Munich and before

It has been a busy couple days, and then not so busy few days before then. A warning: The last portion of pictures on this post will be from Dachau, the concentration camp outside of Munich and those pictures are not easy to look at. View them and read the captions at your discretion. All of the camp was open to explore, and Dachau was a death camp as well. Moving on:

We toured Munich on friday morning, arriving by train and beginning a slow tour of 4 churches. They were very big and we were shooed out of two of them because of the mass which beginning. There was a tower on one of them. That's where the aerial pictures are from. It was beautiful.

After lunch I went with a few others to a baroque art museum. I saw a whole lot of Rembrandt and some others too. After that we went to the restaurant under the famous glockenspiel clock in the Marienplatz, the main square in Munich. It has existed for a very long time, and the glockenspiel plays (rather atonally) while the wheel of painted statues rotate to the music. It was a great restaurant and I got saurbraten, a roast beef with a special reduction. It was delish. They had special sauerkraut with a wine reduction of its own. It was amazing. Then we played frisbee in the field right next to the Munich Congress building, which had (apparently, though I gladly was not present earlier) previously housed nude old men, and went to our hostel. 

 5 other fellow american students and I stayed the night in a big hostel called "The Tent." it was just that. There was a big tent in which were 100 bunkbeds. There was also a private biergarten, ping pong, basketball, restaurant, and so on. It was a huge kind of hippie commune, oddly enough, with people from all over the world. I don't have pictures of it personally, but as I get them from others who were there, I will post them. The breakfast was very tasty the next morning, and it was a great experience. If you're ever in Munich and need a fun and cheap (12 euro a night) place to stay, look up The Tent. 

In the morning we went to Dachau. I think that the pictures will do enough, and I'll leave it at that.

We went to eat at the original Haufbrau Haus in Munich to get beer and sausage, and enjoyed both. Then we caught a train back. I planned to study for my classes, but a big group of bavarians celebrating their friend's bachelor party got on board right next to us with a whole crate of Austiner beer. They were loud and crazy, singing songs, and then Xenon, one of my friends started singing along. That's all it took, because they came and sat with us, shared their beer (trying to sell it for 2 euro a bottle-I passed), and taught us games. They were very interested in my last name (Yes Carpenters, I found out from them as well as you that the German pronunciation is Silver-schtine), because it was german-sounding, and they admired my beard, oddly enough. And they could not believe I was nineteen. They also tried to get me to play the game of see if you can knock this (admitttedly totally drunk) guy out with one punch. I also declined. It was a very eventful trip and actually a sort of fun one as well. They invited us to go with them to the place they were planning on going that night to watch the championsleague final, but we were too tired. We got a picture and got back to the hostel. We were planning on hiking another mountain, Untersberg the next day.

So that was the friday and saturday. I will get on again tomorrow, perhaps, to update on the hike and other stuff. Enjoy the pictures.

 This was probably wednesday of last week. Jellied beef. It was very good and weird.

 This is a view from the tower of the church. If you look really hard in the distance you can see the Alps. That is Munich.

 This is another church. It is not the same one, but one of the 4 that we toured. Very pretty.

 Oh, this is not from Munich. I believe this is from Thursday. There was the Salzburg Grand Prix, and they had a race. I missed the race, but I saw the processional of the old cars. It took place in the Domplatz, the square near the Dom in Salzburg.

 This is in munich. That's the tower with the Glockenspiel. It is not a church, nor do I think it ever was. I believe it's a station of some sort, perhaps a state building of some kind. The dancing figures are just above the center and to the right of the center of the picture.

 That's the view of the same tower from the church tower.

 This is the view of the odd, interesting church which on the inside, and most of the outside appeared gothic and romanesque, but had two byzantine towers.

Here's the gate of Dacau. On the iron gate is written Arbeit Macht Frei which translates to Work Makes Free. Satan had his way with this place and it feels like it but for the hope that God put into the people that were interned there.

 This is the memorial.

 These are bunks. Towards the Final Solution, they pushed all of them together to make more room.

 This is a line of what used to be the place they called the infirmary. It was actually a quarantine. This also housed some housing.

 This was the restricted strip nearing the fence. There were guard towers all around. Many purposely stepped into the zone to be put out of their misery.

 This was the crematorium and gas chamber. It's mindboggling how pretty the sky is here. One comment from a german man-you can't hear any birds in the camp. Outside of it you can hear them clearly, but there is a complete lack within the grounds.

 This is the actual gas chamber.

