The tour was the same as last time, so since I've already written about it before, I won't go in to detail here. If you'll remember, there were two "slides" that helped you get from one level of the mine to the lower level fast. On the first one they snapped a picture of you as you went down, and I really wish Kimber & Josh had gotten the one of them sliding down the slide. It showed Josh looking like he was having a good time, and you can't see Kimber because she's hiding behind Josh almost entirely. It was a hilarious picture. But I understand...5 Euros is a lot to pay for a picture with only one person in it. :)
After the tour was over, Josh called his friend Timo. Timo was a German exchange student who did one year at the same high school in Arkansas as Josh. They were friends while he lived there, and they recently got back into contact with each other through Facebook. Timo was born not too far from here, and lives about 2 hours from Stuttgart in a town outside Münich called Regensburg. He had planned on being in Stuttgart over the weekend to visit his Grandmother, but a close friend of his went in to labor and he stayed in town for that. Since he lived near Münich, and we were stopping in Dachau on the way back, we decided to meet him downtown for lunch. He was a really nice guy and it was interesting talking with him. While he was in Arkansas his host family & friends got him into Razorback Football and Baseball (The University of Arkansas), so when we met him on the Marienplatz, he was wearing his UofA shirt. It was the weirdest thing talking to a guy with a German accent wearing a Razorbacks shirt.
We ate lunch and talked while Josh & Timo caught up. They hadn't seen each other in over 11 years, so they had plenty to talk about. Timo is an Anesthesiologist at a hospital in Regensburg, and his hospital is partnered with one of the local US military bases. He was telling us how recently a US soldier had been flown in to them to be worked on after being injured in Iraq, and Timo asked where he was from like he does with all the soldiers that come in. The guy was from Arkansas and the soldier couldn't believe that Timo used to live there. They talked Razorback football while the guy was getting prepped for surgery.
After lunch everyone said their goodbyes and we headed to Dachau. I wish we could have had more time, but I'm glad we got to see the Concentration Camp. It's huge and is a real eye opener. It was raining too. The entrance to the camp has the chilling message "Arbeit Macht Frei", which translates roughly to "Work will make you free".
It's kind of hard to read...I should have taken it from an angle where the iron wasn't behind the gate, making it hard to read.
Walking through the camp you got to see the in-processing area, the living quarters (if you could call them that), and various other parts of the camp. It was definitely a sobering experience.
After the camp closed, we were finally ready to head home. When we arrived home later that evening we stayed up talking about the trip with Shanna, then eventually headed to bed.
The next day we dropped Shanna off at work and she said her goodbyes, then I took them to the airport and said goodbye.
Over all we had a great time, and it was a lot fun visiting with Josh & Kimber. I think it's safe to say all four of us are doing the same thing this weekend...resting and recouping from being on the go non-stop all ten days!
Now I need to start sorting & organizing the pictures. I should hopefully have that up by Monday!
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