Wed 19-Sep-2001 Got up and collected my laundry. Erik was sick, so he stayed in all day. The others and I went down to the docks and got tickets for a round trip cruise to Koblenz, even though we wouldn't go the entire way. Unfortunately, the kiddies were getting on the same boat. Arg. We got some food on the ship and disembarked at Boppard. Boppard has a chairlift that takes you to the top of a huge hill overlooking what is described as "the bendiest bend of the Rhine". Again needless to say, I took many photographs. We also got sausage, wine, and ice cream at a small restaurant up there. We had time to kill, so we spent a few hours just hanging around in Boppard before heading back. On the cruise back, I noticed some interesting things about the Rhine right now. It is a very fast moving river, and I believe that it is very high right now. We passed several islands where either end would be submerged; trees would be poking out of the water but their trunks would be underwater. This makes sense given the lousy weather that we have been having the last two weeks. When we got back to Bacharach, Chris was set on hunting down this one restaurant he saw that served saurbraten. We found a place that served it, not sure if it was the same place. Since I have been pigging out all day, I just ordered the Hungarian goulash soup; pretty good stuff. Corey left dinner early so he could do his laundry. Chris and I got back to the hostel around 8pm and we goofed off for the rest of the evening; played chess against Erik a few times etc.

Thu 20-Sep-2001 Got up early because we have to be checked out by 9am. I am also just eager to get to Munich. Took the train to Mainz and then to Mannheim on one of the cool ICE trains. At this point, Erik ended splitting off at the last minute from us, since he was not that interested in Oktoberfest. We got to Munich around 4pm and spent the next few hours doing mundane things like visiting the tourist's office, looking into the Dachau tours, checking email, checking train schedules and getting food. At 7pm we got on a train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which much to our dismay, was an 82 minute train ride. After we got there and had another long walk to the Gästehaus Trenkler, we decided that we would eventually want to change hotels.

Fri 21-Sep-2001 Got up at 6am so we could get the 7:31am train into Munich to get to the Dachau tour. When we got to Munich, we had some time before the tour started so we hit the internet cafe across from the train station. When the tour started, we got on the S-Bahn to the town of Dachau.

Much like the tour of Obersalzburg, this tour was very interesting and informative, but obviously much more horrifying. We toured the grounds of the camp, a reconstruction of one of the barracks (the original barracks were decrepid buildings not designed for longevity) and the accompanying museum. The tour went over the inhuman living conditions, scientific experiments conducted by the Nazis, and the somewhat paradoxical tragedies that occurred on liberation. Very gripping stuff. The scariest part was apparently very recently (like a few weeks), vandals had broken in and spraypainted parts with Nazi, anti-American and anti-Israel slogans. These parts were closed off to the public, but the existence of such an event is a scary testament to what people are willing to do nowadays.

Hearing about this incident seemed to contrast greatly with everything I have seen about modern Germany. Unlike Japan, Germany appears to be extremely repentant about their legacy in WWII. To me, they almost seemed too repentant. People my age seem to bear great shame about events that happened over thirty years after the war. The idea that unlike say the US and the UK, that they cannot wave their flag or take pride in their country's many achievements because of events that transpired two generations ago strikes me as very unfortunate.

Or perhaps that this is truly their greatest achievement. Or perhaps that they have seen other incidents like the one that I have just witnessed.

We spent the next few hours doing stupid stuff; after talking with someone in a tourists' office, we came to the conclusion that we were not going to find a better place to stay. We ended up eating at an Italian restaurant (La Vita) after the place that we were looking for was full. They made a pretty good calzone. We spent the rest of the night clubbing. This one place, the Hofbräuhaus had one of the longest lines I've ever seen anywhere. We barely caught the 11pm train back to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.