Keri Goes Abroad: The Family Comes to Germany! (Esslingen, Munich and Dachau)

The family in Esslingen

For the past five days, I have been recovering from the family vacation. The visit was amazing and hilarious, and too short.

We started the journey in the Frankfurt airport, where we had a thoroughly difficult time retrieving our car. It simply was not there. In its parking place was a giant van, which clearly did not fit our 'small sedan' description, nor did the number or style on the key match the car in its spot. So we went on a wild goose chase, assisted by a man who had just started work that day. Great. Eventually we found the car, loaded it up, and took off....only to get lost in the parking garage.

Finally on the road, we headed two hours east to Stuttgart. Our hotel was outside of the city itself, so we didn't really get the lay of the land. We did, however, have a delicious dinner for Pat's birthday (round one). Except for Dad. Dad ordered wurstsalat - which is literally bologna run through a pasta press, piled on a plate. Sometimes they add pickles as a nice touch. Whoops. It's okay, Dad picked off of our assortment of Beef, Schnitzel and Kasespätzle (which is the Schwäbisch version of macaroni and cheese). We made it back to the hotel just before the rain.

The next day we couldn't escape the rain. We drove to Esslingen, which is where our relatives are from. Esslingen is adorable in an untouched sort of way. It still has remanants of the walled city, the marketplace still thrives on weekdays, and the church is still the center of town. We wandered about as much as the rain would allow, then piled back into our little Opel and continued our journey to Munich.

Chris and Pat, laughing at the smokestack that says "Dick" on it. Apparently it's a happening nightclub.

The double towers of the church in Esslingen.

Munich is, without a doubt, a city in its own league. It's much more relaxed than larger cities like Paris or Berlin. It's almost like a small town that happens to be huge. It's easy to wander the city. My German professor likes to say that "Bavaria is like the Texas of Germany" and Munich is the heart of Bavaria. It's what people picture when they think of Germany - Oktoberfest, dirndl or lederhosen -clad people with giant pretzels and lieters of beer. Just so that the family could get a taste of this, I took them to the Hofbräuhaus (for Pat's birthday, round two). We each had a maß (the giant lieters of beer) and a taste of good Bavarian food. I introduced Mom to Radler (3/4 pilsner, 1/4 sprite), which she enjoyed - it goes down more easily than strong German beer.

Our food was quite entertaining, mostly because I ordered the legendary weißwurst. Supposedly you're supposed to suck it out of its skin. I think it's just something that the Bavarians tell the outsiders to get a good laugh. Which is how the Bavarians sitting behind us expected me to eat my weißwurst, and wouldn't leave us alone until I did. They had a pretty good laugh about that.

The family at the Hofbräuhaus.

Our food: my mountain of sauerkraut and Chris's pork knuckle.

Man food.

Weißwurst, with a pretzel and mustard

The way you supposedly eat weißwurst. I'm still skeptical.

On day two we went to Dachau, the first concentration camp in Germany. It's a haunting place, though hard to picture exactly how overcrowded it was and how terrible life must have been. Hopefully the pictures will give you a taste.

The beds

Toilets - no privacy.

The gas chamber. It was never actually used for mass killings, but it's still a scary place to see.

The ovens.

To lighten the mood after Dachau, we took a trip to the English Gardens. It would have been nice to wander the city some more, but it was Sunday and everything is closed. Too bad it was chilly, too, otherwise we would have seen naked men doing aerobics in the Gardens. Actually, it's probably good that it wasn't warm - we would have had to restrain Chris. We ate at the biergarten in the middle, around the Chinesischer Turm. The boys had ribs, I had half a chicken, and a good time was had by all. By the end of the meal we were stuffed and ready for bed, so that we could get up for a last few hours of wandering the city the next morning, and the boys could waste 15 minutes of their time watching the glockenspiel.