Ten day break? Let's GOOOOO!!!!

For those of you who don't know, the abroad program that I'm in right now has a fall break built into the schedule. No classes were held between Friday, October 22 and Friday, October 29th, so we had the perfect opportunity to get away from our home and travel. Some went to Portugal for the week; others went to Croatia. Some families took the opportunity to visit their sons or daughters in Ireland, while other students simply hopped over the channel to the U.K, or even over the northern Atlantic to the far-away land of Norway. Molly and I did something a bit different; we went off on our own adventure in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland!

As soon as classes were over on Thursday, Molly and I caught a taxi into Galway City to catch a citylink bus to the Dublin Airport. From there, we hopped a RyanAir jet over to the London-Stansted airport, where we had a 7 hour lay-over.

Highlights from the layover:

• Quick nap after the all-nighter we each pulled the night before
• Epic game of POUNCE (I won, 156 to 121)
• All-day breakfast
• Krispy Kreme donuts

Somehow we survived those seven hours, and soon enough, we were landing in the Memmingran airport, about 90 minutes outside of Munich. One bus ride later, we found ourselves at the Munich train station, meeting a good friend of mine, Chris. Chris is studying in the Austria program in Salzburg, but he decided he wanted to come up to Munich and hang out with Molly and myself for a little bit. I don't think we could ask for a better tour guide.

Our fearless leader, Chris Pignato!

Majoring in German and History, Chris is well-versed in German history (go figure), so he was able to show us around the city, translating for us, telling us stories, talking about the culture, etc. Best of all, he knew a great Beerhaus pretty near to our hostel, where we enjoyed some German soccer, schnitzel, and beer.

Hitler gave a really famous speech here.

I forgot what it's called though...

After a great night's sleep, we headed over to Dachau, the German concentration camp about thirty minutes from Munich. It doesn't matter how much you know about World War II; actually seeing a concentration camp gives you a whole new perspective of the experience. I'll let some of the pictures tell the story.

"Work makes one free"

Living conditions aren't the greatest, I'd say.

A memorial to the victims.

Crematorium. Because Dachau wasn't a death camp

(as opposed to Auschwitz), it is uncertain whether

this was actually used to kill prisoners.