Welp. That’s a wrap.

😢😢😢😢

That’s it. We are at the end of our journey. 

This morning we got up and traveled from Brugge to Amsterdam with a changeover in Brussels. It was a mostly uneventful trip with the exception of us sitting next to rain man Anthony from 🇬🇧 who wouldn’t shut the hell up stop talking, it was fine. Meet Anthony…

Stacey and I finally had to put our headphones on, but Brandi was happy to engage. We were so happy when he finally got the hell off the train. He just left. See how happy we are?!

We didn’t arrive in Amsterdam until about 4pm so we didn’t bother going into the city. We shared our last hurrah in the lounge at Sheraton at the airport.

Once again, we shared great conversation and a bunch of laughs as we reflected on the past two weeks. One doesn’t really know how being together for 24/7 for almost two full weeks is going to be, and I have to say it was flawless. Other than that first day in Munich when we were all grumped up and exhausted, we all gelled seamlessly. Even that day we were all totally on the same page, it’s just that we were f*ckin’ miserable. Throughout our trip we never allowed each other to get too bent out of shape and were able to use humor to break any potential tension before it could even build. Case in point…Stace acting out how she is going to feel crammed into her seat on the way home tomorrow.

So many laughs and so much fun. Thank you girls for a fantastic vacation 🇩🇪🇧🇪🇳🇱. The first of many. ❤️

In Brugge…

First off, if anyone hasn’t seen the movie In Bruges, you must. Secondly, you then need to come visit this magical place.

This morning we were rushed out of bed at the crack of about 9:30 because we had things to see and places to go!

Is pretty much all heard, but I was complicit regardless.

It was a beautiful, sunny day once again. Other than one day in Amsterdam, we have really had fantastic weather.

It’s really hard to describe how beautiful this little town is. The cobblestone streets lined with a million little chocolate shops and restaurants is so quaint which makes for a pleasurable stroll.

These are chocolate. Chocolate tools that look like real rusted tools with a little rust on them. Absolutely amazing!

There was, however, soooo many people. We stopped in one chocolate shop where the girls enjoyed the free sample plate and were chatting with the shopkeeper about how busy it was. She said it was absolutely normal (6 million visitors come through Brugge per year) and that the town doesn’t do any kind of tourism type of promotions because it is overrun with visitors. Like I said, I was here about 6 years ago and it wasn’t even close to this busy. We were hoping to take a ride on a boat through the canals, but we didn’t feel like waiting in line so we didn’t bother.

We finally had enough shopping and decided it was time to rest and have a sit down.

This one was over it…

This is me shopping.

Yeah, okay, I ran out of steam much quicker than the other two, but I was happy with that couch.

We wandered around the square to find a nice place in the sun to have our daily cocktail and ended up sitting next to two cheeky old birds from London 🇬🇧

Angie and Chrissy. 😊

We enjoyed a few cocktails and some great conversation before we decided to take a ride on the horse drawn carriage together.

After the carriage ride it was dinner and then time to go back to bed my introverted self had enough for the day.

Today was our last full day before we head back to Amsterdam tomorrow (Saturday) and then fly home on Sunday.

Brugge was a great finale to what has been an amazing trip!

Travel day

Today was a pretty full day of travel. We were up early making sure we took advantage of our ‘free’ breakfast one last time before we boarded the train en route to Brugge, 🇧🇪. With a transfer in Frankfurt, and then one in Brussels, everything went so smoothly we are starting to feel like seasoned travelers. This one was pretty excited to begin our journey.

This was our last little train trip from Brussels to Brugge. Brandi wasn’t getting too close to anyone at this point 😂. We were all ready to be done at this point.

A full day of travel later and we arrived in Brugge. I was here a few years ago and it might be more fantastic than I can remember. I don’t think Stacey really likes it though.

We did a little bit of wandering, but all day on trains left us feeling a little hungry and ready for a cocktail heaven forbid we go a day without drinking. We found a nice little restaurant right in the main square and enjoyed a lovely evening of good food and conversation. That was our view during dinner. 👍🏼

When in Belgium it is mandatory to have a waffle, so I was just following the rules.

The waffle was crisp, chocolate just the right amount of bitter, and the whipping cream the right amount of sweet. Believe me, it didn’t last long! Yum.

We had another great, full day. Tomorrow we have to get all our exploring shopping taken care of so we need a good nights sleep so we can have an early start. Speaking of good night sleep, the hotel is fantastic. It’s cool and quiet and lends itself to wonderful sleeping conditions. Hopefully a good night sleep is to come! 🇧🇪

Tomorrow will be our last full day of vacation. We couldn’t be more pleased with our trip to this point and we look forward to our day.

