Germany 2007

Dachau

shaneroehl — Tue, 22 May 2007 03:40:00 GMT

When you think of vacation, you typically don't think "concentration camp". After spending a lackluster day in Munich, Chris and I decided to take a short train ride out to Dachau. I had been there before (back in '94) but thought it would be a good thing to see again now, having some more life experience and perspective. Chris had wanted to go when we originally booked the trip, however, we thought it wasn't going to be possible. Fortunately everything worked out and we were able to book a guided tour of the facility with relative ease.

We met up with our tour group about 12:30pm at the train station and we were actually surprised to see about 15 people signed up for the tour as well. We thought that since it was a Sunday, there wouldn't be that many people interested in heading out to Dachau. After about 30 minutes by train and by bus we were standing at the memorial site.

Our guide, Brandon, did a good job of setting the scene for what Dachau really was back in the 30's and 40's. It was actually built as a work internmant camp for those Germans that openly questioned/opposed the Nazi Party. This camp, however, quickly became something very different and far more sinister. Without going into the full details (you can do your own research online), Dachau was the 1st German concentration camp, and all of the things that happened at some of the more infamous camps (i.e. Auschwitz) were first tested, and tried here.

One can only truly understand how grotesque the living conditions were for these people by touring the grounds. On the day that the Allied forces liberated the camp in 1945, there were over 32,000 prisoners in the camp. When built, Dachau was designed to house only 6,000. That number alone is only an indication of how disturbing the sight must have been when allied forces showed up to liberate the camp. It is estimated that roughly 50,000 people died in the 12 years that Dachau was open. That number, however, is only the verified number of dead, there is really no way of knowing how many people actually entered, and died at the camp between 1933 and 1945. This is also the smallest number of deaths that were verfied as compared to the other concentration camps that took after Dachau...Auschwitz alone estimated that roughly 1.5 million deaths occurred in Auschwitz.

We have attached some pictures, but have many more we will share when we get home, as well as some more of the history and context of the photos. Chris and I both consider this one of the better stops we have made on the trip, but it was also a pretty sobering experience as well.

After visiting Dachau, we returned to Munich at about 6pm and had dinner and a cappacino before boarding our train back to Stuttgart. The train ride back was shorter with fewer stops and we made it back to Clemens' and Judith's around 11:30pm. Tomorrow is laundry and relaxing before continuing the week. Apparently we are going to do dinner picnic style tomorrow night up on a hilltop overlooking Stuttgart. Sounds great to us! Anyway, hope you are all well and we will write more in a couple days.

Love,

Chris and Shane

Gallery: Dachau

shaneroehl — Sun, 20 May 2007 21:26:00 GMT

Gallery: Munich

shaneroehl — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:44:00 GMT

Munich

shaneroehl — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:13:00 GMT

On Saturday morning Chris and I got up early and made the 5 minute walk to the Haupbahnhof to catch our train to Munich. We hopped on our train just in the knick of time and made the 2 and 1/2 hour trip to Munich. Upon arriving at about 11:00am we made the 1/4 mile walk to our hotel where we had made arrangements for an early check in.

While the hotel was a good value (76 Euro for a pretty nice room) there were two problems. First, it was 1/4 mile in the opposite direction of downtown Munich. Second, it was in the middle of the Turkish ghetto. So, we made sure that while being very obviously American, that we were in and out of that Hotel quickly and during active parts of the day. Pretty much in and out only one time.

After settling into our room, we made the 20 minute walk down to the Marienplatz where most of the shopping and major tourist attractions are. We hadn't scheduled a tour or anything, so armed with a camera, a city map, and a credit card, we wandered our way through town. It was Saturday, so the town was PACKED. There were people everywhere. You can tell by the photos that we couldn't get a picture without 100 random people making it into the shot. Add in that it was also Bundusliga Fussball championship day and everyone was acting like crazed idiots, and it made for some interesting people watching.

One of the main attractions in the Marienplatz is the 4 story Glockenspiel on the city hall. On this day, however, we walked into the main square to find that they were rennovating this feature. So what is usually a very fun and ornate piece of artwork was in effect a 4 story painters scaffold. Bummer.

