September 23

Day 12: September 23 

History//Technology

Dachau Concentration Camp- History

Dachau Concentration camp

We woke up to the sound of our alarms and grabbed some food out of the refrigerator for breakfast.  As we ate our breakfast we talked about how much fun we had at the Neuschwanstein castle. Grace's favorite part of the castle was the extraordinary view that you could see when looking out any of the castle's windows. After talking, we all dressed up and packed our bags to go catch a taxi to the Dachau concentration camp. It did not take us a long time to get a taxi, and before we knew it we were already at the Dachau concentration camp. As we pulled up my stomach sank, and I couldn't believe that I was looking at the place that robbed so many innocent people of their lives. We got out of the taxi and paid the driver. We walked into the check-in center to make sure our reservation was still intact. We had signed up for a guided tour that took place in about fifteen minutes; we all used the restroom and then we sat and waited in the check-in center while we waited for our tour guide to arrive. She arrived perfectly on time. We boarded a train that would take us from the check-in center to the heart of the concentration camp. Our tour began as soon as the train stopped. Walking through the entrance shot chills and fear down our backs. The barbed wire surrounding the face created a sense of despair and violence. The environment was dark and covered in a murderous feel that was haunting. Our guide took us to some bunkers and cells that were the home to the suffering Jews. The cells were small and I could imagine tons of the victims piled into this one tiny room, trying to find enough food and get by with close to nothing.

Gas chamber

After spending a good thirty minutes in the cells of the camp our guide led us to the gas chambers.  Ella and I made eye contact as we walked into the gas chamber, and shared the mutual thought that this was going to be some really sad information. Our tour guide led us through the concentration camp the same way the prisoners had to go when they were about to be killed.  The first room we entered was called the "waiting room". This is where the prisoners would take off all of their clothes and leave their belongings. In the waiting room there was a sign that read, "This is the center of potential mass murder". The room was disguised as "showers" and equipped with fake shower spouts to mislead the victims and prevent them from refusing to enter the room. During a period of fifteen to twenty minutes up to 150 people at a time could be suffocated to death through prussic acid poison gas. As Laurel read the sign I could tell she felt the weight of all those poor souls on her shoulders.  We entered the actual gas chamber and I saw the "shower heads" and the tightly sealed doors. This concentration camp did not kill as many as Auschwitz, but it did manage to take many innocent lives. After we exited through the steel doors towards the back of the chamber we thanked our guide and called for a taxi. We all stood in silence while we waited because we were still trying to collect all of our thoughts about what we had just witnessed. As we entered the train to take us back to the main waiting area and stood while waiting for a taxi we began to discuss how that experience made us feel and how we hated that people would ever think that's acceptable. We took the taxi to grab a light snack because it was already 3:00 P.M. and we didn't have much time until we would go get dinner.

BMW Headquarters- Technology

It didn't take us very long to grab a snack; we told the taxi cab to wait, in order to jump right back into the cab and make it on time for our tour at the BMW headquarters. The head quarters were huge! The taxi cab dropped us off at the front entrance where we were greeted by tons of the BMW workers.

BMW headquarters

We all ran to the bathroom because we didn't want to miss any of the tour. We finished using the restrooms and walked back out of the waiting area where we were greeted by our tour guide. We had signed up for the Architectural Tour. Our tour guide exclaimed, "The Architectural Tour is exclusively dedicated to the avant-garde design of the BMW Welt that was created by the internationally renowned architectural firm Coop Himmel". The inside of the firm was stunning and contained clean floors, shiny walls, and beautiful cars. The museum presented to us the amazing engines that were crafted perfectly. They even showed us the machine that the company used to shape the car and get it to look perfect. Towards the end of the tour Ellie and Grace found a wall that showed us all of the most expensive BMW's ever sold. The BMW Nazca M12 was priced at 1.1 million dollars to three million dollars. All I could do was laugh because I don't know who in their right mind would buy a car that expensive. The tour was coming to an end and we all took our final looks at the cars we all knew we would never be able to own. We walked outside and it was already dark. None of us were tired, and we all decided to go out and eat at a nearby pizza joint, called La Pausa. Since we hadn't eaten a big lunch, we were all extremely hungry and ordered three huge pizzas. At first we were skeptical about whether it would be good as the restaurant was completely empty, but as soon as we got out pizza and took the first bite our skepticism banished. It was some of the best pizza I had ever had. Within two minutes, Ellie and Laurel had finished almost a whole pizza. Once we had finished all of our pizza and paid, we went to go get ice cream at Vanilla and Apricot. It was extremely delicious and I got to try so many new, tropical flavors that you couldn't find anywhere back in the United States. The city was beautiful at night; we decided to walk around and look at the lights and listen to street bands. It took way longer to get home than we expected because we confused the timing of the walk. As soon as we got back home we fell straight into bed.