No Longer #BarcAloneA

I lied. I couldn't resist. I got peer pressured to announce a last post by all the study abroaders who are already home and forgot I still have three weeks of adventure. This one might not even be the last either before I say HI AMERICA. You might even get to hear of the annual Davis family Christmas adventure, Italian edition.

My last week of school went from crazy and borderline stressful to not crazy and not stressful when I learned that the one really scary hard test I had set for the end of the week "wouldn't be ready" so I would "get" to take it "remotely" back at Cal Poly for my "convenience." Are you kidding. So now I have the "fun" "opportunity" to go beg a professor when I get home to email my Catalan professor and obtain the test and administer it to me. And it's the class I so deeply dislike and was soooo looking forward to being done with. But that week still allowed me to pretend I'd been studious the whole semester and I cranked out a thirty page paper, twenty minute presentation, two projects, and another test in just a few days. Probably going to add "Fluent in Spanish Excel" to my resume after the endless struggle I overcame with that horrible entity. I'll definitely keep in touch with a few of the pals from school, and am excited for the day when I come back to Spain and get to visit so many great people. My last day with YoungLife at the instituto saw an improvement in my basketball skills and a little bit of a sad goodbye to some of the sweet and funny girls we've been making friends with over the past few months. Luis and Bri (the YL pals I go there with) have been the best part and were such a bummer to say goodbye to. BUT, they both have plans and dreams to come to America, and Luis is learning English, although right now it's pretty much limited to Will Smith (Was Smith) jokes.

 

The one plus of not having as much studying to do during my last week was I had much more time to resume my position as American Tourist and drag my large camera and bright red tourist backpack everywhere. All I was missing was a fanny pack and hat with a propeller. I finally caved and spent the fortune required to visit Casa Batllo, one of Gaudi's most outstanding works (I would say second only to the Sagrada Familia). Totally worth it. Every piece of the design was inspired by nature (as is all his work), with the majority reflecting the ocean's vast radiance. I also went back to Museu Nacional d'Arte de Catalunya and did the other half that Mariko and I didn't have a chance to get to and discovered they had some gr8 Gaudi designs on display. Learning that I really love Gaudi. I timed it so I had just enough time to go get a paella and sangria dinner and march back to Plaza Espana to see the Magic Fountains of Montjuic in all their splendor again. Another fun last week in Barcelona find was Hospital San Pau, Barcelona's best non-Gaudi architecture. It's a mini-city built on nine square city blocks, that up until the 90s was a functioning hospital. The hospital has since expanded to another portion of the cite and the remainder is a cultural center. It was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the same architect who designed the Palau de la Musica in Barrio Gotic. I really love his work as well and could have spent forever wandering around the grounds. Probably the first and only hospital that I will ever say that about.

My last day of school brought summer weather with it so I went to my favorite sandwich shop, Bo Da B and brought lunch down to the beach to watch not one, but two naked photo shoots. It appeared that everyone else had also forgotten their swimsuits and converted the usual topless trend to sun's out, buns out.

My last Sunday was one of my favorite days of my entire sabbatical. I went to church in the morning with my wonderful friend Bri and her sister. Since it was the last Sunday before Christmas, they did a special Christmas skit which was the most hilarious thing. Explaining it won't come close, but it was parodies of Frozen songs, involved a hunchback named Igor, a guapa puerta (beautiful door), and a thousand tiny children who had balls of yarn stuck to their shirts that were too distracting to allow them to sing. I was crying. After church, I met my friend Ivan to hike along el Camino de aigues, which is a path that stretches the entire length of the hills in Barcelona. So, when I was backpacking in western Europe, I was hiking through the hills of mount Tibidabo... But besides the initial part where Ivan told me to wear jeans and then we ended marching for twenty minutes straight up a hill that was not appropriate for jeans, it was great. The path has amazing views of the entire city and the Catalunya coastline for kilometers. Then we hunted (and I mean hunted, it took forever and Ivan kept getting us lost) for a Mexican restaurant for dinner, which was gr8 because it meant excessive amounts of my soul food: cheese. He gave me a Spanish kiss goodbye and I was kind of suddenly hit with how sad I was to have to start saying goodbye to everyone that I love here. Ivan's been a great friend. He's one of the only ones who gets me, and by that I mean thinks I'm funny, and by that I mean is gracious enough to pretend that the sense of humor I think I have in English translated to Spanish. So fun.
 