Anyway, after the Marienplatz we walked through King Ludwig Square, and got a chance to see how crazy that guy and his son really were. While they did invent Oktoberfest, they were fanatical about building on a large scale. The square is surrounded by oversized monuments, churches, and the royal residence. Instead of walking through these monsters, Chris and I decided to walk through the adjacent park and view them all from the outside.

After walking through the park, we made our way to the Hofbrauhaus. We had been told by many people that we needed to stop for a drink here. When Chris and I arrived, the place was full to overflowing with drunk English and Americans, and it basically resembled a nicer version of the Festhalle in Leavenworth during Oktoberfest. We watched some of the antics and then decided to move on.

We walked back to the Marienplatz, found a beer garden and had some beers before deciding that we had seen what we wanted to see in Munich for the day. We decided to hit up a few of the shops we had walked by earlier in the day and found one of the most adorable bavarian dresses for Hailey...she will fit right in now during the "fests" of Leavenworth! After a little bit of shopping, it was time to head back to the hotel. We really just played the rest of the evening pretty low key and even contemplated going to the Haupbahnhof early the next day to catch the early train back to Stuttgart.

When we got back to the hotel, Chris picked up a brochure for Dachau concentration camp, which is located about 20K outside Munich. We thought for sure they would be closed on a Sunday, but to our surprise, we found that it was open. So, we decided that rather than grab the early train on Sunday we would head out there instead.

By the way, I mentioned the Bundusliga title...Stuttgart happened to win this year. We saw on the news that while we were in Munich in the Turkish Ghetto, there were 250,000 people in the main square not 5 minutes from Clemens and Judith's house partying until 5am celebrating the win...oh well.

Tommorrow off to Dachau...

Shane & Chris

Thubingen

shaneroehl — Fri, 18 May 2007 19:37:00 GMT

As Thursday the 17th was a Holiday in Germany, most everyone in the city took all or part of Friday off as well. For us, that meant that we were heading on another quick road trip with Clemens and Judith.

Clemens took us to his college town of Thubingen, roughly 30 minutes away from Stuttgart. We parked in the town square (the guy is the luckiest person on the planet when it comes to find a parking space) and made the 10 minute walk directly uphill to the town's original castle. Along the way we passed roughly a dozen fraternity houses/castles as well as other apartment buildings.

Thubingen is one of Germany's oldest cities, and by the looks of the castle and local buildings, there was no doubt that this was true. As we made our way around the castle grounds, we found ourselves perched on a great viewing point of the town. From there, you could see the main square, the city hall, and the large church.

After snapping some photos, and taking in the sunshine, we decided to walk into town. The streets were as narrow as we've seen since arriving in Europe and the town seemed to be laid out in no particular order. Buildings were just attached to eachother and the town sort of organically grew around the main square.

Once we wandered our way into the main square we found the city hall (rathaus) and were impressed with the amount of detail that had gone in to the artwork on the outside of the building. We noticed that the buildings were constructed a little differently than some of the buildings in other towns. We noticed that as the building got taller, each floor stuck out over the street about 4-6 inches past the floor below it.

The reason is simple, and somewhat disgusting. Before sewer systems came to be, townspeople had do dispose of their own waste by dumping it in the street. So, if you lived on the top floor of a building, you would simply toss it out the window. The buildings were built in such a way that the top floor wouldn't give the floors below them an unwated gift. Needless to say, we didn't see many balconies in Thubingen either.

After touring the main square, we headed for the local Church. Once inside we viewed the royal burial museum and then headed up the narrow spiral staircase to the top of the bell tower. Once up top, we had an amazing view of all of Thubingen and the Neckar river. We spent about 20 minutes up top and then realized we were very hungry and thirsty. So we headed back down the tower and found a beer garden on the Neckar.

After some great stories, some laughs and a couple of beers, we headed back to the car, as Judith needed to get back to Stuttgart for an appointment. Clemens couldn't stop without getting a Currywurst, after that it was back to Stuttgart.

Check out the photos in the Thubingen gallery...tomorrow, we're off to Munich.

We are having a great time, however, we are getting to the point in the trip where we are starting to miss home, and miss our daughter. We'll see you all in about a week.

