Episode Eleven - 'Snow, snow, beautiful snow'

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Hallo, and welcome to episode eleven of Matt & Sharon's travel blog. We come to you this evening from the German capital Berlin which finds itself under a considerable amount of snow. Overnight temperatures of -20° will do that.

After spending several hours writing the last entry, we found ourselves wandering the streets after 10pm looking for some dinner. Not for the first time this trip, we wandered into the local kebab shop and shoveled down some delicious and deliciously cheap turkish delights. Not the little pink lollies dusted with icing sugar, which are tasty nonetheless, but plates piled high with meat from the spit, rice, salads, breads, tzatziki and so forth.
Before heading back to the hostel we decided to wander over to Freiburg Hauptbahnhof in order to reserve seats on a train to Munich the following morning. While we were there we also decided to buy tickets for our train trip from Munich to Berlin, which wouldn't be covered by our 10-day-in-two-month Eurail which we had exhausted. This gave us three nights in Munich which ultimately wouldn't be enough, but more on that shortly.

The next morning, a Sunday, we wandered through town, trying to find somewhere to have breakfast. We could only find one place that was open, but one was all we needed. Sharon and I ordered the 'Luxemburg' and 'Schwartzwald' breakfasts respectively and we loaded up on massive plates of meat, cheeses, breads, eggs and other regional delicacies. Finding ourselves thoroughly full and ready to burst, we waddled out into the street and set about the task of killing time before our train at 3pm. We wandered to the Münster, the local cathedral, but decided against attending the service that was about to start. After checking out a few shops and the such, we gave in to the blistering cold and headed back to the hostel for a bit. After playing some piano and talking to a gentleman from Louisiana whom I had defeated the previous night at 'ping-pong', we hauled our ever-heavier bags onto our backs and trudged down to the train station.
As expected, our journey to München required us to head north for an hour or so before changing trains and turning south-east toward the Bavarian capital. Besides sitting in a compartment with our bags piled around us - given that the overhead luggage racks were full - for the first leg of the trip, our last trip on our Eurail pass was once again, excellent. We can't speak highly enough of the train networks over here - they really are efficient, far-reaching and well organised.
Upon our arrival at Munich we went through the now familiar routine of buying a map then working out how to get to our pre-booked accomodation. Again we found the hotel with no troubles and after eating the rolls and fruit that we had brought from Freiburg we settled in for the night.

The following day was a full one, spent doing all the touristy kinda things. We saw the amazing Rathaus (town hall) complete with its story-telling Glockenspiel, St. Peters Cathedral complete with the several-hundred-stairs climb to the top for great views and the local markets. We then jumped on the train to the Deutsches Museum, getting some lunch at the train station on the way. Imagine Scienceworks in Melbourne but like, five times bigger, containing exhibits and historical information pertaining to disciplines including aviation, rocketry, seafaring, engineering, recycling, chemistry, physics, music, materials production and consumption, film, sound and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. I think we spent just under four hours in there and while we were exhausted afterwards (I swear they pump something into the air-conditioning at museums to make you tired or something), we had a great time and there was plenty there that we still hadn't seen.
That evening we did some washing (I know, exciting right?!) and had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, with our bag of laundry in tow. We took full advantage of the 9.90€ per person menu which gave us an entree, two mains and a dessert each, and we used the fact that we were in the home of Oktoberfest to justify our indulging in several of the local beers.

