Munich/Dacau

The day before my family was to arrive I scheduled an USO tour to Munich and Dacau Germany. A co-worker and myself left on a bus at 4am and drove straight to Munich...5 hours later. Now normally the drive wouldn't have taken quite so long in a car, probably more like 3 hours or so but the bus has to go 80kph (about 50mph) the whole way. We arrived in Munich and and were given a tour of the city on the bus. We saw things like BMW and Mercedes Benz HQ, olympic park etc. Then we got off of the bus and walked with our tour guides while she explained more about the city. Then we were on our own for a while to explore the city. We had lunch at the world famous (because of Oktoberfest) Hofbrauhaus. McKay had expressed interest in a Vuvuzela (horn) that the world cup fans could be seen blowing on the tv. I told him I would find one for him in Germany, I noticed one of the boys in our group had purchased one. So on the way back to the bus prior to leaving I asked him where he got it. He told me that he had bought it at one of the shops that we had passed. Risking missing the bus I decided I would try to get one for McKay. I ran back to the area that he said and looked frantically for this horn. No luck, I could not find it and here I was a ways from the bus, knowing I was running late to catch it. Back I ran, in the heat, after a long day of walking...thank goodness I made it, but I was the last one on. Then we stopped at Dacau concentration camp. What a very humbling experience. I felt like I needed to go to one of these concentration camps and pay my respects to those who needlessly lost their lives for their beliefs. I wanted to do it before my family came as a means of checking out the appropriateness for my kids to see it and also knowing that my wife didn't want to see this place meant that I might not be able to once they arrived. Again, I can not reiterate how moving this place was. Just a feeling of heaviness filled the air. They had rebuilt a couple of living quarters, but you could see the concrete foundation for all of the buildings that existed. It was moving to think how many people actually passed through this compound and how many lost their lives. We walked through the gas chamber area, interestingly enough the gas chamber was never used here, but these gas chambers were the prototype for the other concentration camps. In fact interestingly enough, this concentration camp was the prototype for all others, generally speaking. I did get to see the ovens where they killed many...so sad. The sign at the entrance to the doors to Dacau read "Work will make you free"...I guess in a very negative sense of this statement they had it right.