Germany & Switzerland

I have to admit that while I absolutely loved Europe and decided that I would love to live in Munich, I am very thankful to be back in Uganda. At the airport in Egypt getting ready for my last flight back to Uganda, a man greeted me, asked how I was, and then sat in my row at the gate. I knew instantly that he was Ugandan because he stopped to greet me and was so excited to be almost back to Uganda.

Munich

The first thing that caught my eye about Munich is how clean it was. I am not even comparing it to Africa clean, it was far cleaner than any city I have ever visited in the USA! Plus they have such a good public transportation system, and so many people bike that there are very few cars on the road! It was amazing! 

One of the streets, I loved the look of all of the buildings in downtown Munich

So what did we do in Munich besides just walk around and eat lots of pastries, sausages, and white asparagus?....

Nymphenburg Palace
The first place we visited was the summer home of the Bavarian royalty. We were kind of disappointed though because this place was so large and we were only allowed to tour a very small amount of it. The grounds were beautiful, but because it was so rainy and cold we also missed a lot of that too.

With Greg and Amy out front of the palace

A beautiful chandelier with the painted ceiling in the ballroom

Residentz Palace
This is another Bavarian palace, but it was their Munich home. This palace was OVER 400 ROOMS! So while we didnt see much in the first palace, we saw more than enough at Residentz!!! The only down side is many parts of the building were destroyed in WWII. After the war, they restored the building but most of the furniture was lost. So most of the rooms did not have the same feel because they would have office furniture instead of bedroom furniture and etc. But seriously.... who needs 400 rooms!!!???

Beautiful door way into the ballroom

The cathedral that was mostly destroyed in the war. You can see the new bricks on top of the old bricks

Greg & Amy in front of a beautiful fire place. This fireplace was in a huge room full of busts of people (I think busts in the proper word???)

Dachau Concentration Camp
Dachau is about 30 min outside of Munich and it set the example for the rest of the concentration camps that were built in Germany in WWII. It is hard to describe the experience of being there, but to say the least it is very humbling. I do think it is good to visit places like this as it is an example of how horrific our hatred can be. I would love to say as a whole the world has learned from this, but mass killings over race still occur. I have learned a lot about this lately as my friend Hollie has been traveling to research the history of genocides. You can read more about what she has found here.

The most humbling part of being there was walking the path the prisoners walked as the entered the CC

The train tracks and landing that prisoners were dropped off at

The fencing.... it was much more severe when it was in use. They had examples of the trench followed by the barbed wire on the ground and then the external fence

The gate the prisoners entered reads "Work will make you free". The building directly to the right is where prisoners were stripped of all dignity they had left

The view from the far side of the CC of the remains of the barracks. The building at the end is a reconstruction of one of the barracks

A photo from when the CC was in full operation

One of the hardest things was imaging what it would be like to have 2,000 prisoners  put in  a place that was only meant to hold 200.

The Jewish star on one of the memorials that is now at the CC

Viktualienmarkt

One of my favorite places was this market. There was a beer garden, tons of fresh produce, stands of cheese, dried fruit, seafood, meat, basically anything German that you could imagine was there. I walked through the market 3 of the 5 days I was in Munich! I wish we had one like this in Chicago!!!

 

The sign in the middle of the market. On the lower right it describes which beverages are for sale in the garden

Sorry for the blurry picture - Dad and I in the garden in the middle of the market - It was packed there all day!

 Walking Around

 We also really enjoyed just walking around exploring Munich.

Greg and Amy on the bus - public transportation was so easy there! (Although Dad and I still got lost twice....)

Greg and Amy by the old town hall. Above them is the Glockenspiel that went off 3 times a day.

View of the old town hall from the top of the cathedral - Gorgeous!

View of the new town hall from the top of the cathedral

This picture does not do this man justice.... he was so funny standing there playing the bass (I think) with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. There were so many bands on the street at night!

Switzerland
We only spent 2 days in Switzerland. One day my dad had meetings so I went to the nearest "larger" town from where we were staying and walked around. The other day we took a train car (best way to explain it) up a mountain. It was absolutely beautiful there! And I saw snow!!!

The view from where we ate dinner one night

By the fire in the restaurant.... I was COLD!

The pizza oven out back of the restaurant. Not a bad view while they cook your pizza!

Out to coffee with some of the members of Laser Institute of America - this organization is the whole reason dad needed to be in Germany - By the way, notice who the only one with a blanket is!!!

The only snowball I threw this winter..... well maybe I threw a few just then

Wishing there was enough snow to snowboard!

Dad and  I up in the mountains

And thats about it! It was a great week, and now I have an itch to go explore more of Europe!!! However, I am quite glad to be back in Uganda. I am so glad that God has placed me here for this time. By the way, I finally figured out how to get photos to update to my blog with this new computer, so if you want to see more pictures from my dad's time in Uganda, I updated my blog from two weeks ago. 

Oh and I remembered one more thing for my list from last week:

11. It was so nice to sleep without having to crawl under a mosquito net!

Thanks as always for your love and support!