Last one was a good one!

We woke up this morning somewhat unsure of what our plan was for the day. Two days ago the thought of a 2 hour train ride to Füssen was a non-starter, but after feeling like we had seen all we had wanted to in Munich, we were left without a plan. We had a few suggestions, but in my heart I had been wanting to see the Neuschwanstein Castle for a long time, and I felt an adventure through the German countryside would be a great option for the day. After a brief discussion with the gals, we had our plan in place and off we went.

Here I am hard at work trying to sort out the ever so difficult not difficult at all if you have half a brain train route.

We had a one hour trip to Buchloe and had to switch over to another one that brought us to Füssen.

Füssen is a lovely little town with the mountains as the backdrop and it’s beautiful buildings and quaint shops, it was such a delight to stroll the streets. It was so nice to get out of the city and into a classic European town.

Initially we weren’t sure if we wanted to make the climb up to the castle, but we ran into a local shopkeeper who said that we ‘must’ go, so we did.

The hike up the mountain was, well for me anyway, slow and steady, but it honestly felt really good to get some exercise. The path was well shaded by trees which made the temperature extremely comfortable, on an otherwise, very warm day.

Those gals powered ahead as if there was a prize for being first, but my wise soul knew getting there third didn’t matter. You have to let them win at something sometime 🤷🏼‍♀️

This was my view the entire way 🙄

Me, watching their 6.

Stacey got tired here and wanted a pic of this lovely waterfall.

I decided I would do my best impression of a giraffe wanted a pic as well! What is up with that leg??

We finally made it to the top and I have to say the ‘front entry’ was a little disappointing.

Seriously? Anyway, we didn’t bother spending the money on a tour of the interior because the line was huge and the next available tour was 2.5 hours away. Honestly the train ride through the country, the scenery all around, and the walk up the hill was worth the trip already.

We were about to descend when a mother and daughter overheard us and suggested that we make sure to make ANOTHER 20 minute hike to a bridge where we could get a view of the whole thing. In my mind, that’s what I really wanted to see in person anyway, so we decided to go for it. More much needed walking. Apparently this is a balance thing?

Once you meander around you get to bridge that overlooks a gorge. It is absolutely jammed with people jockeying for position to get a shot of the castle.

The bridge is definitely not for the faint of heart, and if you had any fear of heights or feelings of claustrophobia, this would not be for you. That didn’t bother any of us and we wedged ourselves on the bridge and got our pics.

The most anxiety I felt was watching Stacey hold my phone and wondering at which moment it was going to go toppling over the edge and into the gorge 200m below. Thankfully she held tight.

Definitely worth the hike. 👍🏼

People think hiking up hill is the difficult, but all of us agreed that down was worse so Stacey put on a her funeral song and we jogged down. It was quick, easy and painless. The quicker we got down, the quicker we got to go eat and have 🥘!

After a bit of shopping and totally forgetting to go back for these Snowballs, we headed back to the train station.

I can’t believe we forgot to sample the snowballs!!!! 😩

In spite of that, it was a little day trip that turned out to a fantastic little adventure!

Tomorrow we are up relatively early to catch a train to Bruges, 🇧🇪 for the final leg of our journey. Belgian waffles, we’re coming for ya! 7 day fast upon return, I’m comin’ for ya.

Incredibly horrifying.

Today was the high water mark of our trip to Munich, and a big reason why Munich was a stop on our adventure. Today we visited Dachau to learn more about the atrocious and horrifying acts carried out against humanity during WW2. We had the chance to pay our respects to those who suffered, lost love ones, and their lives in this wretched place some 75 years ago.

Upon entering the Memorial the mood is still somewhat light. It’s a slight walk before you enter the gates where so many prisoners were held and lived their final days in an unspeakable fashion. However, nearly immediately upon entering, nothing about this place feels light.

‘Arbeit Macht Frei’

“Work will set you free” is what the prisoners were greeted at the gate with. They were told that they were going to a work camp. As true is that was, they weren’t told it would also be a place of torture, loss, humiliation, disease, starvation and horrible death. The Germans used the prisoners largely as slave labor to assist in the war effort. The demand on the prisoners was high while living conditions and basic necessities of life were provided at a bare minimum.