I've gotten to spend the last few evenings with my roommates Rocio and Mariko (honestly don't think I'll even see the other one before I leave. I've seen her once during the month of December) and have loved every minute. Precious Mariko has cried a couple of times thinking about me leaving and I'm going to miss them both so dearly. It's been so easy to forget that we're all different ages (like V different ages) and have such such vastly different interests and lives, but we came together and lived together for four months and they're my best friends here. They're some of the only people that I've been able to share conversations that go deeper than just the present. My last day with Mariko we went ice skating in Plaza Catalunya and it was absolutely hilarious. She had never been ice skating in her life and was so scared, but in typical Mariko fashion did it anyways and shined. So so funny though to skate around holding hands with a 36 year old Japanese woman and surprise everyone that our common language is Spanish. Recently this past week there have been so many moments with her where I've gotten to encourage her (and be infinitely more encouraged by her), laugh with her, cry with her, and be blessed by her that have made me think I could have done nothing else here and my time would be so full and so worth it because of Mariko. She also told me that before I came when she heard an American girl was moving in, she was scared because she thought all Americans were like 90210. Apparently, I shocked her initially with how much modest clothing I wear (LOL) and how nice I am and how the only times I'm loud are when I laugh. She's since said that she now wants to learn English and come to America because of me. Praying and waiting for that day. Seriously though, they've both blessed me immensely in challenging me to constantly practice my Spanish, humbling me with how patient they are with my mistakes, and showered me with constant kindness, encouragement, and friendship. Leaving them will be the hardest part.

But then my family came and rescued me from my 5x7 hovel and we immediately began their welcome to Barcelona with sangria and paella. I saved my actual tour of the Sagrada Familia for when my family was here, because that too costs a fortune. It's supposed to be finished in 2028, and I will most certainly be back for opening day. Hands down my favorite thing I've done in Barcelona. Casa Batllo is a pretty incredible and astounding, but it's a boring lump of coal compared to the Sagrada Familia. And traveling through Europe, it's easy to get a little bit jaded and have all the cathedrals melt together in your memory. But not with the Sagrada Familia. Gaudi again designed every single detail with unbelievable foresight, and everything is filled with natural light, reflecting creation, and giving this holy, sacred atmosphere. The church itself is a beautiful hymn, with few straight lines and few dark corners. Working there would be one of the best jobs since I think you could spend a hundred years staring at the interior and still miss things. The nativity facade is almost overwhelming and it's a struggle to take it all in--Gaudi designed the holy family, the wise men, the shepherds, the angels, scenes from Jesus' life and ministry. Then the other side of the cathedral depicts the passion from Judas' kiss to casting lots for his clothes to the crucifixion and resurrection. It's also crazy to see the juxtaposition of the old construction and new. The parts that were built in the 1890s (ya what) are blackened with pollution and some parts are starting to look worn. This all next to the sparkling new pieces, some of which I've noticed new since my arrival, which is pretty surprising since it almost never looks like they're actively working. Then, we toured the nativity tower which was the most hilarious experience. You walk the spiral stairs on the way down behind two hundred Asians who find each curve novel and thrilling and take pictures at every turn. So every time they stopped to replicate the same picture for the thousandth time, we stopped and took the same picture too. I couldn't stop laughing at how hilarious it was to look down the spiral and see a hundred heads popping out to look down or up too. So so hard to resist spitting.
 

We spent the rest of the day walking ourselves to death down Las Ramblas, past the other famous Gaudi houses, souvenir shopping, tapas tasting, and dining at my dad's favorite kebab place (been there five times now with him). One of the good things about my family being here is it meant that today when a bird pooped in my hair, I had a gagging sister instead of a stranger there to help clean it out.

