Munich and Dachau

We began our Saturday once again treading through falling snow in the pre-dawn to reach the train station. We had packed suitcases with the intention of spending the weekend in Berlin, but at the station we learned that we would pay a hefty fee for not booking our ticket in advance. We made a last-minute change of plans and hopped a train for Munich and Dachau instead.

Immediately upon arriving in Munich, I remembered that I am not a city girl. My idea of a nice day traveling includes cozy villages, street music, family-run bakeries, and open-air markets. Munich was full of well-dressed Germans hastily slogging through the gravely slush that coated the streets, tall buildings, and noisy cars. On the bright side, the pedestrian avenues were richly scented with the aroma of roasting nuts, and we bought pretzel that was far bigger than my head. After a few hours we were on our way to Dachau.

Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany. The thick iron gate guarding the entrance is inscribed with the phrase “Arbeit macht frei”: work brings freedom. Touring the camp was a sobering and difficult experience. The museum offered information about every aspect of the camp, the prisoners, and the historical events of the time period. The gruesome horror of the treatment of the prisoners was disturbing, but what haunted me most were the photographs of men, women, and children before they were taken as prisoners; a photograph of a happy family on a picnic, a laughing couple at their wedding, children on bicycles, a handsome young man with hope and fire in his eyes. These people were just like you and I before they were ripped away from everything that they knew and thrust into a living hell. We toured the grounds and structures, and by the time we arrived at the crematorium I felt thoroughly nauseous. I heard a little girl ask her mother “how could this have happened?” I wanted to know too.

In the bookstore afterwards, I found a beautiful little amulet that I fell in love with immediately. It is a Hamsa, a Jewish token that is said to grant protection and happiness. It is richly colored and engraved with little fish and an open eye, and the back is engraved with the Traveler’s Prayer in Hebrew. To me, the amulet represents faith, hope, and love, all of which seem to remain, enduring, even through the most horrific of human experiences.  

Snowboarding in Biberwier, Austria

I'm not bragging, but when the hardest decision on a Friday afternoon is whether or not to take a last minute snowboarding trip in the Alps of Austria, you feel spoiled as heck. Needless to say, I was up at 4am the next morning and running to catch the bus that would take me there. I joined Bart—an Army officer, helicopter pilot, and boyish jokester—and the two of us boarded the pre-dawn shuttle.

The journey was longer than expected, due to the fact the autobahn was slicked over in ice. Although we had to wait hours and hours in a stau (a traffic jam) I was happy to think that I may have been one of the only people to have ever danced in the middle of the German autobahn. Plus, inching through the Alps was sort of an adventure. Grandiose peaks loomed so high that they looked like the sky at first glance, and the snow that blew from the icy forest of firs looked like glitter in the stormy sun. Frosted lakes and sleepy villages set at the foot of monstrous mountains made me feel like I was in a fairy-tale land, so I would have felt like a brat to complain of the delay.  

The resort we arrived at looked as if it had come straight from a postcard, and is the epitome of what I always picture the Alps to look like. Striking mountains surrounded the cozy village, and the sky was blue with black and golden clouds that floated about like orbs. There were no lines on the lifts, and the snow was so clean and new and fluffy that even someone who didn't like winter sports would have become an enthusiast. I loved the view from the top of the lift, the feeling of soaring down the alps through sparkling snow, and seeing the picturesque peaks as I flew past them—I think I know what it feels like to be in heaven.

Bart is a little more advanced at snowboarding than I am, but that didn't prove to be a problem since he seemed to thoroughly enjoy going in circles around my teetering self and raking waves of powder into my face. After a while we stopped at a cozy lodge at the top of a peak for a warm drink. I ordered a sweet black tea with rum, which was delicious and helped to warm up my icicle body.

The day flew by and before I knew it we were climbing back onto the bus. We stopped in a German village for dinner, and hearty potato soup and a cheese sandwich on Brötchen was just the thing I needed to polish off another wonderful day.