The Dachau camp was of the first of the Nazi camps which opened in 1933 and was intended to hold political prisoners. Although roughly 40000 people died at Dachau it wasn’t intended as an extermination camp. Initially it was intended to hold 5000 prisoners, but upon liberation, over 30000 people were crammed in. Typhus, dysentery among other diseases plagued 10000 of the 30 000 prisoners that remained.

This is the area where prisoners were registered when they first arrived at camp. Here it was decided whether or not they were fit to work and to what degree. These poor people had no clue what the Nazi bastards had in store for them.

The camp was comprised of 32 ‘Barracks’ buildings, 7 guard towers, and a crematorium over approximately 25 acres. There was a large section of the camp that was used for SS training ground.

A pic of the camp while in operation:

Pictures of the barracks:

The prisoners had only limited time between their work shifts to eat and relieve themselves. In that ‘downtime’ they were required to clean and scour every inch of their living quarters. Time using the bathroom was often when guards would harass and humiliate the people. The psychological abuse, along with the physical abuse was extreme at Dachau.

The next part of the camp is the most chilling.

Prisoners were brought to the crematorium under the guise of having a shower. Prisoners were brought in the far end of the building and told to shed their clothing. Guards would then pile their clothing in a fumigation chamber for future disposal.

From here they were brought into a holding area where they were told they would be proceeding to the next room for a shower.

‘Shower’

This was written above the door leading into the gas chamber in order to trick the prisoners as a means to get them into the next room. Keep in mind this camp wasn’t used as a mass extermination camp, but smaller groups of sick, elderly, or otherwise, were killed here.

The next room was the gas chamber. Prisoners would pile in and see shower heads coming out of the ceiling which would ease their mind for a moment. Before too long they realized the shower heads were fake and poisonous pellets were added to the system which would quickly engulf them, leading to a slow, horrible death. The above is a spot where a faux shower had been installed in the ceiling. Dirty, horrible bastards. Openings in the ceilings where poisonous gas was filtered in.

Bodies were piled outside later to be fed into the ovens.

This crematorium was the second, and larger crematorium that was built at Dachau. The original one still remains, but was no longer in use because it became too small to suit the needs of the psychos running the camp.

Once you leave the crematorium there are a series of memorials arranged for the 1000’s of nameless people who lost their lives.

As you proceed down a path and try to process what you just saw, you come across a shooting range and an execution wall.

It’s absolutely chilling and heartbreaking all at the same time.

A few memorials for the different religions that composed the prisoners of the camp have been erected. Below is the Jewish Memorial.

There are only two barracks buildings that remain. The rest have been destroyed and all that remains is the foundation for each of the 32 that used to exist.

We ended up spending about 4 hours at the camp and we were totally exhausted by the end of it. We took a long break in the museum portion before we headed back to Munich.

It’s hard to describe the day as a good one considering what we had just observed, but it was a good day. Educational, alarming, and infuriating. I think we are all very glad we got a chance to see it and share it with each other. ❤️🇩🇪😢

Slow and steady.

Today was a super casual day where we continued to wander and explore the streets of Munich. Gone are the crowds and stages that occupied the streets during the weekend festivals. We definitely have found a greater appreciation for this city and were laughing at our initial reactions. We compared our arrival similar to walking in late to a party actually the old hole in DV that we didn’t even want to attend. Add exhaustion on top of that and you had three gals who wanted to pack up and leave immediately. We’ve all settled down and have enjoyed our time here.

The one thing that has kind of been consistently miserable is the temperature of our room at night. We are staying in an old hotel and they just aren’t set up for A/C like the hotels back home so we have had some struggles with that. Finally today we figured we will just have to keep all the windows wide and get some air flow going and it’s made it a lot better. However, you wouldn’t be able to tell by the look on this one’s face…

El Groucho

The best was this morning when my throat was a little sore and I went into the bathroom to check my tonsils. ‘Aaaaaaaahhhhhh’. When I came out Brandi goes: ‘What were you doing? It sounded like you had turned on a razor or something.’ Hahaha I guess my voice was a little 🐴 this morning 😂

We had lunch at a nice spot and I tried some bright orange summer drink that was quite refreshing.

After lunch El Groucho Stacey wouldn’t let me retreat back to the hotel for a little rest as we just had to keep sightseeing and exploring new things 🙄.

Here are some of the sights. Don’t ask me what they are because I couldn’t even today…

Oh! We walked passed the sun dial today and there was some actual sun. It was 3:24 when we walked by it and the shadow showed just after 2. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Close enough, right?