It's actually a little bit absurd how perfect every moment of this #sabbaticallie has been. Haven't been sick once. Haven't been homesick one bit. Haven't found anything real to complain about. And, unless I get robbed on the train to the airport, we can say Allie: 29138102938129, Pickpocketers: 0.

We're off to spend Christmas in Italy, maybe you'll hear from one or more of us on the other end.

Wein in Bavaria, you'll find yourself Munchen your way, Austruck and Singing

This is likely my last blog, as I'll be seeing the majority of my biggest followers in 1-3 weeks. SO SOAK IT UP and try not to die with how long it is. But let's be honest, the #sabbaticallie adventures (and punny sickness) will still continue and this baby will probably see the light of day again in a few months when the next adventure starts.

Spain had a holiday on December 8, one of my two weekly days of class, giving me a full week of free adventure. I started with Vienna. Vienna has always been a dream. I got off the plane at 4 pm and it was already dark, so that meant my first evening was solely dedicated to hunting down all of Vienna's world famous Christmas markets. After attending at least 28 Christmas Markets in Europe (no joke) in my travels (24 just this week), I consider myself qualified to say that Vienna has the best ones. Pretty much life began when I was handed a small red Christmas boot full of spiced apple wine. And then life continued when I found schnitzel (unfortunately never with noodles). By the end of my Christmas market journey, I became the owner of enough Christmas ornaments to furnish several Christmas trees and will never have to buy or make Christmas decorations again. Definitely going to the top of the list of things that make me marriage material. (For my future self or anyone going to Vienna for Christmas, the best markets are located at Stephensplatz, Rathausplatz, and Museumplatz).

The next day in Vienna I began my morning in a random cafe where I ate a donut filled with apricot and enjoyed a Viennese melange, which is coffee with cinnamon and whipped cream. Tastes nothing like coffee but still just as glorious. Then I went to the Mozarthaus museum, which is one of the zillion of apartments Mozart lived in for ten minutes during his brief lifetime. I followed this up with a visit to the Haus der Musik. I'd nearly forgotten the wealth of musical talent that Vienna held during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Mozart. Beethoven. Scheubert. Strauss. And so many more. It was actually v fun to go back through and relearn about those musicians. 


 The Haus de Musik is set up in an interactive way aimed at encouraging kids to be interested in music, but simultaneously does a great job of presenting the history behind composers and their compositions. The staircases are pianos (think Elf) and then you enter into a series of rooms that are designed to help you understand how you hear. 

The second is one that "lets you relive the sensations of being a child in a womb." Wasn't really something I need to go back and "relive." But later they did have this really fun exhibit where you got to select a Mozart song and then conduct an orchestra with a baton (kind of like Wii) and the orchestra would respond to your every movement. I walked through the gardens outside the Hofburg Palace before metroing over to the Schönbrunn Palace.

At the Schönbrunn Palace, I took a tour of the royal apartments, and while all of the three main palaces in Vienna are compared to Versailles, these actually felt like it with the same ridiculous ornateness and beautiful views over the large palace gardens. Plus, found out that the royal family was Marie Antoinette's family so that was interesting after learning all about her in Versailles. Plus, her mother Sisi had hair down to her ankles. And I thought my hair was long enough to debut topless without any problems.

I had a few remaining seconds of sunlight to see the gardens, and then got to enjoy the Schönbrunn Christmas market. All of the Christmas markets are full of handmade ornaments, the best sausage and warm drinks, and Christmas trees. Most had nativity scenes and advent bands or string quartets giving special advent performances. Some had Christmas carolers. All had warm gingerbread cookies and steaming bowls of apfel dumplings and cream. I was happy to spend all my time at these.

