LONDON!!! There is an epic story involved in my transition from Munich to London, but for the sake of catching up with my real life, I'll have to leave some of the best bits out. Because I've been in London now for 4 weeks (what?!) and I haven't even gotten there in blog life. So after my first Ryan Air flight from what they call the Munich West Airport (it actually took 2 trains and a taxi to get there...definitely NOT in Munich) to Stansted in London (also not really in London...it's a 10 pound/more than an hour journey by train) I found myself in the giant Liverpool Street metro station!! It was so exciting!! I've never been to London before this, and it definitely has a different feel to all of the big cities I've been to in Europe. It's grungier, perhaps, with brick buildings and a kind of cozy feeling. Less overwhelming and glamorous, but wonderful nonetheless.

I had my first meal soon there after. Liverpool Street is a 5 minute walk from the famous Brick Lane neighborhood. Brick Lane used to be the main Indian neighborhood, but has recently gotten fairly pricey and been taken over by wealthy English hipsters. The amazing Indian food remains, though, and the street is lined with the cities best curry stops (interspersed with indie record stores and vintage clothing shops of course). I was with two English guys who had grown up in London, so they picked out an establishment and ordered up a bunch of dishes they knew. London has this reputation for great Indian food, and oh my does it live up to it. Some of the dishes I recognized, and some were completely new to me, but all of the flavors and spices were so much more interesting and delicious than my experiences at Chapti's and Kathmandu. What I've come to realize now though, after 4 weeks in this enormous city, is that one can get ANYTHING here. Literally. Any kind of food one could want is just a (expensive) metro stop away. And that is kind of an overwhelming thought. I don't relax here, ever, because I know there is so much out there in the huge city waiting to be seen! And with so many options for things to do, how am I supposed to choose? I'm not used to so much excitement, Davis and Northfield have their own set of problems, and goodness knows that 'too much to do' is not one of them.

My first 3 days in London were spent at a hostel near London Bridge, on the southern side of the Thames. It was a very nice area, but unfortunately all of the abuse I had subjected my body to at Oktoberfest had finally worn me down and I was sick the whole time. So I actually spent my first weekend in one of the biggest cities in the world in my bed with some books and podcasts. Quite frustrating, but at least I recovered in time to move in to my flat and begin the wonders that are UK freshers week!!

The changing of the guard. They really do still do this twice a day, and people really do watch. Weirdest job ever?

Buckingham Palace. The queen wasn't in though, apparently she doesn't actually spend that much time in London.

St. James's Park, so beautifully English

Munich part two:

In between the joyous drunken celebrations, I visited Dachau. It was the first concentration camp of the Nazi Reich, established on March 22, 1933 and thus served as a model for all subsequent camps. In the 12 years that Dachau was in operation, over 200,000 people were imprisoned and more than 43,000 died.

The gate through which all prisoners entered Dachau. It reads "work sets you free."

On a warm, sunny morning in between visits to the beer tents at Oktoberfest, I got on a train to the site just outside of Munich. As amazing an experience I had at Oktoberfest, my visit to Munich was just as memorable and incredible.

I got to the camp pretty early in the morning and so there were not a lot of people there yet. Dachau is huge, and so the grounds felt vast and completely barren of life. It was probably the eeriest place I've ever been and even looking back at the pictures as I'm posting them now is chilling. I didn't want to pay for a guided tour, so I just walked around on my own with the complimentary map. There is an extensive museum exhibit in what was the maintenance building, and it looked like a pretty nice display. But I skipped that as well because being trapped inside reading was a little sickening to me at the time. I felt like I should walk around and really feel the place.

 

The picture above is of the camp fencing. There are several parts to it. First is the strip of grass that I was standing on to take this picture. Prisoners were shot at for stepping on to it, so sometimes prisoners used it as a way of ending their life. Next is the rock ditch, a electrified barbed-wire fence, and finally the camp wall.

These are the ovens which were used to burn piles of bodies

The shooting range. Prisoners were lined up against the wall. In the foreground is a small ditch, for the blood.

I'm really glad I was able to visit Dachau, and it did make me think about how much freedom I have and how little I usually appreciate that freedom. At the same time, I guess I was assuming that it would be some life-changing, depressing experience. And it was horrifying, but rather than feeling overwhelmed with death, I was more aware of the power of time to heal things. Plants had regrown on top of the ashes (that's not a cliche, the ground was literally black with the ashes from the ovens), and a few miles away, thousands of people had come by choice to Munich this time to partake in the wonderful celebrations of Oktoberfest. While it's obviously very important to think about and remember the Holocaust, I didn't feel guilty going out to that evening for good fun with good friends, because you only live once and so you might as well live as well as you can.

Monica has guilted me into blogging again. I guess I had so much fun at Oktoberfest, combined with pretty terrible internet, so I didn't update while I was in Munchen, and then I got to London and everything got so busy and exciting! So Munchen part one...

I arrived at my hostel at about 3pm to find the floor sticky with beer, two underwear-clad men passed out on their bunks and a third man in the bathroom, vomiting violently. (I'm writing this from London, where I've already started to speak strangely...I just typed  "...in the toilet, chundering violently..." and before realizing what I was doing.) I think this anecdote sums up my three days at Oktoberfest pretty well. The first night, the three drunken guys in my room had napped it off and were ready for round two, so we walked down to the festival with another woman who was in our room.

Oktoberfest is basically a huge fair grounds with lots of beer tents interspersed with rides, but what really makes it an incredible experience is the atmosphere. People of all ages, mostly in amazing lederhausen and dirndles get together to eat delicious Bavarian food, drink lots of beer, and sing and dance and be merry. It's just a giant, drunken, happy celebration