i heart munich

It is monday again (boo) and i just got back from munich, germany. it was awesome and was my favorite place that i have been so far on my trip. the first night we camped up in the mountains (illegally by the way...always an adventure!) underneath the REAL disneyland castle. which was just a big castle in the hill. it was pretty cool, but FREEZING!!!!!!!!! it was an experience. then we headed to munich and on the way stopped at a concentration camp called Dachau... what a creepy stop. it was so weird being there, so depressing. the worst part for me was walking through where they did the "pretend" showers which was where they actually gassed the people. it was sick and so surreal being there. on a lighter note, we then went to Munich and stayed in a hostile. we went shopping the first day there and we were on a hunt for birkenstocks, i opted for an awesome Puma bag instead (we all know how i am with my puma stuff). then that night we hit the biggest beer hall in the world called Hofbrauhaus (or HB to us). it was so awesome. we went there two nights in a row and they serve beer in "steins" which was basically a little more than a liter of beer. they sang songs and had a house band in their goofy norwegian-type clothes and everyone in the whole place (which was huge) would sing along. (kind of like "alice..." dad ;) ) so that was cool. we talked with some people from Chicago and this lady who studied abroad when she was in college and she basically told us all of her crazy stories and relived her glory days. it was interesting... the next day, we got up and went to the Deutches Museum which i thought was really boring becasue it was all about science and engineering and all that stuff. (sorry zach!) oh and by the way, i am sick so that put a damper on the weekend, but im still alive so thats all that matters. =) then we had lunch which i think for every meal we had bratworst. haha. they were good and cheap and easy so thats what we got. we have also discovered that over here, when you ask for water, they give you "mineral" water which has "gas" as they call it but is really just carbonated water. and it is gross! and since we cant read the labels we have to shake the bottles to see if they fizz. it is quite the task, and most of the time we get stuck with the gas water, but what can ya do? after lunch we went on a bike ride (there were about 40 of us convoying it through Munich to this park). we rode through this huge park along the river and to our surprise there were a bunch of naked germans! it was so funny to see how open they are with their bodies... just laying around naked, hanging out. (literally) haha. so that was an adventure... trying not to laugh in itself. also at the park were these people that were surfing in the river. yes, i said SURFING in the river. there was a part of the river that went under a bridge and then lipped up like a wave right after it. it was really cool and we had to hold Patricia back (my roommate - she's from california and loves to surf). then it was back to HB for the night and then sleep! Sunday, (yesterday for me) we started heading home and we were going to stop in Salsburg (where they filmed "Sound of Music") but it was rainy (we also got caught in a hail storm in Munich!) so we decided to go where the sun was to this lake in italy that was one of the most beautiful places that i have ever seen. i wanted to stay there for the rest of the trip. it was the best spot in europe for windsurfing and the lake was surrounded by these huge green mountains. GORGEOUS! i will have to get pictures up here eventually. dont worry, i am soon getting wireless internet on my laptop so this will be much more frequent and better. well i better go for now, so much to see and do. love you and miss you all!