munich

next we arrived in munich, where we stayed for 2 days. the first day we spent at the alte pinakothek and neue pinakothek, which mean 'old picture gallery' and 'new picture gallery' in german. something we experienced in both austria and germany was feeling entirely and utterly helpless when it came to the language. i've studied lots of spanish and french, so i was excited to find that i was able to do pretty well with italian in italy. but when we got to austria and germany, we were so lost. it's not that hard to get around european countries without knowing the language, because most people speak english, but german just felt so very foreign to us that it was definitely an adjustment we had to make in getting around. i loved the pinakotheks. we saw lots of german artists, as well as some of my favorites like degas and van gogh, whose works are pictured above.

after our museum-going, we had the rest of the first day free, so two of my friends and i decided to go see the great gatsby, which was just being released in europe. we went to downtown munich and got doner kebab for dinner. doner is like a turkish pita sandwich with shaved meat. you can find it pretty widely in europe, usually at little hole-in-the-wall places, but it is really good! after eating our doner we still had a little time to kill before the movie, so we bought some fruit from a roadside vendor and had a little picnic eating it on the side of the isar river. it was a perfect, relaxing moment. then we went to see the great gatsby! we made some american friends in the theatre, and we were so excited to listen to an entire 2-hour movie in english! i'm not the biggest fan of baz luhrmann, the director, so i found the movie a little bit overdone and cheesy, but for the most part i really liked it and i'll always remember when i went to see it in germany.

the next day was sunday, so we went to church. unlike in italy, the church meeting in munich wasn't translated for us, so i repeat what i said before about feeling lost when it came to the language. it's neat, though, that even when i couldn't understand any of the words, i could still feel the spirit and recognize that the church is the same everywhere. after church, we had free time again, so most of our group decided to visit the memorial site of dachau concentration camp. i don't really want to go into detail, but this was one of the most sobering and powerful experiences of my life. nothing made the history i've learned about the holocaust more real than standing there and seeing where it happened. it was horrible and heart-wrenching but i'm glad that we went and had that experience.

we definitely needed some lightening up after that, so afterwards we walked around munich and ended up eating dinner in germany's largest beer hall. it was a funny situation for us mormon girls and i think the waiter thought we were pretty weird when all we wanted to drink was sprite and diet coke, but the food was delicious, especially the apple strudel. germany was fun to visit, but i was really excited for us to leave because next we were headed to paris!