It’s quite faint in that pic, but if you zoom in you can see the shadow.

How about this?! We stumbled upon a shrine for Michael Jackson, the big friggin’ pedophile. Whomever did this decided to commandeer some old fellas statue and they defaced it with MJ memorabilia. As Stacey would say and has said about 1000 times this trip ‘disgusting’!!

Here are some more sights of Munich:

A cute little restaurant and signage.

A cool bike made out of wood!

I found some cute shoes, but sadly they were a big large.

After wandering around we meandered back to the hotel for a bit of an early night. We are planning on leaving for a Dachau by no later than 10 I’ll believe that when I see it considering what time we’ve been getting going most days. It should be an emotional day, but one we’ve been looking forward to.

Great trip so far gals. I’m so grateful for these dimwits. ❤️❤️

Redemption.

Okay, so I have to say that I may have jumped the gun just a hair on my judgement of Munich. Call it exhaustion, call it an Amsterdam hangover, I’m not really sure, but our collective perception of Munich took a turn for the better today. Attitudes were in check today and the vibe in the city felt a lot better.

We strolled down to the city center and found some different streets to explore. There we found more shops, but also street vendors who were selling all kinds of arts, crafts, and jewelry.

While walking around we stopped in St. Michaels Cathedral. It was beautiful. The detail in these churches is always breathtaking.

It was fun exploring new parts of the city with a more positive outlook. Unfortunately we had no sun to see if it was correct, but this sundial was pretty cool. I guess when it’s not sunny being on time becomes a bit of an issue.

More wandering around and exploring…

This Munich Residence served as the seat of government and residence of the Bavarian Dukes Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Some large park🤷🏼‍♀️

There were a couple of festivals taking place this weekend and we stumbled upon another great band.

It was looking like it was going to rain so we made our way swiftly towards the Hofbrauhaus to take in the festivities, and take them in we did!

These were the biggest beers I have ever seen. It was tough to hoist them, but we managed well enough…5 hours and 3 liters of beer later…

It was such a fun environment and the food was fantastic. Wiener Schnitzel, red cabbage, Sauerbraten and Sauerkraut, oh and one massive 🥨!

Another great day in the books with these bishes!

And now for something completely different.

We got up early to catch the train to the second leg of our journey. Off to Munich we go!

I find train travel quite relaxing and even though he entire trip was roughly about 8 hours, it certainly didn’t seem that long.

We arrived in Munich just after 4:30pm local time, found our hotel (right across from the train station) and got ourselves together and headed out to check out the city.

I have to say, after leaving Amsterdam and arriving here, our first impressions have left us largely disappointed. We pressed on, however, and walked deeper into the city center to find something redeeming about the it.

St. Michaels Church.

(Above) Neues Rathaus New City Hall. Apparently every day at 8am and 9am and again at 5pm the Glockenspiel comes alive and there is a little ‘performance’ for about 15 minutes.

And some new…

The Hofbrahaus was definitely that. Aside from the fact that it was about 90°F in there, and we weren’t dressed for it, it was filled with people drinking 1L beers and the music of a traditional German band. It was a great atmosphere and classic German vibe. Mom would have loved it.

It was so hot in there, those poor Germans in their lederhosen were sweating right through them. We will definitely come back, when we are dressed more appropriately 👙.

We walked back to the Marienplatz (the main square) where there is a weekend festival taking place, and sat down and joined in on the festivities.

It was fun…until the guy at the next table over kept lighting up cigarette after cigarette and it was blowing directly into our faces and ruining our experience.

It was a long day with a short sleep the night before so we headed back to the hotel for some 😴.

It is supposed to be rainy today so not sure what we will get up to. We were thinking about a trip to Dachau, but we will see. 🇩🇪

4 Nights was perfection.

We spent our last day in Amsterdam with no schedule or any kind of agenda. We did a good job of seeing all the things we wanted to see and doing all the things we wanted to do so we just wandered around. Poor Stacey had gone the last few days without her beloved Starbucks so we made sure we got her one on this day. Look how happy she is and look at the size of that coffee 😂. Only at an American chain would you get anything that size over here.

That was also one of the most beautiful Starbucks I had ever seen. We ended up sitting there for quite some time.

I didn’t forget to stop and jam my face into the flowers smell the flowers along the way.

Stacey had been craving some kind of cheese bread thing that she had seen the first day so we set out to find that for her. I have to say that normally I’m pretty good at being oriented in a city, but here in Amsterdam I had a hard time finding my bearings so anything I thought I might want to check out, I made sure to do it right then because getting back to the same place twice was a crap shoot.

