Guten Tag!

Munich was everything at once.

It was freeezing when we were there but I think it'd have made my top 5 places during summertime! The amount of food we had was amazing. It was sooo cold we were huddling indoors half the time eating. I've never eaten so much since I came to Milan but it was ohsogoood! Our foodie trip! :D

Pork's knuckles and beer at Hofbrauhaus -this place is aweesome, good food, live music and nothing above 10 euros. You can even see people decked out in costumes sitting at the tables with HUGEE jugs of beer!!

Alte Pinakothek. The paintings by Peter Paul Reubens weren't really my kind of thing. This painting by another painter caught my eye though. It depicts the life of Mother Mary all in one painting from the Annunciation to Assumption:

Easter at St Benedict's Church. The international community there was really welcoming and friendly! Father gave out colourful easter eggs and they celebrated with food after mass. I really like how they designed the place mass was celebrated at.

ViktualienMarkt: The fresh markets are gorgeous!!!! The food was really fresh and the colours were so vibrant you'd think they were fake! They even had whole chillis which you'll never see in Italy. Ahhh, I was so tempted to buy a whole bunch of chilli and lug it back to Milan but wasn't sure of the airport restrictions.

Frauenkirche (Metropolitan Church of our Lady). This is the church which Pope Benedict XVI (our current Pope) was from! He was archbishop of Munich and Freising. Anyway the special thing about this church is its "windowless" image. The story goes that the architect/builder of this church made a deal with the devil that there would be no windows in the church. The architect built in in such a way that if you stand at a particular spot at the back of the church, you wont be able to see any windows at all (top right picture). When the devil came, he was happy cause he saw no windows but later, he realised he was cheated! Unable to do anything about it, he stomped his feet in anger and left (footprint, bottom left).

Englischer Garten, miles and miles of grassy fields which I happily skipped and twirled around :)

Marienplatz:

Then, there was Dachao, the concentration camp which was so depressing, especially with the weather. It felt wrong to take pictures there -the bunkers, prisons, gas chambers, the place held so much. I felt guilty just being there, reliving all that happened, their suffering like zoo exhibits -made worse with tourists taking pictures and smiling in front of prison hallways. Yet to forget, move on and not have any memorial at all like Dachao would be disregard for all that happened. It was then that the dilemma between forgetting and commemorating came alive for me. Where do we go from here?

Gloomy thoughts aside, we took a day trip to see the Neuschwanstein Castle (aka Walt Disney Castle) where we hiked uphill and braved the snow, rain and wind for 35 minutes! I'll think we'll never forget that walk. My fingers turned purple! I was really happy with the snow though :) :) Thought I'd leave Europe not seeing snow but I did!!

After our brave hike up the mountain, the tour guide brought us to a grand total of 3 rooms! That's cause the castle took really long to build and was never finished. The King lived there only 6 months before he died. The finished rooms are really gorgeous!! Very different from all the other castles we've been to. Too bad pictures inside weren't allowed. Here are pictures!

And more food to end off with! :)