MUNICH, GERMANY
My dad was on a business trip to Munich, so of course I tagged along. Munich is cute and efficient and has terrible food. It has 3 modes of transportation (train, bus, streetcar) for a pretty small population (1.3 million) and has an incredible, enormous outdoor market where people go to drink beer and eat sausage with giant pretzels outside even when it's freezing cold.
We spent a day at the Dachau concentration camp, which is almost completely preserved and has an amazing museum. Everything about its function in 1933-1945 is unbelievably well-documented, with photos of prisoners and careful logs of their identities and work assignments in the camp. If you haven't been, ask me about it in person sometime- I was shocked at how little I actually knew about how Nazi camps were run.
My dad grinning (somewhat inappropriately) next to Dachau's "Arbeit Macht Frei" entrance sign ("freedom through work")Here's what my dad and I mostly did in Munich, in the city's oldest Biergärten surrounded by waiters in traditional Bavarian costumes and men in lederhosen playing the tuba (Really! It was so great!):
MY FIRST GUEST (and hopefully not last!! Come visit me!)
After Munich, my dad came to Cambridge for a weekend while he was working in London. I took him on a tour of my favorite part of Cambridge- its bridges! (Get it- bridge over the river Cam = Cambridge!) The grounds of the most famous colleges span the river and each one has its own beautiful and totally unique bridge, but Cambridge is so small that if you stand on one bridge the next one is only like 50 feet downriver... nothing like college rivalries to create inefficient bridge planning, right? No way would a Trinity student deign to walk across a Clare bridge... or something like that. Anyway, I love these bridges, and here we are on my favorite, Clare College's (not Clare Hall, where I live) Mathematical Bridge, reportedly originally built by Isaac Newton using no bolts or nails, only wooden beams counterbalanced to stay together! (Myth, but a good story)
TOMORROW: IRELAND!
I'm going to Cork, in the south of Ireland, in about 5 hours (thank you, cheap flights, for always taking off so early it's basically the middle of the night). I'm going with this boy. He plays violin in a jazz band, studies engineering, makes his own chocolate, looks like Paul McCartney, and was wearing the same shirt as me the day this photo was taken.
We're going to kiss the Blarney Stone to receive the "gift of Irish gab", enjoy real Irish "craic" (pronounced crack, means "fun involving music and drinking"), and visit the 19th century Cork Gaol (= jail!). We will not be eating any contaminated Irish pork. :)
Happy Holidays to you!! Hope all is well!
4 comments:
speechless. thank you for FINALLY posting again. amazed at how you can live a fairy-tale and remain humble and, well ... you. may we all have a year full of photos taken of us having beer with our parents and smiling next to boys who look like beautiful pop-stars. walk those bridges, babycakes - walk 'em good. (sniffle!)
aiaiaiaiaiaiai
How fun a trip to the Emerald Isle. Can't wait to hear about all the Craic!
I think the hair is particularly McCartney, circa the Hard Days Night era. And as I get many compliments for being on the arm of Edward Norton, I can attest to the fun of dating a celebrity look-alike.
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