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May 16, 2015 - 11:28 p.m.
"dachau" or "salzburg, austria"

5/16/15 11:28pm CEST

Hey Journal!

This morning we woke up in our hotel room in Munich, Germany! We had set our alarms for 8:00am but I wasn't able to sleep past 7. I'm really tired now, though...so I kinda wish I had been able to sleep later.

We got up and took our time getting ready and then we checked out of the hotel. We were nervous because we only booked the hotel room for one person because when we went to do it online, it wasn't available for two for some reason. The room was fine for two people and we had no idea why it wasn't showing up for two. Anyway, every time I had to go up to the desk Dan just stayed back and I did all the talking as if I was the only one staying there. I know they probably didn't care and everything was fine.

The hotel had real keys for the rooms and you also needed a real key to get the car out of the garage across the street! It was so strange. I liked having the real room key, it was cool...but for the car it was annoying!

Once we were on the road we headed towards Dachau. The GPS in the car is really polite and it says please before it asks you to make a turn!

On the way we passed a supermarket and we decided to go get some bottled water. While we were there we got some pretzels, orange juice, and these really random but really good cookie/cracker things with chocolate in the middle!

The English speaking tour was at 11:00 and we arrived in the city around 9:30. We wanted to look for somewhere to eat breakfast but there were no obvious places. We went into this one place that was kinda like a bakery and they didn't speak English and we don't speak German so we had a hard time communicating what we wanted! We managed to say that we wanted eggs and she asked if we wanted bread, too...so we said okay!

About 10 minutes later we each got a really small pot-like-bowl with one little half-scrambled, half poached egg in it! lol We also got a basket with four rolls in it! It was definitely an interesting breakfast. It wasn't bad, but it was not very filling!

We got to the concentration camp at about 10:30 and we bought a ticket for 11:00 tour. They were only 3 euros each so that was pretty nice! While we waited for the tour to being in walked up and down to the entrance of the camp and looked around a little.

If you don't take the tour, it's completely free to go there... but for three euros it was totally worth it to take the tour.

We went to the bathroom and then waited in the lobby of the visitor's center for the guide. At 11:00 on the dot, this woman came walking swiftly out from a hallway and didn't even stop...she just kept going and told everyone to follow her! She looked like a cross between Karen from work and my gym teacher from 9th grade and she was a total honey badger. I could tell right away!

The sign said that the tour was 2.5 hours but our tour guide's lasted 4 hours! She said that each guide is allowed to make up their tour however they want and she said that one of her tours lasted 6 hours!

I really feel like we got a good explanation of everything and that she was really thorough and was so passionate about the subject. We passed some other guides as we went and I'm sure they were good but they didn't seem good as her. I'm really happy with who we got.

It's such a crazy place...It's so hard to think about all that went on there, it's surreal. It's also strange because when you look at old pictures you see them in either black and white or grainy color and, in many places at the camp today, I could imagine that this was exactly what it looked like 70 years ago. It's so weird to think of it as being as vivid as it was today with the sunny sky and the birds chirping but it was!

We made our way down the actual trail where the prisoners walked from the trains to the came entrance, through the gate, then into the yard area, and then into the main building which is now a museum.

Our guide's name was Colleen and she was from the US. She said she used to live in California but she moved to Germany and she has no plans to move back. I have no idea why. There was only one guy on our tour who was a little annoying and Colleen shut him right down. He kept answering every question and she told him he was finished for the day! lol Honey badger, indeed.

The tour was over around 3:00 and we headed back to the car and then set the GPS for Salzburg, Austria. It was about an hour and a half drive.

The drive was really nice and there were lots of mountains to look at on the way!

When we got into Austria my cell phone magically started working again. The UK SIM card that I got has unlimited data in Austria and Switzerland, too... but not Germany.

Once we got to the city we started to look for a hotel for the night. We found a place to park and used Hotel Tonight and a couple of other apps to look for something good. The one we settled on was the Mercure hotel. It was just slightly farther away than some of the others but it looked good and the price was good, too. Now that we're all settled in here, I'm happy with it. It's not far away at all, just a quick walk.

The room had what I could only describe as "ball smell" when we arrived and I was a little concerned that it's was some sweaty old fat person's lingering odor. I investigated the situation further with the old sniff test and came to the conclusion that the smell is actually coming from a large photo that's hanging over the bed. It's some kind of painted sticker thing and it has a vinyl/plasticy smell that is not unlike the smell of sweaty balls. I guess that's an unfortunate coincidence but we opened the window and the smell dissipated.

As soon as we were brought in our stuff to the room and I had had smelled it out, we headed down to the city center. We walked around and enjoyed the nice weather and then found a place to eat.

It was a little bit like a beer hall place. I got a platter of meats... beef, chicken, pork, and sausage. It came with fries and we got pretzels, too. It was good.

Next we walked back to the hotel and got showered up and ready for bed! I'm pretty tired from having gotten up early and I know we will have to get up early tomorrow for the Frauline Maria Bike Tour! It's at 9:30am and we want to get breakfast beforehand!

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)