Still More Germany

I’m trying REALLY hard to update as much as possible, but I think I’m just having too good of a time out here! Right now I’m in Spain, but I think I left off in Germany and I had just visited Salzburg. Well I finished off in Germany by mountain biking in the German Alps for almost 5 hours, going to Munich, and having quite a great time around the farm!


About a day or so after my last post (the 5th) I headed to Garmisch, Germany to do some mountain biking in southern Germany. Some of you may have heard of it, Garmisch hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics and is very well known for its winter sports and outdoor activities. It’s very close to the Austrian border and absolutely beautiful! I was just blown away by all of the great mountain scenery….it was fantastic! I headed over to the Trek pro shop that they have there and rented a mountain bike, not really knowing what was in store for me. As it turns out after three hours of climbing up the mountain and a straight hour and a half of rocky downhill, it was one of the best times I have ever had on a bike! I was dead tired and covered in mud, but I couldn’t care less because those 4.5-5 hours were absolutely some of the best I have had in Europe. Just makes me miss home a little bit more though so I can get back on a bike!
One of the funniest parts of the bike ride thought was at the hut I turned around at after climbing up the mountain. I sat around for 20-30 minutes before going back downhill, but as soon as I sat down a helicopter came up to drop some supplies off. Then another came, and another, and another, and finally one more! The rest hut/oasis is so isolated that the only way to get supplies is a helicopter and when I was there it was just a constant stream of helicopters every 5-10 minutes dropping off supplies…..and of course the only supplies you need in Germany (as you can see from the picture) are kegs of delicious beer!


Two days later I headed to Munich to see the sights and was actually pleasantly surprised by all it had to offer. I honestly didn’t know what to expect but after walking around the city, it’s really a good-looking city that has a lot of character. There’s one main pedestrian street in the center with tons of shopping and everything like that where you find plenty of tourists and on the outer edge of town are the main sights like some of the churches and historical buildings. I don’t have much money so I didn’t go into any places except a church or two and some gardens, but I really liked Munich, too bad I wasn’t there for Oktoberfest!


Very close to Munich, only about a 20-minute train ride to the north is Dachau. At Dachau is where the Nazis had the first and largest concentration camp during World War II. Being there and seeing how large it was for myself, walking through the museum and memorials that have been set up there was a very humbling experience. I learn about all of these things in school about American history and the history of World War II and the Nazis but seeing it in person up close really turned everything I learned into reality and showed me how the war really was. The museum at the camp is in one of the buildings at the camp and all of the information and artifacts that are inside were just too much to look at with the time I had. To really see everything there I would say I needed at least 3-4 hours, but I only had 1.5-2. Dachau place I wish I had spent some more time at, but the time I did spend there was definitely worth it to see and put things into quite a different perspective.


The rest of last weekend Marlene and the kids had gone to northern Germany for a family thing and so for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday it was just Martin and myself on the farm with a little bit of help from the friends of the family. What made it an interesting weekend is that Martin speaks about 5 words of English and I speak about 5 words of German. So needless to say it was an interesting 3 days. Still lots of fun though as he took me to the beer garden in Tutzing and also a festival that was happening on Sunday. As long is I understood “Bier in Keller” (Beer in the cellar), it was all good.


Monday was my last day in Tutzing and I was truly sad to go. I had a great stay and met many people, but I’m starting to realize that two-three weeks at a place is a perfect amount of time and I was also excited to head to London for a night and also to go to Spain. Germany overall was fabulous though and I will definitely be back one year for Oktoberfest!


I’ve been in Spain now since the 13th of August, high in the mountains of the Alpujarras. It’s fabulous and the projects for building here are really incredible. I’ll post more in a day or so. Take care all!