Tuesday

So Monday did not have any wildly interesting things, being composed of class, then a trip to the mall. On the plus side, the mall had a supermarket in it, and I bought some food. It took me 30 minutes to check out because of the (to me) odd way of weighing and labeling produce. I tried to buy a bunch of bananas and some apples and the process involved weighing the items separately, entering the code for the type of produce, and printing the sticker with the corresponding barcode to stick on the sack. Once I figured that out after two trips to the register, I checked out along with the loaf of bread. Then I did homework and went out to dinner. We went to the brewery Die Wiesse and I got some (more) Wiener Schnitzel and it came in a piece about 4 inches wide and a foot long. It was delicious and I was very full. That was about it.

 Oh, on the train on Sunday, an elderly nun boarded the bus after me and grabbed my rear end. I assume it was because I was standing near the rail and she was trying to hold onto something. However, it was for a period of around 5 seconds or so. I figure that was enough time to figure out it wasn't a metal rail. But moving onto today.

After class we went on a trip to the Festung, the fortress on a hill in Salzburg. It was really pretty neat. We learned that the city got its name from the industry of salt manufacturing which originally was the economic force driving the city. There were several other cool bits of facts, but not least was the extensive museum composed of mainly artillery and different types of swords and knives. We also rode the tram up the mini-mountain. It was raining all day today, so expect a wet quality to the pictures. After that I returned and did homework and ate dinner in the room. I really enjoyed the bread I bought yesterday. And Jeremiah, if you're reading, the apples are totally organic. There was no hint of wax on their exteriors.

With no prior music theory class, my Mozart's Final Years course involves doing analysis of scores of Mozart's compositions, analyzing cadences, scale degrees, periods, as well as sonata structure and finding out how different pieces deviate from the norm. It is definitely new, but so far it's easy enough to pick up and I'm not having much trouble. So far so good. Music History is going, and it involves mainly a lot of memorization. That's not much out of the ordinary, but I'm listening to and learning how to differentiate between different eras and types of chants, gregorian, secular, hymns, and on. Wish me luck.

 This is the tram at the top about to head down. Pretend that it's purposely impossible to tell in an artsy way.

 In the museum this guy had a mustache which I aspire to, and so I had to take a picture.  I have a ways to go.

 Ignore my finger on the left. This is the view off of the Festung on the middle level, facing towards the alps.

 See the austrian flag flying over the trumpeter's tower.

 This is on the artillery hall. These windows used to be used for gunholes, I believe.

Sontag

Today was Sunday of course, and so it was a good time to go to church, which I and a couple others did. Unfortunately, instead of going to the Dom Platz, one of the main big catholic churches in the center of the old city, as we intended, we rode the bus a few stops too far, and as the service began in a few minutes, we stopped at a church called St. Andrew's which was across the street from a bus stop. It was an interesting service, though I knew almost none of what was going on. I recongnized a few songs, though we sang them in German, I recognized the Apostles' Creed, and sometimes I figured out when there was a prayer. Apart from that I didn't understand any of the words, though it was kind of neat to sing hymns in German.

After that we returned to the EHH, as I will abbreviate the Eduard Heinrich Haus. It was about noon when we got back and lunch was served here at the house at 1. We get two meals even on the weekends if we have classes on those days. Both yesterday and today we did, and so that was nice. I fell asleep while waiting the hour til lunch, and then went and ate.

We got to go on a hike with Nicola, the assistant director (also from UK, though a graduate student, I believe) who likes to hike. We went up the Gaisberg mountain. All the way. I didn't really know what I was getting into, but the hike was pretty much at a 45 degree angle or steeper the entire way. There were about two stretches of more flat space and they added up to about 40 yards total. Out of the approximate 4 mile track, it wasn't too much. Needless to say, out of the 20 people that started out, about 10 made it to the top. It was a wonderful view, for sure. At the top it was not snowcapped, as it was not quite high enough. However, that's on the list for the future.

The signage stated that it should take 2.75 hours or so. The group of 5 of us at the front of the group (it turned to four by the end, still somehow including me) reached the top in 1 hour and 20 minutes. We were exhausted. It was such a fast pace, and already my legs are super sore. I also sweated my shirt all the way down to the bellybutton on the front, if that's not too much information. We brought water and wore sunscreen, though much of the path was shaded, and I did not get either sunburnt or dehydrated.

