Salzburg and Germany!

What a weekend! I experienced so many emotions this weekend from happiness to excitement to awe and even to disgust. The places we visited were extremely varied. We woke up at about 5 on Friday to catch an early train to Salzburg. Once there we went on the Sound of Music Tour which was AWESOME! Salzburg is a beautiful place, and it was of course fun to see the filming sites for one of the greatest movies of all time. I learned so many tricks about the film that I will have to watch out for next time I see it. The most jaw-dropping place we were taken to in Salzburg was Wolfgang Lake. It is a lake surrounded on all sides by snow-capped mountains. Breathtaking. I had no idea I was in for an even more astounding place once I got to Munich. We arrived in Munich a little later in the evening when all the shops and restaurants were starting to close down, so we did not really know what to do when we got there. We met some Americans in the underground who were headed to a Germany vs. USA ice hockey game, so we decided to give it a try! GREAT decision on our part. The game was so much fun! We won in double overtime in a shootout. It was so exciting, and it's always fun to beat the home team in their own country nontheless.

Saturday we woke up and jumped on the train out to Fussen to see Newschwanstein Castle a.k.a. the most beautiful place I have ever been in my entire life. The castle is set up on a hill surrounded by snowy mountains and woods. Once you get to the top, you can see the countryside for miles. It was a fairytale. This is probably why Disney modeled Sleeping Beauty's castle after it. Words will not do this place justice, so you will have to look at pictures, but not even that compares. Newschwanstein is definitely on the "Go back to one day" list. I want everyone I know to get to see it. After walking back down the mountain, we stopped in a little cafe for hot chocolate. Life doesn't get much better than that!

Sunday we headed to Dachau. It was quite a 180 from the previous day. It's hard to describe the feeling you get when you walk into a place like that. It is eerie, quiet, and gives you a feeling comparable to nausea when you enter in. There is a sign that reads "Arbeit Macht Frei" on the entrance gate which means "Work Brings Freedom." Dachau was the first concentration camp built, and was used as a work camp for people imprisoned for all times of reasons including thousands of Jews. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach only worsened when I walked through the baracks, rooms made for 50 men that held 400, the isolation cells, and the crematorium. I could not stand to be outside in a coat and gloves for more than 15 minutes, and men in thin pajamas had to stand at attention for hours in the rain and snow. That put things into perspective. The longer I was there, the more that sick feeling turned into disgust and then to just plain hatred. I still do not understand it, and I never will. Dachau was not a happy experience, but I am glad I went.

Back in Munich I quickly saw Possenhoffen, Sisi's childhood home, before I had to catch the train back to Vienna. This weekend I saw the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life...and the ugliest, and they both impacted my life immensely.