Part Drei: München

Night Acht - The train stopped, announcements made in German, no translation. Several people sigh, get up, leave. There's major police activity up the line; someone was denied entry on a train, threatened to blow it. Some 9 hours later we arrive at München's main station, welcomed by many slurry-legged post-fest-goers. With takeout, we cab to our place.

Day Nein - Quick espressos before a run to München's Olympiastadion (1972). In contrast to Amsterdam's and Berlin's, München's stadium felt more spirited, joyful, a deep track circled in green bleachers, the tent-structures like webs in the sky. "The idea was to imitate the Alps and to set a counterpart to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin...The sweeping and transparent canopy was to symbolize the new, democratic and optimistic Germany." We ran 8.5 miles through and around, stopping at a markt near our place for breakfast items & white wine.

A leisurely mid-morning with three frosted glasses of white, Oktoberfest outfits, little satchels for all the necessary's strung upon a button. To the u-bahn for theresiienwiese, following the people in to Oktoberfest, a carnival of incredible color, ferris wheel lit in neon blue, rides & rollercoasters in the sky, flashing bulbs, toddlers in liederhosen on the shoulders of fathers. Pink eyes. Robust bellies. Thickly decorated gingerbread cookies strung around necks. Red checkered bags of sugar & cinnamon crusted nuts - the smell from the nut booths hot & sweet, "and the whole pageant and caravansary of mastuprating citizens..."

Within 5 ft. we ordered a couple tall wheat beers. Around a small wooden stand-up table we watched the people, the rides, the cute German child with sticky lips and fingers. If you had to pee, you had to pay a lady sitting at the door eating corn on a stick, then chicken, then sweets from a bag.

It was 75 deg., hot blue, and somehow not too warm for a woolen pantsuit. Inside bier halls - a magnitude of cheer, groups standing on top of tables singing, businessmen in sectioned off reserved seating, servers with 10 steins in each hand, platters of food indicative of ancient feasts.

We found a spot to sit outside at a large wooden table in the center of two groups of 'festers. Climbed up and in, ordered 3 steins and 2 pretzels; made friends with a lone Conneticut-born, Manhattan-dwelling Jewish girl with bleached hair & dark features named Kimberly, who had flow to München alone to celebrate her 25th birthday. Made friends with a gang of beautiful crystal blue eyes, cheers'ing again and again. More steins from passing servers on walkabouts, a rock band covered in purple light & leiderhosen, cheers'ing.

At another bier hall, the girlz met a group of German polizemen who invited us back to their reserved table. On top of the benches, clanking glasses. Conneticut Kimberly stole me a piece of swiss cheese & bought me a bier. The polizemen, all blonde, picked Mck up, danced her away; bier sloshing on exposed toes. I was in a heat of beer-saturated moodiness, stein after stein and somehow incapable of memory loss.

Day Zehn - That good post drei steins of bier morning, a bier fahrt kind. Ran a few miles to the feet of Englischer Gartens, through it, the water at our feet, the trees in every stage of fall, games on fields, cyclists, runners, little waterfalls, bier gardens. At home, a couple espressos, blackberry yogurt, seeded bread with peanut butter, savored on the back deck, sun beating, laundry drying. A hot shower, another espresso on the tiled, slippery lip.

We took a train and a short bus ride to Dachau, to the concentration camp memorial site which commemorates those who suffered in the camp & the 43,000+ prisoners who died there.

"In March 1933, a concentration camp for political prisoners was established...it served as a model for all subsequent concentration camps and was under the command of the S.S.. In the 12 years of its existence, over 200,000 persons from throughout Europe were incarcerated here and in the numerous sub-camps. More than 43,000 died. On April 29, 1945, U.S. troops liberated the survivors. The former prisoner camp became a memorial in 1965."

"The first prisoner camp was set up in March 1933 in a disused munitions factory from the first world war. A new gatehouse ('Jourhaus') was built in 1936. In 1937 & 38 the prisoners were forced to demolish the first camp and build a considerably larger camp complex. The new buildings included the maintenance building, the camp prison & 34 barracks. The camp was designed to hold 6,000 prisoners. As the camp was liberated on April 29, 1945, it was completely overfilled with around 32,000 prisoners."

Through the gatehouse, through the gate "Arbeit Macht Frei." Through barracks and offices reserved for "special prisoners" (priests, political figures), large concrete rooms, the common barracks with dark, cold light, peeping view holes, the paint scraped & toilets full of rust. A museum of art, artifacts, history of, portrayals, movies, a great body of work from the former prisoner, Georg Tauber, with a collection called, "Everyday Life & Violence in the Dachau Concentration Camp." The work incredible, evocative, raw.

