Hitch

Well, we did it.

We hitch-hiked.

Now we are true travelers, right? Our little cardboard sign, flappin on the side of the windy road... "Innsbruck or Bust!"... in a German speaking country, I'm sure the only word that really mattered was "Innsbruck". We learned a lot from our short stint on the side of the road. Number one: know which side of the road to stand on! We got a few honks and gestures, and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Afterall, we were smiling! We soon realized the drivers to Innsbruck were on the other side of the highway. It's not as easy to get on the otherside by foot.... we had to walk back to the ramp and under a bridge and back up... it's a lot slower than you think. So, we're on the right side of the road. While watching all the drivers cruise by, ten minutes passes a lot slower than you think! We tried multiple tactics: the sign, the thumb, the sign and thumb... we finally had a sweet ride pull over to find out where we were going. Now, if you're going to hitch a ride, Mercedes is the way to go. Unfortunately, they weren't going the direction of Innsbruck. At least we had our first "bite"... We hadn't lost hope yet. After another ten minutes of waiting (and deflating in hope) the same Mercedes came back around. Now, if this isn't the nicest hitch-hiking story you've heard: He came back to let us know that we wouldn't get a ride to Innsbruck from here, and we needed to be in a different spot on the highway. So he at least took us that far! About 10 minutes up he dropped us off at another interchange. No turning back now! We either had to hitch a ride to Innsbruck, or back to Salzburg!
Another slow ten minutes of finding the right place on the highway... but we had another taker! This time all the way to Innsbruck! We enjoyed our ride and getting to know Kristoph! No other way to travel...

Innsbruck was beautiful, but a little disappointing that it was, yet again, another rainy day! So we just did the normal walking (no hiking...) and hopped on our train to Munich.

Our couch surfing host in Munich was Norb Soares…aka “Norbasaurus.” This is how we would describe Norb: A computer techie so hyped up on life that he actually talks more than the three of us combined…now that’s something to say. Norb has a pseudo obsession with music but the bonus of this is he is always willing to share all of his tunes with us. Last night we actually stayed up until 3 am listening to music with Norb. Well, we didn’t actually get home until 1:15 or so because Norb was also determined to take us to his favorite outing where the DJ played so some hot stuff. Hot means two things here. One: good and/or hip music. Two: the club was so packed that the heat inhibited ones ability to dance the night away. We did cut a rug regardless…Norb is quite the dancer. Since we were unprepared to go clubbing, we all had on t-shirts, rain jackets, and even athletic pants and flip flops from walking around that day. Oh well…the door man still let us in although he did card Kathleen. Side note: you only have to be 16 according to Norb. Final conclusion: we LOVED staying with Norb. He was fun, friendly, generous (like all couch surfers) and burned us a CD with 750 of his favorite songs. He also made us a wonderful Bavarian breakfast of pretzels, sausage, and beer. Oh and speaking of beer:

Earlier in the day we headed over to the famous beer gardens where we proceeded to buy huge hot pretzels and mugs of beer. Since Kathleen is the only one who actually loves good ol brew, she ended up drinking hers and—of course we didn’t want to waste it—the rest of Noelle’s and mine as well. Oh no. Enough said.

We also strolled through the city but the highlight of our day was taking a trip outside of Munich to Dachau—a famous concentration camp. I’m not sure what we can really say about this besides what an emotionally straining yet incredible experience. To actually walk through the remains of a location where thousands upon thousands of people were tortured and imprisoned is beyond description. There was a rather detailed audioguide that really allowed us to learn in detail about the history of Dachau. Tears were shed and eyes were opened to the atrocity of Hitler. We were all very glad that we went.

We are currently writing this from our train en route to Berlin…a nice 5 1/2 hours. We’ll be in Berlin for a few days before we head to Prague…our last stop before London. We’re all a little anxious about our next couch surfing host, Caspar, who happens to be the Berlin’s couch surfing ambassador. This is a big deal guys. On top of that it’s heard that he’s not a fan of America. Here we go!