Germany Trip - 21Sept23 through 02Oct23 Part 2of3

 After saying goodbye to Marina and Heiko, we took the train from Berlin to Munich.

Getting there was ok.  We did have some issues with train delays and such....VERY unusual for Germany.  But, it all worked out ok.

Our hotel was decorated for Oktoberfest.  We were told that the Bavarians are similar to Texans. They are very proud of their 'state', their culture and their clothing.  My friend Heiko was funny...he kind of rolled his eyes when talking about the Bavarians. He said that Bavarians think they are better than other Germans.

Our hotel had a daily breakfast.  Lots of meats and cheeses, breads and coffee. And decorations for Oktoberfest!

The official mascot of our hotel. haha

I believe these poles are just up for Oktoberfest.  In the olden days, the poles would be at the entrance to a town.  The scenes on the pole depict what stores and businesses are in the town. This one was just outside of a farmer's market.  The colors for Bavaria are of course blue and white.

The church at Marienplatz.  This is the main square in Munich.  Where a lot of tours meet for the day.  We did 2 different tours in Munich - one to Dachau and one to Oktoberfest.  Both started here.

We took a tour to Dachau on Sept. 26, our first real day in Munich. Ralph was our guide for the day.  He said that he had to study and get a special license in order to give tours.  He also told us that ALL German youth need to tour at least one concentration camp as part of their learning in school.

Entrance to Dachau

Arbeit Macht Frei - "Works makes you free"  That saying is on most entrance gates to the concentration camps.  The most famous one is at Auschwitz in Poland 

In the main buildings, they had a lot of artifacts, such as this.  This one was a whipping bench for the prisoners.

Even though Dachau was one of the last camps to be liberated, the Nazi's still managed to burn down most of the barracks to help hide the crimes.  All that is left is the cement foundations.  These were actually horse barns and they put approx 300-400 people in each barn-turned-barracks.  You can't grasp how many horse barns there were....and this was a 'small' camp by comparison.

They did rebuild one of the barracks so you could get an idea of what the living arrangements looked like.  3 bunks high and 3-4 people per bed.

The Nazi's labeled everyone. If you were gay, Polish, Jewish, etc, then they sewed a different star on your prison uniform identifying what kind of person you were.

Smoking Forbidden.  This is an original signage

The perimeter fencing and guard tower of the prisoner camp.  These fences were once electrified. It was not uncommon for desperate prisoners to throw themselves into the electric fence to end their suffering. 

The crematorium.  It appears quite small, but that is because Dachau is a small camp.  It was used as the 'flagship' camp.  They would test different ideas, killing methods, procedures etc. here before disseminating it out tot the other camps.

The showers

These are the original showers.  The shower heads are fake.  They are not actually plumbed with water hook up.  I don't have pictures of scratch marks on the walls, but that is a common site in these rooms.  The story goes: The SS officers were shooting the prisoners at first.  However, it deemed to be too expensive.  AND, too phycologically difficult for the officers to handle.  So, someone discovered a chemical called Zyklon B.  It was a crystal that came in a can.  When the crystal was exposed to air, the vapor could fill an entire room and kill everything in it.  It was used as a pesticide...so think of it as being used to 'fumigate' a building.  They also realized that it only took a tablespoon of crystals to kill an entire room of people.  When this camp was liberated, they found paperwork where the Nazi's actually did a cost analysis to show that Zyklon B was cheaper than shooting people.  they told the new prisoners that they needed a shower before putting on their uniform.  Once they got the prisoners in the room and shut the door, they would open up these access doors from the outside and dump in a handful of Zyklon B crystals (where you see the grates on the wall in the background).  That's all it took to kill an entire room of people.

Next to the showers, they built the furnaces.  These are the original furnaces where they would place the dead prisoners to burn their bodies.

After the tour, we took the metro back to our hostel for the night.  It was a pretty heavy day, but I find this kind of stuff very interesting and important to learn about.  Least we forget and this happens again...

The next day, we cleansed our pallet and did a walking tour of Oktoberfest.

Year's ago, we bought authentic German clothes for Halloween.  We brought them with us just for the Oktoberfest celebration.  EVERYONE wears these outfits. They gave us these traditional spice cookies for the tour...I felt like a dummy wearing it, but whatever.  The cookies were good and it was way funner than I thought it would be. 