"The prisoners are forbidden from engaging in any artistic activity in the concentration camps. Only works commissioned by the S.S. are permitted. Despite this ban, prisoners risk their lives and draw illegally - as an act of resistance, as intellectual stimulation, or as an expression of self-assertion. In the Dachau concentration camp art is also used as a form of currency, traded in exchange for cigarettes or food. Georg Tauber drew watercolors for a civilian employee who smuggled them out of the camp."

"The art produced by the prisoners during and directly after their imprisonment is mostly representational. The drawings Georg Tauber completes shortly before and above all after his liberation...documents life, suffering & death in the Dachau concentration camp. He not only records incidents he has experienced or witnessed firsthand, but also scenes he can only have known about from other prisoners. Sometimes G. Tauber provides his drawings with comments to underline the credibility. In the postwar years the artist sees it as his personal mission to make public the crimes committed by the national socialists. Two of his drawings serve as evidence at the Dachau & Nuremberg Trials."

The rooms built to store more and more prisoners, bunks from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. The sculpture (International Monument) set in the place where morning and evening roll calls were held; designed by Nandor Glid; symbolizing the emaciated bodies of the prisoners who died of starvation and disease in the camp.

There are several churches spread across the square with services still in operation; a church for the nuns built within the original living & fun quarters of S.S. guards. Our tour ended with the gas chambers, crematorium and forest where the shooting lines took place.

In the gas chambers, "the rooms disguised as showers and equipped with fake shower spouts to mislead the victims and prevent them from refusing to enter the room. During a period of 15 to 20 minutes up to 150 people at a time could be suffocated to death through prussic acid poison gas (zyklon b)."

Along this beautiful, wooded path were plaques in reference to the bodies, unknown, that rest beyond, where the incinerated ashes were kept.

A deeply profound experience. Singularly, the one I keep coming back to in entirety; the light placed inquisitive and beautifully-splayed, in circled pockets, pouring from the windows, everywhere speckled - despite the very pain of it all. We left, deeply grateful. I felt as if no worry I could ever have would be valid, truly. LB purchased a copy of Anne Frank's diary and a memoir of a prisoner's experience at Dachau.

Off the train in Marienplatz - the area and all areas covered in hosen's and pink-eyed cheer. Welcomed by the expansive Glockenspiel, tiered towers, gold figures, insane architecture in rich detail. Looked at trinkets down a cobbled street. For dinner - a rooftop restaurant called "Rischart" in the Marienplatz. Ordered: spinat-gorganzola mit spinat, tomaten und wurzigem gorgonzola & a hugo: holundersirup, prosecco, sodawasser & minze. With full belly's Mck led us to the bier palace known as Hofbrauhaus (over 400 years old), on the Platz, which serves original recipes handed down by the Duke of Bavaria including the Weißbier, Helles, Maigbock, Dunkel and Oktoberfest lagers.

The Hofbrauhaus bier hall was full, the guards preventing entry with a red velvet rope. One let us climb the gorgeous staircase to the top, to look at the ceiling mural and in at the diners. Back down & with magik, they let us into the main hall. We walked to the back and sat down at a large wooden table alongside a group of drunk men slamming their steins, sloshing their bier high, the table wet; the servers removing their glasses, yelling at them to stop and over and over and around again. We tried ordering a bier but the weird angsty server just shook his head no and walked away. With like 5 minutes of pleading eyes, he resigned and served us.

A gaggle of Italian men in coast-specific bright colored clothing & fancy jeans, in their mid-40's sat down with us. We got to know them through thick, luscious Italian and hand gestures and eye contact. One sugar daddy in the pink polo got us round after round of stein, which was a joyful though entirely unexpected continuation of Oktoberfest. Traditional German dishes, shared bites, all those Prosts! Ciaos! We said our guten nachts with many kisses on the cheeks and deep Italian hugs. Singularly, this day, Dachau & Hofbrauhaus meant the most to me. Later, standing in the kitchen snacking on granola bars & toast.

Day Elf - A quick run through Englischer Gartens. Packed everything, items more & more bulging. Back on the train to Haupbanhof for to-go lunches: grilled salad with brown bread, an au lait. Trekked to our double-decker bus, which would take us to Zürich. The double-decker had to board a ferry to cross the obersee bodensee. We got off on the boat in a great gust of wind, waves lapping. From the top deck, machine coffees. A few stops in small cities before we landed at Zürich's main station.

To conclude...Part Vier: Zürich