Then I discovered that it was only a couple of euros to take a tour of the Vienna Opera House. This fun Austrian man with a thick Irish accent gave our tour. The opera was sold-out for the performance of "La Traviata," and since I enjoyed the Christmas markets so much I resigned myself to thinking I wouldn't go. But the combination of a nice sleet storm at 5 pm and the discovery that the line for standing room tickets was short and conveniently indoors meant that I found myself buying a 4 euro ticket to the opera. The opera. The great part about it too, was they let us go in early and reserve our standing spots, and then I had enough time to run (literally. I'm such an embarrassing tourist) to the Christmas market outside of St. Stephen's cathedral to sample their winning orange punch. The show itself was amazing; the lead female was outstanding, and standing for the duration wasn't that horrible, minus the fact that I limped home. I was, however, sorely underdressed, wearing a flannel shirt and colored pants. Got a few "knowing smiles" from the classy old ladies in the bathroom in their black dresses and long fur coats. Apparently flannel isn't opera attire.
The most special part of the story of me going to the opera is that 59 years ago my grandma attended the grand premiere of the re-opening of the Vienna Opera for the FIRST time after reconstruction was complete from the bombings in WWII. She was waiting in line for a tour earlier that day when the other tourists were too excited about getting inside, they broke the door. The tour was canceled and she was so disappointed. She walked up to a man who worked there to ask if there was any way she could just see inside. Now this is where the story gets fuzzy. She gives no explanation for what happens next, but if you saw a picture of my grandma from the 50s, everything would be explained away. Basically, the man fell in love with her and told her and her friend to come back later that night. Where they were given seats with the conductor's family practically on the stage. For free. Just because. On opening night. For the first time after the war. She continually makes all my travel adventures seem extremely lame with stories like this. But it's so cool to hear her talk about the sense of excitement in the air that night and how the opening of the opera symbolized freedom and rebirth. My opera story comes nowhere close in comparison, but it was so fun getting to be there, seeing the building and a show, and knowing how special of a place the Vienna Opera House is to my Gram.

The buffet hall during intermission

Marble mosaic murals of performers

Ceiling in the grand hall - one of the only original areas of the Opera House

Beethoven - the Opera House displays busts of its most famous composers

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna

 

Outside the Belvedere Castle

Outside the Military History Museum

My last morning in Vienna I got up v early which was the best decision. I walked to a street market called Nachsmarkt and got there right as all the stalls were opening. Plus, on Saturdays, the area past the market turns into a flea-for-all antique sale. It was so fun seeing really Austrian people picking over things at the market or coming to buy their bulk goods or get an early lamb kebab instead of being overwhelmed by tourists. One man advised me to not eat the noodles sold by his neighbor or I would look like a noodle. Instead, I should eat his sauerkraut. I in turn decided to ignore all of this and buy bulk caramels from the woman across the way. On the whole, a much better decision. Then I ran (via public transit) to see the Belvedere Castle and visit the nearby Military museum. Little did I know that both places had thriving Christmas markets outside. The military museum had this hilarious medieval themed Christmas market that sold everything from holly-laced lances to full lamb legs to your next bow and arrow set. The museum had some promotion for the festival so admission was wonderfully free. The WWI exhibit did an amazing job of telling the rather confusing story of cause-and-effect of the war with the backdrop of old uniforms, weapons, and personal artifacts. The WWII exhibit in comparison was a little lacking and felt almost like an afterthought. 

I took the train from Vienna with this glorious Austrian family who fed me peanuts and had a child who ran screaming up and down the halls of the train, and with a boy who was the most flustered yet well-dressed Austrian student I've ever met. Between my German and his English we had a very fruitful conversation. The train went through the green, misty hills of Austria and brought me to the magical land of Salzburg. As is becoming the theme of my travel habits, I arrived with only part of the afternoon remaining and it quickly became dark at some ungodly hour, so my first day was spent touring Salzburg's Christmas markets. The weirdest part about these markets were that they were eight thousand times more crowded than those in Vienna, which shocked me and overwhelmed me for such a comparatively small place. But the plus side was that I found the best brat and sauerkraut combination in the entire world. I returned three times it was that amazing. The second Salzburg Christmas market I went to had a really special Advent concert. The market was located in the biggest square of Salzburg (the one where the Von Trapp children and Uncle Max encounter the Nazis) and they had four sets of musicians on top of the bell towers and buildings around the square. They spotlit the musicians and kind of did a call and response concert. It was really grool. Salzburg is also home to 42 Roman Catholic churches (not to mention many more other denominations), and thus is nearly constantly ringing with bells.

