Berlin or Bust!

To my astonishment, we are settled in the actual city of Berlin. We arrived into the city pretty early this morning and made our way to the first hotel of the day. Upon arrival, we found out that the hotel was an hour outside of Berlin, not a great location for sightseeing. A little tired, we made our way back to the airport and were working on getting flights changed to go back to Munich earlier. A little over everything and really over the unhelpful people. I hope that when people come to the US, that we are more helpful and friendly than some of the people here, who by no means go beyond their job or out of their way to help. Now, some people are really nice, so I hate to stereotype, but it gets frustrating after a while.

Once we were checked into hotel number two that was actually in Berlin, close enough to walk to a remaining section of the Berlin Wall, we began exploring city a little. Tomorrow if the weather is good we plan on taking a bike tour of the city.

Follow the Crowd

The weather is beautiful and sunny, wonderful for exploring the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral. The castle surrounded the cathedral and was like a small town in itself. The stained glass was so neat with all the light shinning through, giving the church a yellow glow. We found a small café for lunch and made a stop at our favorite chocolate shop before going on the bike tour. The “non-strenuous” tour took us through many parts of the city and over the river. Our guide re-vamped the tour to include a biergarten stop. Unlike Germany, the biergarten was uphill. I couldn’t ride up that steep, so I pushed my biked up the hill. Afterwards, we took a different path down, but that required going down flights of stairs to get down. I am now a pro at bike riding through cars, trains and up curbs! During the tour we saw lots of neat artwork, including a statue that was of two men peeing onto a waiting pool in the shape of the Czech Republic. If you so desire, you can text a message to 420 724370707 and the statue will pee whatever message you send to it.

Again by a recommendation we dined at the Café Slavia for traditional Czech food. A great meal for our last night here. Tomorrow is another early morning to get to Berlin.

We have learned from our wondering that following the crowd usually puts you in the right place. If you go and stop seeing people, then you went the wrong way. So far it hasn't lead us astray!

Prague

With an early flight out of Munich, it was off to Prague. By noonish we had dropped off our luggage and were ready to see the sights. A short ride on the subway and we were near Old Town Square. What a view from the Town Hall tower and the clock even has a sort of “show” on the hour. Unimaginable, it was worse than the Glockenspiel! Really not worth a trip to the square on its own. While we were in the square, the 10th Cultural Festival was taking place and we got to see some children doing local dances. The afternoon was just spent wondering the streets. The city is a great place just to wonder and explore. We ran across a bike tour that we decided to do on Sunday and this amazing Belgium chocolate shop, the Gold Pralines.

By recommendation, we headed to the U Prince hotel’s rooftop bar to view the evening sunset before going downstairs for dinner. Number 74 on the menu was chicken! This might not seem like a great feat, but chicken isn’t a big item over here to my dismay.

People here aren’t as friendly as Germany. The guy at the information desk at the subway doesn’t sell tickets, doesn’t give change and doesn’t help you figure out the ticket you need. Not sure what they are paying him for.

Prost!

In Germany when you make a toast you don’t say cheers, but rather prost! This is done by toasting glasses logo to logo, eye to eye. Tonight at the Chinesischer Turm Biergarten, we toasted one last time during our final group dinner of the trip. It doesn’t seem real that two weeks here has past. The time has flown by. After many, many rainy days, today’s weather was amazing with beautiful sun shine. We finished up some lose ends of our project and then went shopping for the last minute souvenirs.

For lunch, it was good ‘ole American food at Hard Rock Café. You may laugh, but sometimes you just want some food you are accustomed to and at Hard Rock there are free refills. I never realized how great that was until I started paying 3 euro for a coke, no refills. Dad even found some splenda, something that is really hard to come by here. I wanted to climb the roof of one of the Olympic park buildings and rushed to get out there only to find out that they weren’t offering it today because of a concert tomorrow night. This really ticked me off because I have e-mailed multiple times and even tried to buy a ticket Wednesday and the women said it would be no problem to get my ticket today for the tour!!!

Before we met at the biergarten, dad and I climbed 94 steps to an elevator that took us up in a church tower with some great views of the city. Next it was gelato before getting on the subway to meet the group. It is hard to explain the enormousness of a beirgarten. The one we ate at tonight is the second largest in the world and it is 3 times the size of Central Park. Sort of in the center is the food house and beer and around it are huge grassy areas where people lay out and have picnics. One of the rivers also runs throughout the park. Clothes are optional in some parts and there is always tons of people biking, running and just hanging around.

Everyone is now packing and trying to figure out how they are going to get the beer steins home in one piece. It is sad to leave everyone and especially all the friends we have made at the hotel. It is an earlier morning tomorrow as we depart for Prague, so it’s off to bed.

Castles in the Clouds

It was any early day in order to make train one to get to the castles. Our first train departed at 6:40 a.m. followed by a second train then two buses at which point we finally made it to the town of Fusse, where the two castles were that we were visiting today. The first castle was Hohenschwangau, the summer home of King Ludwig I. The castle was in ruins when he found it on a hunting trip and he had the castle renovated for the family.

