The Global Guy

This was the most sobering part of our entire trip.  I had very mixed feelings about going to this place, but I felt that I owed it to myself, and both the victims and the survivors to experience the horrors of this place first hand.   Of course I’d read about the Nazi atrocities in school, but until you actually see for yourself, you can never fully grasp the evil of what happened here. 

The camp is maintained by a society of survivors who have taken it upon themselves to remind the world what happened here, and to promote their slogan of "Never Again".  There is an excellent museum tracing the rise of the National Socialist party to power, and the beginnings of the crimes that were committed in the name of improving humanity.  Unfortunately this message has not reached everyone it needs to.  When we visited, there were signs on the buildings explaining that a week before we arrived, Neo-Nazis had snuck in at night, and vandalized several of the buildings with Anti Jewish slogans, and swastikas.  No leads had been found to the identity of the perpetrators.

I didn’t take many photos here; because of the atmosphere of the camp it feels very unnatural to take photos while you are there. One feels that they are intruding on someone’s private memorial.

As a going away to the South Pole party, what could be better than Oktoberfest in Munich?  Absolutely nothing I figured, so my housemates Mark, Raf and I all found ourselves on a plane headed for Frankfurt.  Mark had met a girl named Christine on the internet who said that she could get us a cheap van, and we could crash at her place. In exchange, we took her along with us and paid for her hostel beds.  It was a fantastic vacation.  We started out driving down to Stuttgart where Raf had some relatives.  We stayed there for a couple of nights, checking out their version of Oktoberfest called "Volksfest".  It was our first exposure to the food and the wonderful beer that was served in the huge steins.  We also visited a couple of the castles in the area, and toured a local winery.

It’s a day for cliched post titles. 

I think Paris may have been my favorite place that we visited during this trip.  Everything was amazing, from the food, to the wine, the art and even the people.  We’d expected to be treated rudely, but thankfully this stereotype proved to be quite false.  We arrived on the afternoon train from Amsterdam, and immediately got lost trying to find our hostel.  Luckily a smartly dressed elderly lady walking her dog was able to help us, with her speaking bad English, and Syd speaking bad French.   We’d arrived on a Sunday, and quickly realized that after 7pm it was going to be tough to find a place to eat.  Luckily we found a little bistro that didn’t mind staying open a little longer, and had one of the best first meals I’ve ever had in a country. 

The next day we started out doing the typical tourist stuff…the Louve, the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame the riverwalk.  Once again, nighttime proved to be when Paris was at its best, as we bar hopped from place to place snacking and drinking excellent French wine.

The next day I wanted to go explore the catacombs.  Paris is literally built upon the bones if its former citizens.  There are tours where you can be guided underneath the city and see the tunnels and final resting places of people long gone.  Some of the bones are stacked neatly, and others are arranged in decorative piles.  Finally we ended up going to the cemetary Père Lachaise and walked around looking for graves of famous people.  The most interesting was Jim Morrison’s, just because it was the only one that has a permanent police officer there to keep people from vandalizing the place. 

The next day we got up early, and caught a quick flight back to London and then onto home.