The next day I joined thirty other strangers on a Sound of Music tour. Yes it was just as cheesy, just as full of song, just as beautiful and magical as you're currently imagining. Unless you're like the poor girl who had never seen the movie. Or the old Irish man dragged along by his wife who hated the movie. Our tour guide was named Natasha and she kicked the whole thing off by singing like Maria. Then she took us to1/2 of the Von Trapp house. Apparently, they used two different houses in the movie and had to film all of the outside garden/lake scenes twice. The one to the right was used for the garden and the lake, but apparently had an inconvenient front that wouldn't allow for optimized skipping by Maria upon her arrival.The house to the left was only seen from a distance since it's difficult to access, but the long yellow wall should look familiar and was used as the front of the Von Trapp house. It's the Fronnberg palace and now is home to the Mozart academy of music. Also, Mozart was born in Salzburg.

From here, we moved onto the "I am sixteen going on seventeen" gazebo which was relocated from the gardens of the above house when it became private since too many tourists were trespassing at two am to serenade each other right outside the main bedroom. So wish that was still the only way to visit the gazebo. This is me with a baby who is six inches going on seven.

The gazebo is now located outside the Hellbrunn Palace, which conveniently had another gr8 Christmas market, so we got to enjoy that too. Natasha had threatened us that if we were late on getting back on the bus after the market, she would force us to sing Do Re Mi. One man's wife ratted him out and amazingly, he solo'ed the entire song. This kicked us off on our way to the Lake District where we got to drive past the Red Bull headquarters, see four lakes, and panic together over the first snow in Salzburg.

 

Then, we came to Mondsee, a small village that was forever forgotten until they were the only church to agree to allowing the wedding scene to be filmed. So Maria and the Captain's wedding took place in this middle of nowhere beautiful locale, but was presented as if it was in the abbey. Pretty much the entire tour went: song, crushed dreams, song, the movie lies again, song, tears...But Mondsee alos allowed me to find raindrops on roses. Mondsee too had a great Christmas market where I got to add another set of Brat and Sauerkraut to my list and enjoyed some mulled wine while it snowed.

Back in the heart of Salzburg, we visited the Mozart bridge and all of us ran across it in unison. There is no better way to make thirty strangers become thirty friends than to sing and run like idiots through a city together.

The Mozart Bridge they run across dressed in drapes.

The tour ended with a visit to the Mirabell gardens, which are outside a palace that a priest built to make his unauthorized mistress "honorable." This is where the children and Maria sing Do Re Mi on the fountain, run through the tunnel, pat the gnome on the head, and sing the So Do La Fa Mi Do Re song on the steps.

The tunnel they run through in the gardens.

Sew a needle pulling thread!

Do Re Mi Fountain

So Do La Fa Mi Do Re Steps

 After the official tour ended, I continued on foot to see the remainder of the main sights that Natasha only had time to point out to us from the bus. First, I climbed a horribly steep road to where today hosts the Museum of Modern Art (bleck). The view from this ridge is the best in all of Salzburg, and is the one that the movie pretends is the view from the abbey, when in reality, the abbey only looks out onto a couple parking lots and houses. I walked from here along a road that follows this ridge above the city (the one where they are first learning So Do La Fa Mi Do Re where there are the sort of longer steps on the road) all the way to Maria's Abbey (aka Nonberg Abbey). You can't actually go inside the abbey, so I only got to see the doorway through which Maria leaves, the archway where she says "When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window", and an attempt to peek into the courtyard. The abbey itself is beautiful, with a gorgeous maroon mushroom top dome. The rainy snow made the colors even more beautiful. Plus, it was totally secluded, so I gave the nuns my gift of song and sang the appropriate Maria tunes.

