Well, the first part of my adventure was sitting on a bus for twelve hours. It was overnight. I mostly slept.
Then we arrived in Munich. Part of the trip included a bike tour around the city, which was awesome! One of the big differences here was that bikes were respected on the road just as much as cars. I know it's supposed to be like that in America, but if we're honest, it's really not. Here, it was. It was really cool.
We did some local history spotting, but the best part of being on a bike tour was just focusing on the lush outdoors of Germany. We even stopped at the city's biggest clothing-optional park- didn't spend much time there. After stopping at the second-biggest beer garden in Germany for lunch (I got an enormous pretzel and a bratwurst. This must be what happiness tastes like) we stopped to see river surfing. River surfing is a local sport where they surf on the whitecaps at a certain location on a small river.
After that, it was time to go to the festival!
The next day we spent most of our time roaming the festival, going on rides, and eating our way through the booths. German food is meat and pretzels and just goodness.
On our final day, we took a break from all the fun to do something a little more sobering and visited the Dachau concentration camp. They've left a lot of it up as a memorial and museum.
The gates to Dachau- the inscription cites "work will set you free"
Some of the ovens used during the holocaust.
It was a good way to end the weekend- Germany is so fun and the people I met are so friendly and easygoing that it's easy to forget that they're a country still deeply hurting from the events of WWII. It almost made the festival that much more special- all the Germans I met were so, so friendly- honestly, one of the friendliest countries I visited. There's a real sense of openness, you really get the feeling that Germans want to make friends with people from all countries.
I was sitting at a table with some friends for an early lunch and one German guy sat down next to us- said his friends were running late and would we mind if he talked with his before they came? We had such a pleasant conversation- he told us about his daughter that was our age and talked about driving the autobahn. And that was typical of so many of the German people I met. They just wanted to share stories, to hear about our lives in America and tell us about their culture.
I'm so glad I got to go on this trip. I'd love to go to Germany again one day- maybe for a longer time. It's such a vibrant culture.
