Dorint Novotel Mess Munich

... so the first day we went to the original HB house, which is like the headquarters of some German brewery. I'm just calling it HB because I have no idea how to spell it. Inside the house are huge tables lined with benches that are all packed with people drinking litres of beer. There is a band that plays German music, and it is very loud. People burst into random songs and start dancing, and cheers every 30 seconds! It is very exciting. <br><br>We stayed at one of ...

... we didn&#8217;t have a printout of the train times. But when we got to Buchloe, where we had transferred before, everyone else started getting off the train. We quickly realized that this must be the end destination of the train, so we got off to. <br><br>We checked the posted train schedule there, and we realized that the leg of the journey to Munich was only on weekends. So we went over to an automatic ticket machine to check the train schedules, and saw that there would be ...

... So I called them up to schedule a factory tour because I heard it was really good. But since it is August the tours don´t run until the end of the month because of vacation time here in Germany. So I headed out to Olympic Park and just walked around a bit. The place was pretty much an amusement park with all the carnival rides, games, and other activities. Not sure if it´s just a summer thing or permanent. I was surprised to learn there was no Olympic museum ...

... I needed another beer stein. Good my luggage is going to weigh alot with a few steins and bottles of alcohol. <br><br>I made the hike back okay. It was kind of fun stumbling through the woods and luckily I didn't take a wrong turn and find myself in another town! I made it back to the hostel and relaxed a bit. After that I figured I needed to pay my respects to another beer hall close by called the Augustiner Keller. Great ...

... on my journaling and saw Dinosaurs in German on TV. I waited. I finally hear a knock at the door at around 2:00! When I opened the door, my family was there. Unfortunately, the luggage was not. Yes, that's right, for reasons still unknown the flight was canceled AND Lufthansa lost the luggage. The luggage with the rental tuxes and gowns for a Viennese Ball on New Years, yeah, everything. Needless to say, we didn't really spend much time sightseeing ...

... to Europe, it had crossed my mind that we might eventually be near to a concentration camp, and I had more or less decided in my mind that I probably would not visit one. Along the way, we kept bumping into people who had been to various camps, and although every one of them advised me to go, it wasn't until last night that I actually thought it would be something I could handle. So I went. Dachau is a small town just outside of Munich, connected by the S-bahn. To ...

... allowed to bring your own food but you must drink their beer! Sort of a whole new meaning to BYO. In the afternoon I went walking along the river frontage. The air was warm. People were walking and bathing. Life is very good really. At the train station I saw a Caberet across the street and dropped in. Extremely seedy. Ended up making a dash out of there with my beer left on the bar. Another night on the trains - bliss!

... of entertainment and great company :). Everyone then met back in the square so we could head to Hofbrauhaus, one of the most famous beer halls in Munich. The place is huge!! There are hundreds of rows of tables and benches almost all completely filled with drinkers holding 1L Beer steins. We ended up sharing a table with a group of local Germans. They were actually quite funny and it was good to mix with the ...

Visited Mauthausen concentration camp today. Was extremely gut-wrenchingly difficult. I wrote tons in my journal but am going to make this quick, because I'm still processing my thoughts and they're kind of fuzzy. I guess I'm feeling sort of shell-shocked, since I wasn't emotionally prepared for today and it really caught me off guard ...