 

The morning before I left Salzburg, I got to revisit my favorite Christmas markets (some for the fourth time oops), see St. Peter's Cathedral, and visit the cemetery outside of the cathedral which the cemetery hiding scene in the film was based on (doesn't actually exist at the abbey sorry to crush your dreams too). The cemetery was one of my favorite parts of Salzburg (which sounds weird to say), but it was beautiful. It's not a conventionally shaped cemetery and all of the plots seem more like beautifully chaotic gardens instead of massive marble gravestones. Some of the plots are actually fairly recent, although they don't quite look like it with the piles of roses and twists of ivy. Then I marched over to the building that hosts the Salzburg Festival (an actual thing!) and saw where the Von Trapps performed and the Captain sang "Edelweiss" for the Nazis before escaping. Just outside, is a nice statue of pickels (not kidding).

Munich's Christmas markets were just as big and festive as could be. Their most special one was the Kripperlmarkt which is a market dedicated solely to hand-carved, hand-painted nativity figurines. The downside was that it was super expensive. If a snail the size of my thumbnail cost 20 euros, you can only imagine what baby Jesus goes for. (Also, snail at the nativity? sure). Munich also has a fun market that they call their Nativity Market which is supposedly display after display of set up Nativity scenes. I think there were two. The rest were talking meese or creepy automated grandmas telling the story of Hansel and Gretel or angels surrounding Santa singing weird Christmas mashups in English. Really strange. I also tried gluhbier which is warm beer which tastes exactly like melted cotton candy which is weird but also wonderfully Christmas and gr8.

The next day, I spent the morning at Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp. I included thoughts about Dachau at the end of my post for those who feel up to reading about that.


After Dachau, I went to Hoffbrauhaus, likely the most famous beer hall in Munich. The servers wear the typical German beer attire and they have a band playing live Bavarian music. The hall is gorgeous and massive, nearly all completely reconstructed after the WWII Munich bombings. Upstairs, they have a large banquet hall that hosts a beer/beer hall museum and the occasional ballroom dance club for the elderly. I had delicious venison with cranberries and brussels sprouts and the Hoffbrauhaus dunkels (dark) beer.
 

The old men who shared my table also shared their large basket of pretzels with me and I learned it's totally a thing to drink Bavarian beer and eat pretzels in Munich.One of the best parts of the beer houses is learning their history that extends from the first food purity law in 1516 to incredibly famous historical events and conversations from Hitler to the Kennedy family.

The last day of my Bavarian adventure began with a visit to St. Mary's church, the one typically seen in pictures of the Munich skyline with the two towers (although one was sadly covered for restoration). Then, I climbed a horrid amount of stairs up the tower in St. Peter's cathedral and got an amazing view of Munich from above the old city hall square. Almost as soon as I had climbed down the tour, the three drops of golden sun that I enjoyed clouded over and became the usual German winter mist.

I also stopped in the Bier and Oktoberfest museum. Which in Munich is located in the most tavern of taverns. The museum had hundreds of beer steins from the beginning of time and told me that Oktoberfest originally began as an annual horse race to celebrate the wedding of the Bavarian crown prince in 1810. The beer craze piece of it came much, much later. Above you can see my best mirror selfie. I think it's like the drunk goggles exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

 

So I decided to head to Lowenbrau, a beer hall from the 1300s that means "Lion's Brew." Their emblem is a picture of a lion, from Daniel in the Lions' Den. Like many of the buildings in Munich, this one has a story of several reconstructions from fires and disasters, the most recent being bombings from WWII. I enjoyed a glorious apfel schnitzel with vanilla cream. Next, I walked through the Konigsplatz, the location of many Nazi rallies, and where they built (now destroyed thankfully) temples to commemorate the "fallen" from Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. From there, I walked to the Tollwood Winter Festival. This festival is located at the Oktoberfest grounds, and was a large Christmas-themed artisan and folky market. They had giant tents full of handmade goods and things that really had nothing to do with Christmas. A few more hours outside in the cold drove me to Augustinerbrau, another of the famous Munich breweries, where I had a really delicious potato bacon leek soup. On the whole though, decided I'm not the biggest Bavarian beer fan. Prague wins the best beer of this #sabbaticallie. 