The following day was far more sombre. We wandered down to the Hauptbahnhof and after buying our tickets, joined the guided tour of the Dachau concentration camp. 27 of us tourists piled into the suburban train, and then jumped on the bus from Dachau station to the memorial site. Ever since our visit to Europe was confirmed I was sure I wanted to visit Dachau and/or Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. I can't quite explain why, but in a morbid-fascination kinda way I just wanted to see it for myself and develop a better understanding of the hows and whys of the Holocaust, and try to understand how it was that it was allowed to happen at all.
While the infamous gate to Dachau is a replica of the original - which was stolen shortly after the emancipation of the camp's prisoners - seeing the words 'Arbeit Macht Frei' in front of you like that is certainly still quite an emotional moment. As you walk through the gate the first thing that hits you is just the realisation of how massive the place is. The main yard, where the twice-daily roll call took place, extends several hundred metres on three sides, surrounded by the maintenance building, and one reconstructed barracks of the 17 that once stood here.
I'm not really sure how much I need to say about Dachau. It was a chilling experience and seeing the crematoriums and the (allegedly unused) gas chamber at the back of the camp were obviously the most significant and memorable moments. Memorable too was the constant freezing wind that whipped around us, getting under clothing and freezing our faces. Despite being uncomfortable we knew we had no right to complain - prisoners were often made to stand in the yard for hours on end wearing little more than thin prisoner's uniforms. One particularly merciless camp leader allegedly decided that making the prisoners stand at attention in the yard for 37 hours straight would be a good idea.

Feeling rather cold and miserable we headed back to München and, knowing that the tickets that we had bought for Berlin would see us leave the Bavarian capital in the morning, tried to get as much out of our evening as possible. Unfortunately, being winter and all that, it was 4pm and already starting to get dark. We walked across town, checking out the Residenz - the old royal palace - before heading to the Englischer Garten. Being close to nightfall and not wishing to get lost we only saw a small portion of the massive park but what we did see was spectacular. Beautiful streams and creeks flow through amazing woods, paths for walking and bike riding spread out everywhere, oh, and a couple of surfers. You see, despite it being illegal, there is a cool spot where the Eisbach (a man-made river) flows under a bridge into the park and a wave of about one metre is created, perfect for local surfers to catch. Despite it being about -3°, these two wetsuit-clad gentlemen were happily surfing while a couple of locals and two bewildered Aussies looked on. It was quite a strange sight.
It would have been good to have seen more of the Garten and more of Münich in general and perhaps buying those tickets in advance, not knowing what Münich would be like, was a mistake. At least we got a taste for it though, and upon returning to Germany, Münich will be high on the to-do list.

This morning, our last in Münich was fairly short. We had breakfast, headed down to the train station and boarded our five and a half hour train to Berlin. The already enjoyable trip to Berlin was made even more special by the fact that for the entire trip all we could see to either side of the train was fluffy, beautiful whiteness. The two German girls that sat next to us on the train thought it was funny that we insisted on taking photos and videos of the snow and we had to explain that in order to see snow in Melbourne you have to drive at least three hours and even then it's not as spectacular as what we saw today. There's something so beautiful about snow in non-alpine areas though, just the way that it clings to tree branches, covers fields, cars and houses. It was such a lovely trip and to our delight we discovered that Berlin too was covered in around six inches of snow. We are looking forward to taking plenty of photos of the city in its snow-covered glory tomorrow, and, given that it's supposed to drop to -10° overnight, I'm guessing there will still be plenty of it around.

That's just about it for now methinks. We are staying at a great hostel in the east of Berlin called Generator - so far we can't fault it.

Until next time, thanks for reading, and get yourself subscribed!

Matt & Shaz

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Photos

Rathaus with glockenspiel
The town hall.

Window at the Rathaus
One of the many beautiful stained-glass windows inside the Rathaus.

München from St. Peters
A nice view from the roof of the cathedral.

Rathaus from St. Peters
Too big to see it all from the street. Still too big from the roof of the cathedral.

Theremin time!
Shazzy busting out a tune on the theremin at the Deutsches Museum.

Chilling
Nazi irony at it's finest.

Bleak
The reconstructed barracks from across the yard.

Crematorium
A moving experience, that's for sure.

Gas chambers
The prisoners were told they were entering showers.

Eisbach surfer
Crazy surfer on the Eisbach at Münich's Englischer Garten

Leipzig train station
White, white, all around.