We did manage to find her lovely bakery without too much issue, however. Again, look how happy she looks.

After the bakery we noticed a pub that Jane had mentioned to be one of the oldest pubs in Amsterdam so we decided to stop in and have a libation.

It was a beautiful day and we had a beautiful spot to people watch.

It turns out our waiter had a winery in Austria he was partnered in and so we insisted on trying his wine over and over and over again. We ended up chatting with some locals and having a very nice evening. We had another group of people send some Bitterballen (meat based deep fried snack that tasted like deep fried mushroom soup) over to our table because they wanted us to try them. They were fine, and quite frankly, after several glasses of wine, I would have eaten pretty much anything.

Uh-oh, wine kicking in…

…aaaaand this morning…

Good times and well worth it though. We are currently on the train headed to Munich. Until we see you again 🇳🇱.

🇩🇪 We’re comin’ for ya!

The tale of two days.

First I would like to congratulate the St. Louis Blues for winning the Stanley Cup. It was an impressive run and well deserved. It’s amazing what a bunch of Canadians and a hell of a goalie can do, eh? 😁

Now, on to the day…

We started off the day with a powerful and enlightening tour of the Anne Frank house in central Amsterdam. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading the book. Seeing the space which 8 people lived for over two years was remarkable. I don’t believe it would be possible for people these days, who seem to need constant stimulation and immediate gratification to last a week, never mind 2+ years. Sadly enough, I really don’t think people would go the lengths to help others the way these people did either.

No pictures were allowed on the tour, but here is a pic of the building from the outside. 

After the tour we wandered around and did some shopping.

The weather was a bit chilly and only a few showers here and there, but perfectly comfortable. Because I was super tired from staying up all night watching that game and I pretty much hate shopping I was a bit tired and headed back to the hotel for a nice, and much needed nap.

Oh wait! Before the nap this is one of the most disgusting things we’ve seen while we were here:

Yuck.

After the nap it was dinner time and we found a great little people watching spot just off of Rembrandt Square. Good 🥘 , good 🍷 , and good friends!

After dinner we were off to check out the Red Light District. It’s been on the radar and so after filling our faces with bread, wine and hummus, we needed a little jaunt anyway.

The Red Light district is known as The Wallen to locals. It is the oldest part of Amsterdam and the neighboring streets are filled with pubs, restaurants, interesting shops, leaning gabled houses, and charming canals. Prostitution has enjoyed a long tradition of tolerance in Amsterdam and to ensure the safety of the sex workers, certain rules are enforced. The reason for this approach is an attempt to deter and extinguish forced prostitution, although it does still exist.

Sex-workers in Amsterdam have their own workers union, heavy police protection as well as frequent monitoring and testing and professional standards.

I have to say I did have an image in my head of what the area would look like, but I wasn’t sure what I would see or feel upon entering the area. First off, the streets were loaded with all walks of life, however the male population was dominant. It didn’t take long for you to see a building with glass enclosed stalls with women standing scantily clad, doing their best to look seductive in order to lure in customers. Taking pictures of the girls is forbidden and is strictly enforced. The pics I took above were on the DL because I was on assignment and had to get documentation for my work. I did, however, feel a little odd doing it as these are real people with souls. It was actually very easy to NOT be tempted to snap pics of them. It flat felt wrong.

I would say this particular street was about 1km long and lined on both sides with sex shops, peep shows and strip clubs. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.

One thing I found that really hit home was when I looked into the stall and in the background you could see a ‘bed’ that was similar to what you would see in a doctors office. At the top of the bed was a huge role of paper that would get ripped off and a new ‘sheet’ would get pulled down for the next ‘guest’. It just made you wonder how many customers one of these girls see in any given night.

This is a room that was clearly in use:

We didn’t spend much time there, but it was well worth seeing and extremely eye opening.

One window we walked passed we saw an elderly man standing there, holding his umbrella, seemingly waiting for his change. Based on his expression he might as well have been waiting for his dry cleaning. Such a different attitude towards all that ‘stuff’ than I’m used to.

10 minutes later we saw Mr. ☂ with a little jump in his get-a-long walking in front of us.

Walking back along the canals at dusk made for a gorgeous stroll and let you appreciate Amsterdam all over again.

And that’s a wrap! Not sure what we will get up to tomorrow, but so far we have gotten a pretty good essence of this beautiful European city. 🇳🇱❤️