In 1869 the foundation was laid for Neuschwanstein castle. This is the castle that inspired Walt Disney’s design for Cinderella’s Castle in Walt Disney World, Florida. Both castles are filled with all the original furniture and ornate paintings. Coming back to Munich it only took three transportation vehicles to get us back.

For dinner, dad and I went to 181, the restaurant in the Olympic Tower. The restaurant begins spinning at 7:30 p.m. and offers a 360 degree view of Munich and the surrounding areas. The food was amazing and so was the view. It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day in Munich. Two weeks seemed like so much time, but it is about to come to an end.

BMW. Sheer Driving Pleasure

Munich is the original location for BMW. The company began making airplane motors, but moved into motorbikes and cars when Germany was not allowed to make plane engines following WWI. Now the multi-national company has plants in many countries including Greenville, S.C. On a visit to the museum and plant today, we got to see a short movie on the BMW company history and its products as well as take a plant tour where we saw the 50 hour process it takes to make one car.

The factory here produces around 900 cars per day. With the advances in technology, 98 percent of the process is completed by machines that have amazing maneuverability. In other car factories, the maximum number of welding that can occur is 10 spots at one time. BMW has the ability to have twelve welds at one time. The production line is producing three different cars at the same time. The laser system and computer tracking system are able to tell the machines what type of car and it exact location to allow for precise work and installation of parts.

Before the cars begin the painting process, they are wiped over with ostrich feathers, specifically emu feathers, which cost around 70,000 euros per year. These feathers are known to pull dust and particles from cars to ensure a smooth paint process. The car is covered with fill, or the material that is seen if the paint is chipped and then sent through the color process. Customers can choose from nearly 30 standard colors or can get any specialized color for a nominal fee! If you ever wondered why metallic colors cost more, it is because the process of applying that paint is more difficult to ensure the car surface remains smooth. During the drying process, the cars are sent through infrared lights, which suck the moisture from the paint.

Currently the most popular color is silver with around 35 percent of all cars being this color. A popular color in the US is white, but this color is not popular here because of the danger blending in when driving in snow, fog and rain. The factory only receives supplies as they need them with deliveries coming 30 minutes before. Knowing that traffic or other happenings could disrupt this, the factory has a storage room that houses enough materials to continue producing for up to four hours if supplies aren’t received.

Cars here are made for countries that have driving on different sides of the road. To accommodate for this, the car piece is created to work for either design and the holes on the side not being used are filled in during the assembly line process. One part that I really liked was their community relations. Because the factory is adjacent to homes, the company has meet and continues to meet with the homeowners to ensure the factory does everything it not to be disruptive.

Following the factory tour we ventured through the museum where we could see all the different models of the BMWs and drive a simulation car to see some of the features the cars offer. It is unbelievable the intricate process it takes to make a car from start to finish with such high quality.

Dachau

Even through everything you read and learn about the concentration camps and what occurred there, nothing can prepare you for visiting a camp. Today we went to the Dachau Memorial which was one of the camps in Munich first constructed in March 1933 in a factory. From 1937 to 1938 the camp was re-built to house 6,000 people. When the camp was liberated on April 29, 1945, it was over capacity with more than 32,000 prisoners. Even though the people were liberated, many died from the disease and malnutrition suffered at the camp.

During the re-building in ’37-’38, a fence was built surrounding the camp to make escaping impossible. The fence made with barb wire was watched by SS guards and any prisoner who entered the prohibited zone was fired upon. Some of the prisoners entered this zone to end their misery at the camp. The first people brought to the camp were not Jewish, but people who spoke out about the government. Later people of religious affiliation and other backgrounds were brought to the camp. Originally Dachau only housed men, but later some women were brought to the camp.

Thought the camp had gas chambers, they were not used for mass murder. When the chambers were used, the prisoners were told that they were taking a shower and shower heads were in the rooms to make it look the part. In the crematorium area people were killed by execution or other murder techniques. Approximately 11,000 prisoners were cremated during the camps operations.

In the beginning, the camp was used as a “prevention” center where people were brought to show them how bad it could be if they continued their behavior and typically they changed their behavior when released. Prisoners at the camp were worked from 4 in the morning until 9 at night. If there wasn’t useful work for them to do, they were forced to exercise all day. Upon arrival the guards decided what work and place you would live in.

The camp was visited to see how people were being treated and what type of people were being held. To make things look in their favor, the SS had designated barracks that were nicer and groups of certain stereotypes present during these visits so that people would think that the prisoners were treated well and that they needed to be held. The camp did have an infirmary with a dentist. One visitor commented that the prisoners got better dental care than outsiders, but what they didn’t know was that the dentist was there to pull out any gold teeth the prisoners had.

Before leaving we viewed a twenty minute video that documented life and the happenings in Germany, but particularly in reference to Dachau. It is unimaginable that people could work at a place where they killed so many people and just hauled them off or burned their remains. Even after visiting I don’t think that the situation makes sense as to the enormous number of people who were affected by these camps. At Dachau alone there were more that 206,000 people registered to have been there when it was liberated.