Much love,

Shane and Chris

Gallery: Thubingen

shaneroehl — Fri, 18 May 2007 16:04:00 GMT

Our Anniversary

shaneroehl — Thu, 17 May 2007 22:16:00 GMT

Since the entire trip was in celebration of our 5 year anniversary, we didn't plan any special night out. We did, however, find ourselves dining with Clemens' entire family at their home in Leonberg (roughly 15 minutes outside of Stuttgart).

Chris and I were a bit nervous for the event, as we didn't really know what to expect. Upon arriving, we were met at the door by Angelika and Fritz (his parents). In broken English, Angelika greeted both Chris and I with a hug and immediately invited us in. From there we were greeted by Ferdinand, his wife Maren, and their two children Friederich (5 weeks), and "The Franz" (3).

The mood was pretty relaxed as we made our way through a formal coffee and cake session in their dining room. For those reading this that don't know anything about the family, I forgot to mention...Clemens' parents are fairly well off by German standards. Their apartment is roughly 2000 square feet, with a 180 degree view of the town of Leonberg, and a distant view of the Black Forest. Its styling borders on that of a museum with all white furniture and well placed artwork everywhere. While the tone of the event was relaxed, there was no doubt that Chris and I had to put on our formal dining faces.

After some fantastic coffee and cake, we all departed for a local restaurant in downtown Leonberg. We were seated in an old (16th century) wine cellar for dinner. Fritz and I carried on quite a conversation about the differences in business between the states and Germany, this was the one topic that really seemed to get him to start chatting away. Angelika chatted away at Chris as we all watched "The Franz" make his way through the German version of Hailey's favorite meal "bratwurst und pommes". After polishing off 4 bottles of wine, we decided that dinner was over and headed home for the night.

While it wasn't the stereotypical anniversary with the intimate 2 person dinner and romantic atmosphere. It sure was nice to be considered a part of the family and sit down for a nice family dinner in a very cool and beautiful restaurant.

Unfortunately, we got no pictures of this event...the camera was in my pocket the entire time.

Gallery: Stuttgart

shaneroehl — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:09:00 GMT

local photos

Stuttgart

shaneroehl — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:05:00 GMT

Hey everyone...

Stuttgart has been a welcome change from our hectic arrival. With Clemens and Judith returning to work, Chris and I are left with more time to do some exploration of the city on our own. So far, we have kept things pretty relaxed. Yesterday we hit the Bakery and the Deli, bought some bread, cheese, and meat for lunch and just hung out on Konigstrasse downtown for a few hours.

Clemens showed us where his office is on the Schlossplatz which was pretty killer. He has a postcard view of the new Castle and main square right downtown. He pays only 1000E a month for rent on this office space, which he says he makes up in a couple of days with the type of law he practices (Corporate copyright law).

After seeing his office, we made the 5 minute walk back to the apartment and hung out for a while until dinner at 8:00pm. One thing we are really having to adjust to is how late everyone eats over here. Chris and I look at the clock and its 3pm and we're just sitting down for lunch. Dinner before 8pm...forget about it.

Last night we did a little picture slide show for Clemens and Judith so they could see what we had been up to the last 3 years. As expected when you have a child, most of the pictures were of Hailey, and there were actually very few of us doing anything other than looking annoyed by the camera. We're definitely changing that on this trip.

Anyhow, we have booked our train tickets and hotel for Munich, and we leave for a 2 day/one night trip on Saturday. Looking forward to seeing what Munich looks like these days, and hopefully taking in some of the local scene there as well.

Until then, we're going to keep doing some sightseeing, and hanging out with Clemens and Judith.

Talk to you soon,

Shane & Chris

The Spluge Pass

shaneroehl — Sun, 13 May 2007 02:32:00 GMT

For Clemens and Judith the vacation was over. For us, it was time for something completely different. We decided to not make the trip to St. Moritz on the way back for a couple of reasons. This would have been a little bit out of the way, and also, neither Chris or myself were in the mood to think about the ski resort business. Instead we decided on a more "sporting" route home. We chose to take the pass to a town called Spluge located in Switzerland.

So, started our trip in Italy, went home via Switzerland...funny, this sounds like the trip down. Although we were back in Stuttgart in 5 hours. Further confirming that we had taken the LOOOOOONNNNNNG way to Italy in the first place.

