We are back online after our 9 day road trip and we are so excited to update you on our experiences!
Our road trip started on Friday when we set off for Munich with our friends from exchange, Kate and Gary (with plans to meet Kent, Kate's boyfriend, in Munich). On this 8 hour drive, which became 10 hours in traffic, we had a series of dramatic events to entertain us. They all revolved around Gary...and his PASSPORT! About 2 and a half hours into our drive, Gary reached into his pocket and said, "uh, guys, I have a problem. I forgot my passport." We all looked at him and began to come up with creative solutions. He forgot his passport and his driver's license, so really the only ID he had was his ESSEC student ID. We suggested he contact his landlord to see if he could ship him the passport in Munich, but that was unsuccessful. We tried to have a friend in Paris get the keys to his apartment and send it to him, but that was a no-go. After inventing countless solutions that did not quite work out, we finally realized that lucky for all of us, all of the countries we planned to drive through were part of the EU and no longer had border control. As a result, although it caused a whole lot of panic for Gary for 5 hours, ultimately, it was confirmed: he could enter into 7 countries over 9 days with no passport on hand - and he did!
Other aspects of this fun road trip included our song of the trip: Call on Me! Always a classic, always an energy booster! We had a great ride that finally resulted in us arriving in Munich. We arrived after midnight, and headed straight to join Kent at the Paulaner Beer Hall where he had beers waiting for us. After catching up with Kent, we then moved forward to a late night club called Pimpernel where we partied our first night in Munich until early morning! The five of us kicked off our experiences with a bang!
On Saturday, we woke up and headed for lunch to Speisen Und Geitranke, a tradtional German restaurant with tasty dishes. All of the staff was Turkish which worked to our advantage since Kent was fluent (being half Turkish himself)! Mana tried a common drink in Germany which was beer mixed with lemonade: it was fantastically refreshing! After lunch we headed to the BMW Museum where we saw airplane engines, cars, cars, and more cars! Sahil was in his true happy place (he's crazy about cars). We even watched as consumers tested out cars, purchased them, and took them off the lot of the museum/gallery!
After a great afternoon, we headed straight to the Haufsbraus House to have our favorite night in Munich! The Haufsbraus House is a huge beer hall with a German band playing music while locals and tourists come together to drink beer and eat local food. We were surrounded by people in lederhosen (traditional German apparel) and had a fantastic time!! We played cards, drank beer, ate food, laughed, and had an incredible time! Five hours later, we headed back where we played some more cards and then headed off to bed feeling pretty great about Munich!
On Sunday, we headed off for a very different experience. We visited the first concentration camp built in Dachau during WWII, which was located about half an hour outside of Munich. While Mana has read a great deal on Hitler's regime in Nazi Germany, visiting the camp made it that much more frightening to understand the impact and reality of the Holocaust. Our tour guide told us stories about the male prisoners who were told they were going to "work for freedom" when in fact, as we all know, the reality was very different. We saw the conditions of their barracks, the barbed wire surrounding the camp, the gas chambers, and at the end of our tour we watched a video on sad reality of that time. Although it was emotional and challenging to walk the grounds of those who suffered, it was very important to us that we visit this camp in order to remember those who suffered and learn more about a tragedy that should not repeat itself.
On Sunday evening we headed to dinner and had a laid back night, beginning with a pre-dinner at Wirtshaus Zum Straubinger consisting of pretzels and beer. We met a nice couple here who was at the restaurant with their dog. This is the most dog-friendly city we've ever seen! They have dog bowls of water outside restaurants and dogs join people everywhere they go! As we chatted with this couple, they laughingly told us we were eating pretzels at a totally inappropriate time (apparently, it's only a breakfast food). Yet, we continued to feast on some of the best pretzels we've ever had! Mana found a German children's book here which she then began to read and before we knew it, we each were reading our own interpretation of what each page might be saying about Olaf the elephant! After grabbing some spicy Thai food for proper dinner, we headed home, since we had an early drive the next day to Salzburg, Austria!
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