#32

Germany!

For the short time that we had I was left with the feeling like so much had been done in one day.

1. Swarovski Factory

2. Concentration Camp

3. Glockspiel

4. Beer Hall

5. Bus Party

I had to be one of the only ones who didn't go on the Swarovski tour. Honestly I didn't need to know how crystals were made; I'd seen something similar when I was younger in Ireland. So instead with Alana we looked around their 'gift shop' we didn't even get through it before everyone else had finished the tour. Couldn't have been a very long one if you ask me.

It was said that the people of Dachau couldn't hear the cries of those hundred and thousands of Jews being murdered. That they didn't know there was a concentration camp so close by. Something I find so hard to believe considering the size of the place and the information I learn't in one experience I will NEVER easily forget. It may have not been my lifetime but even to this day it affects everyone. The children of Germany at some point in their schooling lives get taken to see one, to see their countries past. Hopefully to never re-create it. It wasn't just Jews there though. Dachau was longest running camp that housed anyone that didn't fit into the Hitler stereotype of the day - open for 12 years. I can't even type this now without feeling some kind of sickness and sadness to what the past holds.

Somewhere in my family's timeline - on my mothers side - was German. I don't know who, I don't know the facts but my great grandmother went to her grave knowing who it was. I don't know the role that he played during the years of Hitler or who he was but I hope it wasn't anything in the name of Hitler as in personally killing the jews.

We stayed approximately an hour and a half there before we headed into town to see the Glockenspiel.

According to our tour guide Evanna; the Glockenspiel is the most overrated tourist attraction but you have to see it to believe it. We arrived just before four pm and had about an hour to kill before five when it was set to go off the same time every day. The lead up to it took at least 2 minutes and the actual show went on for so long we didn't even get to see the end of it. Really I hardly remember even going to see it - nothing special at all.

The beer hall was not what I pictured. I don't drink beer and the medication I was on also reacted to alcohol as well; so when I asked for coke instead I expected to be given a class. Instead I got 1.5L of it. No one was more shocked than I. There was singing and dancing, beer and the chicken song (which the Germans actually really love, who knew)

When it came time to leave our bus driver Carhill and tour guide Evanna gave us a chance to do something which is illegal well almost everywhere in the world. A bus party. I don't think I sat in my seat at all the way back as I did on the top of it. The lights were going, we were all singing along to heaps of songs and taking photo's as best as we could all cramped in the isles and on the seats. Could not have asked for a better end to the night since I was beginning to feel better thanks to the medication and good company for the last number of days on our trip.