Clemens had warned that this pass was pretty crazy. That didn't really capture the essence of this pass. We shot some video and will bring it home with us. Basically it was a series of switchbacks and very narrow (one lane) roads through a mountain pass. Think of a 50 mile Mt. Baker highway with much narrower roads and without the guard-rail. Of course for us, it was raining and foggy which added to the hair raising experience.

In a car, this road was pretty sketch, on a motorcycle, it would have been the ride of a lifetime. We got passed a few times by people taking that ride.

The border was at the top of the pass, and you could tell that as soon as we crossed the line, Switzerland put more emphasis on keeping their roads in order. There was a wooden guard rail the whole way down the mountain and the road was in excellent condition.

On the way down, we drove through a ski resort (as the road is closed in the winter). When we got to the bottom and entered the town of Spugel, Chris said "And you think Stevens Pass has road issues". After a stressful drive, that was the funniest thing someone could have possibly said...I'm pissed I didn't think of it first.

Anyway, back to Stuttgart. The posts will probably come a little more slowly now as we are going to be falling into a more casual routine now that we are back in Germany. I'll probably only update every other day or so from here on out.

We hope you are all doing well back home, and we look forward to chatting with you all soon.

Ciao,

Chris & Shane

Gallery: Como

shaneroehl — Sat, 12 May 2007 01:52:00 GMT

Como

shaneroehl — Sat, 12 May 2007 01:30:00 GMT

We left Milan this morning...actually this was a relief. I think one or two days is perfect for Milan. We may have wanted to do some shopping, but other than that, the people weren't that friendly, and it is a pretty busy/commercial city, so not the best for outdoor sightseeing. If you have a lot of money...shopping is not a problem. But outside of that, it was time to move on.

We headed for a town called "Como" which sits on "Lago Como", another large lake near Lago Maggiore. Clemens and Judith had been here before, so the drive was much quicker, and we were able to go directly to the best spots in the town.

We arrived in Como about lunch time as we had overslept in Milan and missed breakfast. The funny thing is that we haven't been hungry on this trip at all. I don't know if it is our body adjusting, or that the small portions we are eating are carrying us through the day. Either way, it has been awesome...the food is amazing and yet we don't eat too much of it!

After a cappuccino, we walked the streets, did some window shopping and then decided (about 3pm) that it was time to check into our Hotel for the night. We drove along the lake for about 10 minutes, then we took a hard left and wound our way to the top of the hill overlooking the lake. Our Hotel was perched on top "Allergo Russall". This was the spot...for sure the nicest hotel we've been to in a while. The room was well appointed, but the view and the inn keepers were worth the money on their own. Check out the pictures for only a taste of how beautiful this spot was.

After a short rest, we jumped onto a passenger ferry to check out some of the local towns on the lake. We stopped at the town of "Bellagio" had some Gellato and took in the local vibe. We did some gift shopping, but mostly we sat, people watched, and toured the island on our own. This is truly beautiful country, I would suggest this for anyone taking a vacation to Italy as the ratio of tourist activity vs. the local feel is very favorable. Also, once you get outside the main cities, the locals seem more interested in actually helping you out, and talking about whatever is on their mind.

Dinner at the hotel was great. Basically this was how it went. When we checked in, the Inn Keeper said (in German, then in English) that dinner was at 7:30pm, if you miss it...tough. Dinner was Minestrone or Penne, and then followed the main course...veal cutlet w/spinach and potatoes w/ rosemary. This, coupled with 2 bottles of wine made for probably one of the most amazing meals I've had in quite some time. We topped the evening off with some Fiormagge, some Grappe, and then a nice long conversation outside overlooking the lake until about 12:00pm.

While Clemens and I were out on the patio chatting, the girls went inside to see what all the piano noise was about. Some drunk Italian guy was playing American songs like "My Way" and "What a wonderful world" in a broken Italian accent. The girls went in, and were immediately welcomed by not only the piano player and his friend, but were also befriended by this nice couple from Connecticut that were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

The American couple was so drunk on Grappe that she kept mistaking Chris for an Italian girl from Sienna, not an American girl from Seattle. From there, things deteriorated and both Judith and Chris returned to our table outside laughing hysterically. Come to find out that the Piano player had taken such a liking to the girls that he had invited them both back to his boat on the lake. I think Clemens and I are lucky we still have our ladies around.

