Day 7!

I can't believe yesterday was only day 7 of this trip -- it feels like we've been here a month! Of course, Jeremy & I started our travels on Monday (early Monday, at that), so we've been away from home for longer than 7 days. I'm a home-body by nature and I'm starting to get homesick. And I really miss my babies. I've had fun, but I'm about ready to go home. I though for sure our trip wouldn't be long enough, but I think -- for us -- this will be just right. I could never happily do a month long tour of Europe.

Yesterday we left Garmisch and headed north to the Dachau concentration camp. We meant to take the Romantic Road on the way there, but couldn't find how to get on it (there are roadsigns marking the way) and the tourist office we stopped at couldn't help us (they could help us catch it back farther going the wrong way). So, instead, we barreled down the Autobahn going 100 miles per hour (and getting passed frequently by the rocketing Germans).

Dachau was the best done museum that we've seen so far. Of course, it was pretty depressing, but the museum was thorough in its coverage of information -- from discussing the conditions that lead to the Nazi reign to what happened after liberation. It wasn't an uplifting tour, but it was definitely worth seeing. It left me pondering how so many people could just ignore what was happening and wondering if the attitude of "its none of my business" or "its not my problem", that is so prevalent in our society, is just the type that allows this stuff to go on.

After Dachau, we headed to Augsburg. We checked into our hotel and then headed downtown for the evening via the local tram. What a trip! The woman at the hotel told us that it was 1.20 euros per person and that we could pay the driver. Okay, so we get to the tram stop and there is a ticket machine, which made no sense to us. The machine could speak English, but none of the maps or guides around it were in English and we don't understand a LICK of German. This is what I don't like about Europe -- sometimes, you just can't understand anything or anyone. So, we wait for the tram and head to the front where the driver is, only to have it pull away before we can move 10 feet. Well, okay then. We wait for the next tram, all the while I am lobbying on just crashing for the night at the hotel (because these things irritate the crap out of me). So we got on, without ticket, and the driver doesn't want to talk to us, though doesn't seem to be concerned about our lack of ticket. So we watch everyone else -- no one is either paying the driver or using tickets (in the ticket boxes that are located throughout the tram), but are just freely getting on and off. Okay, well that makes no sense!

We walked around the downtown area, which was much like a shopping mall, with large department stores dotted with smaller shops (though not the small local type places I like to frequent). It was interesting to go in and look around, but we didn't buy anything. I was frustrated to find that most of the stuff had English on it (I was looking for t-shirts for the kids with German on them). And then we ate dinner, where we asked the waiter how the tram worked. He gave us exactly the same information that the hotel had.

After dinner we headed back to repeat the tram incident, which I was dreading. At first, we couldn't figure out what tram to get on. Really, the signs made absolutely no sense in connection with the system map the hotel had given us. It took Jeremy having a very disjointed conversation with someone and a thorough review of the posted maps, to realize they gave us a map from 2004, which was very very out of date. This time, the tram wasn't as full and people were actually using tickets. The driver couldn't speak English (of course), but we managed to get the ticket thing figured out.

Augsburg wasn't exactly to my liking, but only because of its size. I've found I've liked the smaller cities much better. And today and tomorrow will be mostly that -- small towns along the Romantic Road, though we may squeeze in Heidelberg if we have the time.