 

I'm sorry that this post may have been a little more Wikipedia than Aziz Ansari, but that's just what happens when you're overwhelmed by history and life. I've been back in Spain for a week and went to my second to last language date with Ivan and we got pizza and tried to tell each other jokes in foreign languages. I'm still going to the instituto with Luis and Bri for YL and still forcibly playing basketball every week and still completely and regularly embarrassing myself, but still loving every minute of it. We had our last YL reunion del equipo (team mtg) y kedada that I'll be able to attend. They did Christmas in July because ITS STILL SUMMER HERE so I tried to make a costume out of my normal clothes. THAT WASNT HARD. Jona brought sixteen teenage boys from Banyoles, the ones I met way back when on my visit there, and it just made my heart so happy to see how much he loves them and how much they love him, even though they would never admit it and act like they're too cool. But hi, why did you come with a forty year old man an hour and a half on a Saturday night if you don't love him and aren't somewhat interested in what's going on here? They're just so great.

Now that I'm at the end of this, another post may come full of the sappy "here's what I've learned" and "here's why I'm thankful" things that is required of every idiot who studies abroad. So Merry Christmas. I'll talk to you after I turn in my thirty page paper and take all my finals. Lol. Still really, really not looking forward to the day where I eat my last authentic Spanish paella.
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If you want to keep reading, below is my thoughts on Dachau and some of my pictures. Like I said before, it might be a little on the intense side so pretend you're listening to one of those usual movie disclaimers and decide for yourself if you want to keep going.

I had to write this part twice. I typed my whole thoughts out immediately after my visit while on the train back to Munich, but my phone deleted the note. I apologize in advance if the next part is a little intense. This blog was delayed because I couldn't decide if I should include this or not. Plus, it took me a whole week before I could look at my Dachau pictures again, and it's still hard to. I honestly didn't really even realize how much that visit affected me until I started telling people about it.

Ten years ago my family traveled to Poland and visited the most horrific concentration camp from the Nazi reign, Auschwitz (although giving a superlative like that isn't fair because each camp had its own horrors that I can only imagine were so unbearable and no less to the prisoners there). One of the most vivid memories o that visit for me is the curved, rusted iron gate that greets you (and historically, the prisoners) as you walk in: "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Makes Free"). As an eleven-year-old who definitely couldn't appreciate the entirety of the camp, I still remember feeling like I was going to cry just thinking about the fact that I would get to walk back out underneath that sign whenever I wanted and so many before me couldn't. Almost an equally powerful image greeted me at Dachau: the absence of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign. Just over a month ago, that portion of the camp entrance gate was stolen and has yet to be recovered. Whatever the reasons or motives behind the theft, beginning the tour of a site already so full of atrocity and evil with something so sad to taint the memory was difficult. 

I walked through the gate, underneath the guardhouse and faced the roll call square. This area is where the prisoners were lined up in highly organized, military lines each morning. Roll call started at 430 am, sometimes earlier, and could last up to four hours. Prisoners were counted and recounted. Forced to stand unmoving. Even the sick had to be there. Collapsing under the strain was common, but no prisoner could help another for fear of both being beaten or killed. Each prisoner had a number, not a name. I stood in the square, freezing. I was wearing two pairs of gloves, a huge scarf, four layers of clothing underneath my jacket, earmuffs, and boots that are so warm my feet sweat indoors, yet I was so unbelievably cold. I stood alone in this square and all I could think was, I'm freezing now, but thousands of people stood here unmoving for hours in the winter, concealing their shivers, dressed only in threadbare, single-layer uniforms before me. The weather was grey and wet. The cold hung about you like it would never leave. The whole camp was colorless and dead. I expect even on the warmest and sunniest of days, the camp looks exactly the same. No amount of beauty of nature could breathe life back there.

