Well, we´ve arrived at the mecca of beer drinking. 
Oktoberfest is in full effect here in Munich.  They
say about 6.5 million people come to Oktoberfest each
year over 2 weeks.  Needless to say, there are not
many available rooms in town.  As a result, Than and I
have found cover in our tent at a local campsite the
size of a small city holding about half of those 6.5
million visitors ;-).  Naturally, we arrived in Munich
Thursday night in the rain just after I lost my rain
coat (Sorry Mom!), and both of us had head colds.  Not
a good recipe, but we setup camp grudgingly and all
has worked out fine.  Our clothes are dry now, our
colds went away, and we´ve had a great time.  We met a
German couple, Klaus and Katerina, and spent yesterday
at the German museum and afterwards at Hofbrauhaus. 
This is  a huge old German beer hall, perhaps the most
famous in Munich.  The people were drinking, singing
and having a merry time as one would expect.  It was
particularly funny to watch the Japanese tourists come
in, sit down with the previous persons empty beer mug,
take pictures, and immediately leave!  So we have not
been to the real Oktoberfest beer tents yet.  We will
do that today.  Oktoberfest takes place in an
amusement park with maybe 20 huge tents each of it´s
own character and beer.  More on that when we return
from them.

So I  must digress now and  reflect on the events that
have transpired since our last update.  

Krakow, Poland

Over  3 days we visited Auschwitz  and the salt mine
as planned.  To get to Auschwitz we hired a driver who
had offered to drive us there,  wait, and then drive
us back.  We had met a traveller from Massachussetts
and  his Irish buddy.   So we all four paid the driver
and visited Auschwitz and Auschwitz 2 Birkinau.  The
driver was great because he  was so  friendly and 
told us about Poland along the  way while driving like
a  Tiajuana taxi driver.  I told Than that I was so
used to seeing movies and other footage of Auschwitz
in black and white and when we arrived it was strange
to see it in color on a perfect day.   So there was
some real contrast to the sobering reality of what
happened there.  We saw piles of hair, shoes, luggage,
etc... and these personal effects were probably the
most affecting.  Then after Auschwitz we went to 
Auschwitz 2 - Birkinau.  It is about 1 mile from the
first Auschwitz and is much much bigger.  Mostly it 
is ruins, but you are startled by the size this camp
took up.  It held 100,000 people at one time.  This
one also had the rail line going right into the front
door.  This is where Schindler´s list was filmed.

The next day we visited a salt mine about 15 km from
Krakow.  It was a good way to decompress after
visiting Auschwitz.  In the mine the miners have
carved  out a cathedral in the salt.  We spent several
hours wandering through and seeing all the carvings. 
It is quite impressive and well worth it.

Otherwise, we enjoyed the huge medieval square with so
many outdoor cafes and shops.  I bought a wooden
carved plate as a souvenir.  We also went out with
Scott at night and enjoyed the city.  One night we met
a Polish girl in the square and went dancing. 

After Krakow we moved on to Gdansk up on the northern
coast of Poland.  This is where WWII began.  So of
course we visited the memorial on the coast where a
German destroyer had started shelling Gdansk and 180
Polish held the fort for 1 week.  It is now a small
park off the shipping lanes with a memorial statue on
a hill.  

The city of Gdansk was really a pretty town.  It
reminded me of Amsterdam.  Many of the buildings were
built similar with their stylized roof facades.  We
spent 2 days.  This is the place to visit to buy amber
jewelry.  It is mined near there and most every shop
and vendor has many beautiful pieces to sell.  While
there we met some nice Polish people.

(Than writing now) From Gdansk, we went on a
pilgrimage to Puck (pronounced "Pootsk", and known as
"Putzig" when it was part of Germany). It´s a small
resort town, mostly for sailing and windsurfing and
was rather quiet when we were there, it being too cold
at least for windsurfing. We searched the cemetaries
for Putzig graves but found none and the few people we
spoke with in town knew of no Putzigs and were
surprised by my last name.

We left Puck for Berlin, spent a couple days there
seeing the town (the Wall, the Reichstag, and the art
district), then moved on to Munich.

That´s all for now, our time is up.

Chris & Than