Really nice day today. Raquel and I got up around 9:30 and left for Munich (or, as it's known here in Germany, München) at 11. We had a pleasant two-hour drive on the autobahn, which involved listening to a lot of music and going at speeds that are frankly impossible in California. Fun fact: in certain places, there is no speed limit on the autobahn. The first time I heard this, I was astounded, and I thought German highway patrol would be up to their eyeballs in car wrecks, but actually, having experienced it for myself, the system seems to work pretty well. Raquel also pointed out the exit signs, the German word for which is "ausfahrt." She mentioned that when she arrived in Germany, she was astounded at the size of this great city, Ausfahrt, because there were signs for it
everywhere. Then her husband pointed out what it actually meant. Frankly, it's an easy mistake to make, and I laughed when she told me that she's seen t-shirts with legends like "Ausfahrt: the biggest town in Germany" and the like (
Urban Dictionary backs her up here).
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| Thank you, Google Images! |
We got to Munich at one o'clock on the dot and headed over to the Alte Pinakothek, an art museum (my sixth in Europe so far, hells yeah), which houses, among other famous works, Albrecht Dürer's
Self-Portrait in Fur Coat and
The Four Apostles, and Leonardo Da Vinci's first painting,
Madonna of the Carnation. Raquel mentioned she had never been to an art museum like it before, and she seemed to enjoy the experience. She really liked
Hieronymus Bosch's work; I promised to show her
The Garden of Earthly Delights before I went back to France. Working in the art history department comes in surprisingly handy!
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| Also, for the Doctor Who fans, behold François Boucher's Madame de Pompadour! |
After a couple of hours, we decided to head out, though we weren't nearly done with the museum; we wanted to get to Dachau before the concentration camp memorial site closed. We grabbed some sandwiches to go at a bakery on the outskirts of Munich (mozzarella and tomato seems to be a favorite throughout Western Europe, which I appreciate very much as a vegetarian) and hopped back on the road. Dachau, as it turns out, is not very far at all from Munich, and twenty minutes later we were parked and walking onto the memorial site.
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| The front gates, with the motto "Arbeit Macht Frei" |
It was a very strange feeling to be there. I've been surrounded by World War II lately; I'm taking a class on Winston Churchill, my Aftermath of Wars Since 1990 class mentioned post-World War II propaganda in passing, I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and shortly afterwards I watched a well-regarded miniseries about her life. But, as the Anne Frank House taught me, there's an emotional distance between reading something and standing where the players have stood. Walking into Dachau felt chilling. I couldn't imagine how anyone could possibly deny the Holocaust happened; I stood in the room that had once been a gas chamber and saw the ovens and the barracks with my own eyes. Dachau wasn't even an extermination camp; it was first intended for political prisoners, and apparently few people were gassed there. But Raquel and I went by at least three memorial stones representing the thousands of people who died of illness, starvation, overwork, and execution, and down an avenue where all but two of the barracks had been torn down, but the foundations were left in their place. It was very quiet, very sad, and very real.
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| There was a chapel on the property; we lit some candles in honor of the victims |
We left just after closing time. On the drive back to Grafenwöhr, Raquel, who had been sneezing all day, went downhill fast. I felt her cheek; she was burning up. I was sorry I couldn't volunteer to drive (apparently I would need a special European license for that), and glad when we finally got back. We went to have dinner with her friends Alex and Jason, both soldiers in the Army like Raquel's husband, at their house, where Raquel could take it easy. Alex made a pizza from scratch - he's a really good cook.
After dinner we sat around in the living room and watched
Zombieland. They offered me a German beer, but I didn't like it, so Raquel made me a drink with pineapple juice and some coconut rum. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, though I drank it very slowly and only after having had dinner. I'm paranoid about getting drunk. I think I may have had my first real buzz, though. I'm not sure if I really liked it, but it wasn't necessarily a bad feeling, just unusual. I noticed that I did slur my words a little toward the end of my drink, so I don't think I'll be repeating this often, but it was an interesting little experiment, and I'm glad I tried it at a house just hanging out with people rather than at a bar or a wild party.
We ended up crashing at Alex and Jason's place; Raquel says their couch is more comfortable than her bed, which helped her get some much-needed rest when she wasn't feeling well, and they had a spare room for me. Raquel mentioned that she was pretty sure we were going to have to cancel Prague; I was disappointed, but I saw how miserable her fever was making her, and knew it was for the best. And really, even though we aren't going to the Czech Republic, my time in Germany has been fun so far, Raquel getting sick aside. I'm glad I decided to pay a visit.