Chris and I both felt like this was the first day that we were really "on vacation". This spot is a place that neither of us will soon forget.

Ciao

Shane & Chris

Vogogna to Milano

shaneroehl — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:46:00 GMT

Lago Maggiore

Ahhh...

After a good night's sleep we got up around 8:30am, had some breakfast, and hopped back in the car for the quick trip from Vogogna to Lago Maggiore.

It appears that this is Italy's largest inland body of water, Chris and I gathered that it was roughly 3 times the size of Lake Chelan. I'm not sure of its depth, but I suppose that really doesn't matter. We drove along the lake for about 20 minutes before finding a place to park on the south end of the lake.

We got lucky with the weather, as it was already about 12pm and it was 75 degrees and perfect blue skies. In talking to some locals, they had received 10 straight days of hard rain before we arrived, which explained why it was so humid. Chris and I were both impressed with how lush and green the landscape was. In addition, the thing that strikes us both about the country side is how each little town is built specifically into the surrounding topography, becoming a part of the landscape. Unlike the states, where we reconfigure the landscape to work with what our housing plans are.

We immediately spotted the main attraction at Lago Maggiore. The largest of 4 islands "Isola Bella". We hopped a water taxi and took the 5 minute boat ride out there to a large mansion and botanical garden. The mansion actually had a very small village attached to it, we can only assume this was for the servants and staff of the mansion. The village was definitely built to be the tourist trap, so we decided to pay the 22Euro to tour the mansion and grounds. Check out the attached pictures...pretty cool house.

After touring the mansion for a while, we stopped and got cappuccino before heading back. On our way back to the boat we ran into a couple from New Jersey. The woman was really funny b/c she was the stereotypical east coast Jewish wife/mom. It was funny to see this stereotype juxtaposed with the beautiful Italian countryside and laid back culture.

When she found out that we paid 5 Euro/Person for our water taxi ride and that she and her husband paid 12 Euro/Person for the same ride, she about lost her mind...it was all she could say "I can't believe it, Frank, we need to negotiate everything over here, 5 euro, and we paid 12, I can't believe it...these kids, on the same taxi for 5 euro." We all thought she was going to have a heart attack, and you know that right now, as they continue on their bus tour through Europe, that's all she's talking about. How those nice people from Seattle paid half for their taxi.

Milano

After leaving the hysterical east coast couple, we headed off to our primary destination...Milano.

In the states, Milan is kind of viewed as the center for art and architecture in northern Italy. And of course, it is known as a world wide fashion hub. When we arrived, it looked like we had arrived in an industrial city, with large factories lining the freeway. Then we hit the city center and understood a little better why Milan got its reputation as a cool city.

Busy is the best word I can use to describe this city. With loose traffic rules, and about 3 times the population density of downtown Seattle you can imagine how interesting getting around was. The funniest thing was watching these professional women coming out of their office and getting on their scooters in skirts and high heels, then racing down the cobblestone streets at 35-40 mph.

We parked, had a slice of pizza, and headed for the Milan Cathedral or the "domo" as it is called locally. You can see from the pictures it was pretty impressive from the outside, and inside was no different. Unfortunately, the pictures didn't really turn out on the inside so I have not included them here.

From what we could understand, the Cathedral took nearly 75 years to complete. I can't imagine that they got that thing finished that quickly back in the 16th century. If we had been more motivated, we could have easily spent 2 hours inside, there really was that much to see. If you are a devout Catholic, you could have spent a full day there, and even gotten your confessional in as there were priests there from 4 different languages holding court.

From there, we headed to the hotel, and found it pretty easily once we figured out that Milan is set up on a series of circular one way streets...I think we made 6 u turns and made the circle around Milan 3 times trying to find the Hotel.

Once at the hotel, we settled in then found a great local restaurant for dinner. Chris warned me to stay away from the pasta with fried frogs in it...I thought that was a good idea. Dinner was served by a very surly Italian man who seemed frustrated with our inability to speak his native tounge. Dinner was fabulous, and drinks and good conversation afterward provided the perfect nightcap to a very long day.

