Phil Afar: Life Hammers and Soiled Duvet Covers

In the last week of May, I met Chad, his wife Cathy, and his sister Caren in Europe. The plan was to meet in Munich, meet Cathy's brother Jimmy and sister Mary in Madrid, then tie up our trip in Barcelona. We also took a day away from Munich to visit Salzburg, Austria. I'll save you the trouble of asking- no, there were no thefts of passports. For me, that joke is like joking about AIDS or terrorism or the Kennedy Assassination- the time hasn't come yet where we can laugh over it. Moving on...

From Munich, 2009

After finding each other at the airport in Germany, we boarded a train to the city and began catching up and remembering jokes. Riding in the train, I noticed two things- how much I'd missed green fields and forests, and how long it had been since I laughed so much that I cried.

Once in Munich, we shuffled between two different hostels due to a booking error. While the staff of both hostels were reasonably accommodating, each really pushed us to add breakfast to the cost of our rooms. It wasn't just a polite suggestion, it was dire we accept. After so much pressure, we broke from our fatigued, unable-to-decide state and conceded to consider breakfast on a daily basis. Each morning, Caren and I would arrive downstairs before Chad and Cathy- trying to stay invisible, we stood waiting for the manager to remind us of our pledge. He never did, but I saw it in his eyes, in his smile. He remembered. We didn't cave.

After checking in, we metro'ed to the Deutsches Museum, the world's largest museum for technology and science founded in 1903. Despite the number of aircraft, boats, engines, and basic history of the museum itself, the six-floor monster was a little too overwhelming, so much that our legs and brains weren't up for the challenge. Since all displays were in German and 80% of the moving displays didn't work, I'm not sure I'd put it on my top 10.

From Munich, 2009

It was a little too much for us.

From Munich, 2009

Revitalized by the gift shop, we then checked out Viktualienmarkt, or as I like to call it, "the Virtual Alien Market". We saw outdoor stands for produce, potted plants, gelatto and snacks, paintings and pinecone art, and other home knick-knacks like you'd find in Kirkland's at Magnolia Mall. I am gelatto'd out. No virtual aliens though, go figure.

From Munich, 2009

At first arrival to our hostel, the cleaning crew had not yet collected the duvet cover from my bed's former occupant, which sported large brown streaks. The idea of sleeping under soiled duvet covers provided comic material for the rest of our trip. Following this episode, we would diligently inspect all linens for earth-tone stains past and present. Chad would later melt chocolate in his bed, and I would spill a 2-liter of coca-cola into my bed in Barcelona, so we inadvertently kept the joke running. But, I digress.

From Munich, 2009

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The following day, a warm and humid day, we joined a tour and took a train and a bus to Dachau Concentration Camp, the prototype facility for the camps to follow.

It took a while for our bus driver to handle his affairs in the restroom, leaving us sweating and crammed-in. Chad noticed life hammers mounted strategically throughout the bus, a gift he had recently given to Caren in case she drove her car into a lake and needed to break a window to escape. I felt the urge to life-hammer an escape from the humid claustrophobia. From then on, while dragging through open air streets or poorly A/C'd rooms, I imagined the life hammer bringing me relief.

Though very cleaned up and as domesticated as you could expect from a concentration camp, Dachau was a great experience. Three things I took from the trip that I didn't know/remember: 1) There were a slew of camps across Europe- just look:

From Munich, 2009

2) Prisoners worked in the town in munitions factories and in construction, not hidden away from the town residents. So the people could smell the crematorium and see the terrible condition the prisoners were in, but the risk behind taking action was arrest.
3) When the Americans captured the camp, troops forced the citizens of Dachau to tour the camp and look at the stockpiled bodies, unable to burn because of a coal shortage. They showed us a video of this- women and men dressed for church, gagging as they passed through the crematorium...

From Munich, 2009

"Work makes you free" crafted into the Gate.

I struggled to imagine how a prisoner would react to being flashed to the present day to see the state of the camp- a memorial park with pregnant American moms pushing strollers- other couples yelling at their kids for throwing rocks. People coming and going from the crematorium and gas chamber, taking photos. An American man trying to break off a brick from the oven as a souvenir. Me gorging on gummy bears outside the crematorium.

From Munich, 2009

It was at Dachau that we met "Florence" and Helen. Well, Caren did- "Florence" was wearing a t-shirt referencing a sisters' reunion in Florence, so we made Caren ask her if this was, in fact, Florence, SC. It was Florence, Oregon. F & H were two elderly American women who lagged behind, asked irrelevant questions, and followed each presented fact with a noise. They also were heavily bruised- Helen's arm looked a little beaten up, and Florence's hand and index finger were bandaged. My theory was that Florence had taken out her impatience on Helen and paid the price herself- but they got over it and vowed to enjoy the rest of their trip together. They are relevant, more on them in the next post.

From Munich, 2009

(Helen is on the far right, Florence is red-headed with the Green shirt behind her, taking a photo)

While hearing about the country of origin and the annual count of prisoners, Chad directed my attention to another elderly woman in our group with a bloodshot or otherwise diseased eye. While not funny, it was all I could do to stifle my laughter, as this clearly was not the time nor the place.

Following Dachau, we headed to the Augustiner Beer Garden for lunch and beer,

From Munich, 2009

visited the Glockenspiel (and were disappointed by it),

From Munich, 2009

toured shops and had dinner at the Hofbrauhaus, once a royal brewery of Bavaria and where the foundations of the Nazi party were laid. For us, the Hofbrauhaus was just an overwhelmed restaurant with out-of-control soccer fans crammed at indoor picnic tables in the stifling heat.