From the roll call square, I turned and went through the museum. If I could go back, I would have done this part last instead of first. It made it so much harder to go through the rest of the camp with such horrible, vivid images emblazoned in my mind of the atrocities committed and the suffering endured in each spot I walked. The museum is located in the old "maintenance" building and is now room after room of pictures, stories, films, and artifacts that paint the history of Dachau and the smallest glimpse of the bleak life they endured.The museum details the development of the Third Reich's first camp. It simultaneously served as a place to hold former criminals and enemies against the regime as "preventative" measures and as a training ground for SS personnel, and quickly escalated to an internment camp for Jews, Soviet prisoners, and "subhumans" of all nationalities. Here, Heinrich Himmler ran his "school of violence" where he taught Nazis how to regard such people as less, as deserving of surprise floggings or tree hangings or terrorizing torture. The camp experienced so much "success" that all other camps were built with the same model and operated with the same methods of abuse and terror. The museum begins with Hitler's rise to power and slowly walks you through the history moving on the outside while prison life developed within. The museum exhibit ends with a 22 minute documentary about Dachau. One that shows even more horrific images and film than the remainder of the exhibit (if that could even be possible). You hear US and British troops recount what it was like to enter Dachau on the day of liberation in 1945 and see piles and piles of dead bodies. To smell the stench of death and feces. To see universal starvation and sickness. To know that for so many, they were too late. You hear survivors talk about their experiences, and you sit in shock that they made it through. You hear historians talk about surveys done in the village nearby, and how every single person knew something awful was happening within the prison walls, but the majority thought they must be benefiting from it. You see image after image of bodies who didn't make it off the train, prisoners who "sinned" by trying to share their bread, of guards who strip prisoners of their clothes, hair, and dignity, and then do it all again.

From here, I walked back outside and into the reconstructed barracks. Three rooms show the evolution of prison life from the beginning, to the middle, to the end of the camp. The rooms were initially built to house sixty, and in the end crammed as many as six hundred. The double bunks of the early thirties are luxurious compared to the "efficient" model of the forties that allowed prisoners to be stacked together much easier. The walls are thin and seem to hold the cold in instead of keeping it out. The floors echo and creak and bear signs of the beatings prisoners received for a wrinkle found in their bedsheets during morning inspections. I found myself silently thankful that this display, while no less hair-raising, did not include the rooms full of human hair, thousands of broken pairs of eyeglasses, and piles of confiscated leather boots that Auschwitz does. Those images are ones I would like to see only once.

Thankfully, "thankfully", Dachau was never categorized as an extermination camp. The gas chambers that were built towards the end of the war were never used (at least records cannot prove the chambers were ever used for mass extermination - historians think its possible they were used for other experimental means). But to say one camp as this is not classified as an extermination camp is wrong. Typhus rampantly killed thousands. Guards massacred hundreds who tried to up-rise the day before US troops liberated the camp. More died in medical "experiments" or at the refusal of guards or doctors to allow ill prisoners to receive treatment. One of the most horrible moments of my visit was when I walked into the crematorium. I had the images of the piles of dead bodies lumped together, tangled in a mass of bent limbs, emaciated men, women, and children, cramped and shoveled aside, fresh in my mind from the documentary when I found myself standing alone in a small, white room. The only other thing with me was a small inscription on the wall that said "here is where the bodies were stored before they were loaded into the ovens." The weight of the realization that I was standing where once thousands of forgotten souls, victims, once lay before such a routine and lifeless "disposal." It was even worse to have to walk out of the building through the gas chambers and find myself ducking for fear the gas would turn on. Man, and I'm doing this freely, seventy years later, and I lived to write about it. And so many didn't. So many didn't.

At the end, you see a series of memorials. Jewish. Catholic. Protestant. Russian. Plaques to commemorate the troops who liberated the camp. Artistic statues to forever hold the memory of the many who died and suffered in the Holocaust. The camp preserves their memory. So many are working to ensure the world never forgets and never lets this happen again. But even with all their attempts to show the glimmers of hope, all you want to do is run as far away as you can and never go back.

A view into the "dead zone"

The dormitories circa 1943. Hundreds slept in these bunks built for "efficiency"

The guardhouse and one of the guard towers. The Arbeit Macht Frei sign missing.

The Holocaust Memorial-designed by one of the Dachau survivors

Flowers placed in memory on the foundation of the former "sanitarium"

A view onto Roll Call Square