Talk to you soon...

Shane & Chris

Gallery: Vogogna-Milan

shaneroehl — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:36:00 GMT

Sightseeing

"No sleep till....

shaneroehl — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:30:00 GMT

....Brooklyn".

Not quite. Unlike that famous Beastie Boys line, for us, it was no sleep 'till Vogogna. Yes, that's right, Vogogna Italy. Where is that you might ask? Hell if we know. All we know is that we had a long day of travel, with no sleep, some crazy German Driving through the Alps. Add in 2 brand new languages, and the typical Clemens navigation skills, and you have an interesting day of travel.

So here's the re-cap of day one:

7:00am Lake Stevens, WA:

Wake up and depart Lake Stevens for SeaTac and our flight. Everything happened right on schedule. We got to the airport a couple of hours before our flight and cruised through the airport barely slowing down for security. Evidently we got pretty lucky b/c we talked to a couple of people in the terminal and it took them almost an hour to get through security, so we must have gotten extremely lucky with that.

1:00pm SeaTac, WA:

Our flight to Amsterdam departed right on time, we got on the plane (Airbus 330-300)and came to realize that my seat was still screwed up. They did have us up near the front, but they had me in the very middle of the row. I tried to sit in my seat, but that was NOT going to happen. Fortunately, this nice Dutch lady was kind enough to only give me a dirty 5'6" look when I asked if she would be willing to switch with me. When I stood up, she really understood why I asked and was cool about the whole thing.

The flight was cool, lots of movies, and neither of us were able to sleep...it was a long 10 hours. Both of us felt like the airline was trying to feed us to the point of passing out from a Diabetic coma. It seemed like every time we turned around they were shoving food in our face.

The part of flying that usually freaks me out the most is landing, I still can't wrap my head around how they can land a 3 story building on a 1/2 mile strip of concrete at 200mph. It scares the crap out of me every time. But fortunately, Sir Isaac Newton prevailed again and we landed smoothly. From there it was off to the races to catch our connecting flight from Amsterdam to Stuttgart.

Upon arriving in Stuttgart, we literally got to choose which gate we went through at customs. The red gate had 2 customs agents standing there doing nothing, and the green gate was a direct line to the parking area...we obviously chose the green gate, and it was "Wilkommen im Deutschland". Somewhere I heard Dick Cheney groan.

10:00am Stuttgart, DE

Clemens and Judith picked us up at the airport, and we rushed off to their apartment downtown to get a bag packed for our weekend trip to Italy. Clemens and Judith jabbered away in the front seat and it suprised me to what degree my German had stuck with me. Poor Chris had no clue what was going on, so Clemens was kind enough to play tour guide as we made our way to their apartment downtown.

After a quick lunch, Clemens laid out the travel plans. "It is a five our trip from Stuttgart to Vogogna. From there we will stay at a hotel, and tomorrow we will tour a place called Lago Maggiore". Yeah...we'll see.

Once on the road, it was typical Clemens. "Oh...my mom said we should stop in Zurich...oh....we'll go this way, through the country, its a prettier drive." We definitely appreciated the amount of time he took playing tour guide, the problem was that I think we missed half of the fun b/c we were so tired.

After a quick meal in Zurich, we were off to the races again. We found this really cool mountain road that was pretty fun to drive...definitely a route more suited for a motorcycle, but it was pretty fun in Clemens's sporty little VW.

10:00pm Vogogna, IT

Finally...after 9 HOURS we arrived in Vogogna. The funny thing was, we actually arrived in Vogogna 1 hour prior to checking into our hotel. Clemens and Judith were in disagreement as to where the hotel was, Judith wanted to ask someone, and Clemens wanted to find it. The funny thing is, we drove by the very well signed, very well lit hotel 3 times before we finally believed that it was our hotel. Chris and I were too tired to care.

The best part of the trip at that point was that the bed was comfortable, the hotel was safe, and we knew the next day would be better.

I have attached some pictures in the "Photos" section.

Tommorrow its off to Lago Maggoire and Milano.

We'll make another post soon...until then.

-Shane & Chris

Gallery: May 10

shaneroehl — Thu, 10 May 2007 04:09:00 GMT

On the Road