MUNICH!!!

The last three days have been full on like donkey kong. So much packed in.

First of all we arrived on the 13th in the arvo and poor Ash still felt under the weather so went for a lie down. And...well...what does Emma do when set free in a city? Shop of course! Okay so Munich has this massive outdoor mall with just huge shops, it is located dangerously close to our hostel. Even more dangerous is that Summer is coming to an end and every shop has a sale. Wow, I had to totally restrain myself and you'd all be so proud of me! All I came out with from 3 and a half hours was a pair of really cute €9.99 flat black sandals and a pair of shorty shorts because I cannot handle my flannette pj pants anymore...even though they have cows on them...just too hot. Day one down.

Day two was yesterday and it was a ''dream away and pretend that I'm a princess day''! We took a two hour train south of Munchen to a small town, then a further bus up a hill to Neuschwanstein Castle!! Well everybody at home knows how much I love my Disney movies and i was just in heaven. It was so pretty!! The bad part was the hour wait in line for a ticket to see inside, the half hour climb up the hill and then the two hour wait for our tour of inside to begin. But so worth it! The castle was built in the 1800's by King Ludwig the II of Bavaria and he was apparently a bit of a nutcase. He was obsessed with this other guy Wagner's operas and so every room was based on a different opera, detailed paintings covering the walls, elaborate carvings on furniture and you should have seen the ornate tapestry curtains! At the end of the 17 year construction span, only a third of the castle was actually finished and the King only got to stay there for 6 months before he was deemed mentally unstable and taken away to live in an asylum. Good story huh? So even today the castles interior stands unfinished and so the tour of those 8 rooms or so took only half an hour. But then the drama began. We had only ten minutes to catch the last bus for the day back to town to then catch the last train back to Munich. Now, I don't think I've actually run since PE of year 10 so it was a bit of a struggle, particularly on a downward slope without shoes (as usual mine unsuitable for strenuous activities). Eight minutes and four sore and blackened feet later Ash and I were at the busstop ready to go! Lucky, or we would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere for the night. Nobody told me travel would be so stressful!

That brings us to today. I don't want want to write too much just because there is no way to describe the way I felt but I'll try. We visited Dachau Concentration Camp. It was the most sombre, moving and emotional time I think I have ever had. We spent about 4 hours at the site of over 40,000 murders and countless other brutalities. Just being there, particularly the sites of mass graves of those unknown, the crematorium still covered in a fine ash and the camp's cold damp prison was just indescribable-eery, creepy and weird.

Returning to Munich though was a different scene. It's some public holiday in this state so noone has work and everybody is out about and celebrating. A whole lot of beer drinking going on. We walked to massive Englisher Gardens just to unwind and cool down a bit and it is the coolest park in the whole world i swear! I read somewhere that it is three times as big as New York's Central Park and it has way cooler stuff. Like a water feature on the stream which is a giant wave and there were surfers riding it...just crazy. Apperently it's against the law for anyone to do that and if the police arrive everybody scrams. But how could a surfie resist? Such a hot day and a wave without the hassle of sand or salt water! Other than that it has a nudie sunbaking area, a huge chinese garden and many many beer gardens...only in Germany.

Exactly a month today until Elise leaves Australia for her tour of Europe and then only about 15 days after that until we catch up with her!! So exciting. Everyone wish her luck. Can't wait to see you and party with you Lisey!!!