A Big Bucket List Day in Munich.

After the Heineken Experience, we picked up our luggage from the hotel and rushed to the train station to catch our overnight train to Munich. It sounds super romantic to be lulled to sleep by the rhythmic motion of a train traveling through the Dutch countryside to Germany, but I assure you - it wasn't. After some initial confusion about which sleeper car was ours, we crammed our luggage under the bunk bed and set out to look for the dining car (we hadn't had dinner yet).

Turns out there wasn't a dining car, so we stumbled from car to car for twenty minutes before an attendant found us and sold us a couple cold sausages. Translation: Two cold hot dogs without buns. Delicious. With no Wi-Fi and barely enough room to sit together on the bottom bunk, we decided to call it an early night...or at least we tried to call it an early night. I think I got a grand total of one hour of sleep, thanks to the loud noises emanating from nearby sleeper cars and the constant stops to allow passengers on and off along the way.

When the train finally arrived in Munich, we were more than ready to get off and start...

Day 9

Munich, Germany

14,856 steps

Highlights: Dachau Concentration Camp, Hofbrauhaus

We arrived at Hotel Jedermann too early to check into our room, so we left our luggage, bought day passes for public transportation (trams, subways, trains), and immediately hopped on another train - this one headed to the popular suburb of Dachau. I know this sounds morbid, but I've always wanted to visit a concentration camp. I'm a bit of a World War II buff and, as a citizen of the world, it almost felt like a necessity to see one in-person someday to pay my respects. I knew the experience would be difficult, so I tried to mentally prepare myself on the half-hour train ride and 15-minute bus ride to the camp.

It seems obvious now, but nothing could have properly prepared me for Dachau.

It was absolutely heartbreaking, almost to the point of nauseating. From the welcome center, you walk along a short trail, over a quiet stream, until you reach the front gate of the camp. The door reads, "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work will set you free," an obvious lie for the more than 40,000 people who died within the walls of the camp. Dachau, which was actually the first Nazi concentration camp and served as the model for all others, functioned for twelve years (the longest of all camps) until American troops liberated the survivors in April of 1945.

The extensive museum, filled with detailed information on the entire time period, horrifying pictures, and artifacts from the camp, took up the bulk of our visit. The quiet, disturbed silence in every room of the museum was palpable and it took every ounce of my being not to cry when looking at the pictures and videos of the emaciated prisoners. Particularly disturbing were the photos of the experiments performed on the prisoners - some to test hypothermia and how deep someone can go in water without dying, others to see how high they could go in a plane without wearing an oxygen mask. These images will honestly haunt me for the rest of my life.

Most of the prisoner barracks have been removed from the camp, but one remains as an example to see the horrible living conditions of the prisoners. Overcrowding was a serious issue at the camp and more prisoners died from disease than anything else. This wasn't a huge surprise once we saw the barracks.

Since most of the buildings have been removed, it is hard to imagine what Dachau must have looked like during its time as a concentration camp, but a gorgeous tree-lined path down the middle of what used to be rows of barracks remains...and it gave me chills to imagine the prisoners congregating there, attempting to encourage each other to keep going. After the camp was opened to the public as a site of remembrance, several religious memorials were built on the grounds, including a Jewish Memorial, a Russian-Orthodox chapel, a Protestant church, and other small chapels. It was such a somber atmosphere in the memorials and, as I stood there trying to imagine what had happened on the very ground on which I was standing, I felt pretty guilty for complaining about our overnight train ride.

Unsurprisingly, the most haunting area of the camp was saved for last: the crematorium and the gas chambers. Though a lot has changed in the camp since the liberation of the prisoners, these buildings remain untouched as yet another memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. In Dachau, the gas chambers were not used for mass exterminations as they were in Auschwitz and other extermination camps, but it was still so chilling to walk through the doorway marked 'Brausebad,' the German word for showers. When the American troops finally liberated the camp, they forced the residents of the city of Dachau to come on the grounds and see what they had been ignoring in their own backyard.

Though we barely felt we could eat, we decided to have a quick lunch in the cafeteria of the welcome center. Emotionally and mentally drained, we headed back downtown, checked into our room, and promptly took a four-hour nap. A serious piece of advice for anyone planning to visit a concentration camp: This wasn't a horrible idea on our part. We didn't feel up to doing much else after Dachau, so when we woke up from our nap, it felt like a new, fresh day in a sense. Plus, the hotel left tiny bags of Haribo gummy bears, a German specialty, on our pillows, so that helped bring some smiles to our forlorn faces.

After showering and freshening up for dinner, we set out to cross another item off my bucket list: drink a beer at the real Hofbrauhaus. We actually got lost on the way there and stumbled upon a free concert of Russian music in a town square. Locals were sprawled out on bean bag chairs, so we stayed there for a bit to enjoy the music. When the concert ended, we made our way to the Hofbrauhaus, which was basically exactly what you're imagining...times three. The building itself was enormous and included several dining areas, a live band, a room of tankard lockers, a gorgeous outdoor beer garden, a gift shop, and a Hofbrauhaus museum. We were a bit overwhelmed by the crowds and noise at first, but eventually settled on a perfect spot outside for dinner.

Rowdy American tourists were shouting and singing drinking songs while waiters and waitresses in lederhosen and traditional Bavarian garb rushed around delivering more steins than anyone should be able to hold at once. Seriously, is there a competition for stein-holding? We sat near a beautiful fountain in the middle of the courtyard and blindly ordered what we thought sounded best. I took one sip of my beer before refusing to drink the rest, but Wheat stepped up and did enough drinking for the both of us. I ordered some kind of sausage, potato salad, and sauerkraut, while Wheat tackled the massive pork knuckle and a potato dumpling. Oh, and we split a pretzel, of course.

Ultimately, it was the perfect first day in Munich. I was able to do a couple things I've always wanted to do and we endured the most emotionally draining part of the trip early enough to truly enjoy the rest of our time in Germany.