzipan, this really good bread that Toledo, Spain is famous for. I was really excited because I don’t know any place in the US that has it. It tastes almondy and is sweet. For lunch, Jessica showed us a café that had burgers. I really like the burgers here, but I’m not sure if I like them more than ballpark burgers. They don’t taste as sweet as the burgers from the US and have vegetables in the meat too. They had roasted chicken at the café too so I think I’m going to try that another day. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. We got pomegranates, kiwis, pizza, milk, and water. We were really excited they had nutella and the koala bear cookies I used to eat when I was little, so we bought those too. We bought a six pack of water bottles that are 1.5 liters big, so Tiffany had to carry that all the way home because she’s the strongest. It was really funny watching her carry it, but there was nothing I could do to help.
We ate dinner, and then Jess, Tiff and I went back into town to recycle bottles and talk to the information center about going to a concentration camp. Little did we know that the shops in town close down at 7. It was kind of disappointing that we walked all the way to town for nothing. On the way home, we bought a small pizza for Tiff then settled in for the night.

Out and About in Landsberg

Today, Tiffany and I decided to go out to downtown Landsberg to do a little shopping. We woke up early to walk there, and it wasn't that cold out and it only takes about 15 minutes to get into town.
First, we stopped at the "1 euro store" which is just like our dollar store, but in a different currency. We thought maybe we could get some cheap souveneirs, but they didn't really have much there. Next, we stopped at a clothing store and saw a lot cute things, but it was all really expensive. I saw a pair of jeans for 129 euro! We asked the guy there where the ATM was because we hadn't gotten money out yet, and he didn't know what an ATM was. I described it to him and he directed us to the right place. Other stores we stopped in were filled with appliances and kitchenware. These types of things here look very modern and IKEA-esque. We were looking for ice cube trays because nobody has ice here, and luckily we found still water (water without carbonation). We went to a bakery for a snack, and the lady there didn't speak English, but she asked if I spoke Spanish. I was really excited to practice with her so I got to order in Spanish and ask her a few questions about the different pastries and drinks she had in the bakery. It was so much easier to understand her this way. There are a lot of tea houses and bakeries in town, so we stopped in those to buy candies and teas for my aunt and mom. Every shop is so cute, and it kind of reminded me of Frankenmuth, MI. For lunch, we stopped in a bakery and had sandwiches. We didn't want to stop in an authentic German restaurant because we couldn't understand the menu. The sandwiches had ham, sliced deviled egg, lettuce on sesame bread. They were really good, and you could tell they probably made the bread there that morning. We were so excited to eat something familiar to us. We went to grocery and convenient stores and they had most of the same stuff they have in America. Some of the cereals were the same, and of course they had really big jars of nutella. While we were in the grocery store, one lady just kept talking to us in German, so Tiff and I just laughed and nodded like we knew what was going on. I didn't want to interrupt her to say we couldn't speak German.
We walked home and did some dishes and we want to get a Pizza later at one of the restaurants. I think Tiff and I are going to bed early tonight even if Jess and Chris go out.

First Day in Deustchland

Today, my sisters and I arrived in Germany. It took forever to get here. We had to take 3 flights with less than an hour in between them. We were in some really cool airports, but only got to walk through them because we needed to catch our next flight. The first flight, we all sat together and Jessica sat by a man who used to live in Germany, so she got to talk to him about how the country is. The second flight was 7 hours long, and Jessica then sat by a really weird guy who had nervous ticks, breathed really loudly, and had a hug bag of medications. He talked to us a little about Germany, but he was just weird. We watched a few movies each to pass the time. They have individual TV’s for everyone to entertain themselves. The last flight was only about an hour long, but we were delayed because it was snowing and our plane had to get cleaned off. We were in a normal sized airplane, but there were only like 10 people on the flight. Tiff and I fell asleep on the plane, and when we woke up we had some type of Swedish bread in front of us on our tables. I was confused because in the US, if you fall asleep when they’re passing out food, you don’t get any. Also during the flight I experienced the most turbulence I ever had, it was kind of scary.
To get to Landsberg we took the autobahn. Some parts of it don’t have speed limits so it was a pretty wild ride. There are also a lot of twists and turns on it which made us sea sick. Chris stopped at his gym so we could say hi to one of his friends, and we asked for water. They didn’t have any normal kind though, it was either the water with bubbles in it or flavored water from the tap. We got the flavored water, but I don’t see why they don’t just have normal water. We drove through Landsberg and it looked so cute with little shops, it kind of reminded me of a toy land.
We got to Chris’ flat which is pretty small. It has a common room, two bed rooms, 1.5 baths, and a kitchen. All the furniture in it looks like it’s from IKEA and is pretty chic. The flat was pretty gross at first because boys just live here, but we cleaned it a little after taking showers and a really long nap. We went out to a club with some of Chris’ friends during the night. The people here are really friendly and easy to talk to, and we met a lot of the people he has been hanging out with. We left the club early because Jess, Tiff and I are really tired.
Not much happened today, but I can’t wait to go into town and go in the little shops and later I think we’re going to visit a concentration camp.