At the top of the mountain, very happily, there was a good restaurant and I got some rye bread and goulash. It was so good. Then we went to take pictures after the food, and headed back down the steep path the way down. At first it was better than the way up, but it soon became just as difficult, though it was much faster because we ran much of the way to catch a bus to get us back in time for our classes beginning at 7:15. Some people had to be back by 6. Most of them turned back by the halfway point or before and others reached the top and rode the bus down. But we ran back and returned in plenty of time.

Classes went as usual, and that was the day. I am ready to sleep for a while after that roundtrip of 8+ miles at such a steep angle up then down. Plus, we went on the hike yesterday, so that was an added factor. Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow and having a class-filled week. Thanks for reading and for your prayers!

 This is the view down off the side of the mountain. This looks over Salzburg and you can see the river too. It's the line in the distance.

This is taken further off to the left. You can see some of the snowcapped mountains, and we were looking at which one to tackle. We plan to take it significantly slower, and take an entire day. That might be smarter.

This one is looking over the same area. I also took some panoramas, but those don't post too well.

Day Two

Hey! Some pictures to come on this post.

Today was the first day of classes. The place we're staying is called the Eduard Heinrich Haus, and it's rather unlike any other sort of hotel, hostel, or dorm. It's really a mix of all of them. There is no room service or daily cleaning, but there are hot meals cooked twice a day (breakfast and lunch), wifi, foosball, ping pong, lifesize chess outside, and also classrooms down in the bottom of the building. It is not just foreign people either. There are many german-speaking people here, as well as travelers from other countries. Yesterday I met a guy from Manchester, England who was about to audition for a spot in an opera.

Anyway, since the classrooms are downstairs and we need 37.5 contact hours per class for it to count for credit, we started today. Ever class day is split up into three blocks. The first goes from 8:30-9:45, the second from 10-11:15, and the last from 11:30-12:45. Then it's time for lunch at 1. Breakfast is from 7-10am. I have my two classes in the second and third blocks, taught by the american professors who came with us, and the first class, Mozart's Final Years, was the best of the two even though I was given homework due tomorrow night when we have our second set of classes.

Anyway, after classes, we had a meeting and then went on a long, 3 hour walk around Salzburg (again for some of us) which had some new things, but mostly things which I had been by before. Passing by interesting places for the second or third time very quickly does nothing but kind of make me want to stay there, but after we got to the biergarten at around 5:45 things were better.

I got some sauerkraut and two slices of pork belly. It was very good. The food was available in a lot of different stands with different offerings inside the building, and there was their homebrewed beer outside. That was fun.

After that we were on our own. (YES). So, I decided to go with a couple friends to climb up the mountain on which the Festung, or old city castle/fortress sits. Originally, the entirety of Salzburg was surrounded by the walls of the fortress. Then it expanded down the mountain to the river, the Salzach. Up until the river is known as the old city. Once you get across the river, it is the new city, which still has buildings which are super old nonetheless.

 This one is from yesterday, the first day we got here. That's in front of one of the pretty buildings with my two roomates. They look a lot more jetlagged than me. I don't remember its name. We walked past a lot of buildings really quick.

 This is the first place with a view that we hiked to. You can see some churches and stuff. This around halfway up. We ended up going a back way around the university and walking up a steep hill (mountain), and stopping for the view. Eventually another part of our group came up behind us and we joined them to walk down, and then walked all the way back to the house on a hiking trail. We didn't have to, and could have gotten on a bus, but we did anyway. That took a longgggg time but we made it. Then I did some homework, and here I am.

This is at the top of that path. It was pretty breathtaking. That mountain straight behind me to the right is just a bit further than our house to which we walked.

Here Safe!

Suffice to say that I am here safely in Salzburg after a delayed flight that had no ultimate negative effect whatsoever on my final destination. I arrived with a fellow student, proceeded to sightsee around with the teachers, successfully navigated back to the house alone after they left us behind, and then moved into my room with two roomates. So far, so good. The room is good, and the supper I had was also good, complete with schnitzel. I was falling asleep standing upright on a bus, so I'm going to hit the sack. More later, hopefully with pictures tomorrow!

Done Preparing to Leave

This is it! I am departing from Paducah at 6:32 tomorrow morning, flying into Chicago, then laying over there until 2pm. From there I'll fly 8 hours to Frankfort, Germany, where I will eventually meet up with my two fellow students who are flying separately from the whole group and fly into Salzburg, arriving around 11 on the 20th.

So it begins! Thanks so much for your prayers. I appreciate them a lot. I will do my best to keep this updated with pictures and some words as well. Auf Wiedersehen!