Gary had the authentic the leather lederhosen, the shoes and the authentic blue checkered shirt

Here we are at the entrance of Oktoberfest.  It's basically like a huge fairgrounds

People refer to these buildings as 'tents'.  Even thought they are hard sided buildings.  There are about a dozen of these 'tents'.  The tents are put up and taken down every Oktoberfest.  Yes, that is correct.  These buildings are taken down every Oktoberfest and stored away until next year.  When everything is gone it is just a big open field here.  The Schottenhamel tent starts Oktoberfest and it has been around for 150 years!!.  During the big kick-off, there is a parade, the opening of the first keg by the mayor. The funny thing is that Oktoberfest isn't really in October.  It starts in September and only goes to the first Monday or Tuesday of October.  We learned that the Hofbrau Festzeit is the biggest tent.  It holds 11,000 people!

This was part of our tour group.  I usually hate doing organized tour stuff, but this was kind of necessary for Oktoberfest.  In order to have a table to sit at and eat, you need to 'reserve' the entire table.  And the smallest table I could find seated 8 people.  And you have to pay for 8 people.  Otherwise, you take your chances just showing up and hoping that you can 'saddle up' to a table with a couple of empty seats.  Since that wasn't a guarantee, I decided that a tour was the best way to go.  Our tour guide, Daniel, walked us all around the fairgrounds and explained all about the history of Bavaria and Oktoberfest.  Then we ended at a tent for lunch and beer.  I don't know what the German's do with their beer, but I drank 2.5 mugs of beer and I was so drunk but I never got sick or had a headache.  Something must be different, because Gary mentioned the same thing...that he didn't feel hung over the next day.
Every 10 minutes or so, the polka band would play this song called 'Ein Prosit'.  I don't know all the words, but at one point they sing (in Bavaria German - which I learned is slightly different than regular German!) 'One, two, three, drink!'.  You are obligated to stop and join in!
In between the 'Ein Prosit', the band in our tent played a lot of 80's music.  It was funny because ALL of the Germans knew the words to all of these songs!  I specifically remember 'Sweet Caroline' being played.  
The other thing I noticed, was that this tent was full of a thousand people, all drunk, all singing, and ZERO fighting and ZERO people causing trouble.  If this was in America, there would be fist fighting and chair throwing and someone would shoot a gun.  The most 'trouble' we witnessed was when someone would stand on a bench and sing.  The tent security would come over and make them get down.  Even our tour guide said that what we saw was the biggest 'problem' that would occur in a tent. Seeing things like this just makes me sad that we are too big of idiots in America to have fun things like Oktoberfest.

Besides the beer tents, there are lots of fair rides as well....not sure they are all OSHA approved, but at least they look fun!  We can't have fun things in America because of stupid people and lawyers.

You could purchase a fish on a stick as a snack!

These cookies are everywhere to buy.  It's a traditional Oktoberfest item.  They have a gingerbread flavor.  Some are small and some are gigantic!! I should have had a banana for scale.  Some of these cookies were at least a foot wide.

I don't know how these ladies do it, but they will actually carry these giant, heavy, mugs of beer all at the same time. When you are in a tent, you must sit down at a table and have a beer maid serve you.  You are not allowed to go up to the bar area and get your own beer or food.  And you need to pay in cash.

This guys was walking around with snack for purchase.

This product is very common at Oktoberfest.  No, it's not what you think it is....but it looks like it!  Schneeberg means 'snow mountain'.  It is actually mint flavored sugar.  And you actually DO snort it.  It's supposed to help wake you up so you can party longer.  It really does open up your sinuses and wake you up!

Our tour guide told us this was called 'puke hill'.  It's basically where everyone you partied too hard goes to 'rest' or barf.  The hill seemed a little busy for being early afternoon! hahaha

Well, this is how we ended our day at Oktoberfest and our time in Munich! haha. Somehow we managed to drag our drunks butts back on the metro to our hotel.  I'm glad we had these tours lined up during our stay in Munich.  Munich felt very much like a 'newer' city, so there's not a lot of 'old world' looking neighborhoods that you could wander through.  We only spent 2 days here, but it was enough time to get a good feel of Munich.  Next up: Rothenburg ob der Tauber!