Giant Coastal Redwoods rise up around me. I stand in awe that less than 30 minutes ago I was standing among the skyscrapers of San Francisco. A short drive across the Golden Gate Bridge is a wilderness oasis near one of the US’s largest cities in the most populous state. These coastal redwoods aren’t a hidden. They stand proudly in the Muir Woods National Monument.
I stand in front of the colorful graffiti wall of the East Side Gallery. I am far too young to remember the day the Berlin Wall fell. I was born can only imagine the feelings of East and West Berlin as the city was reunited for the first time since World War II. It was a symbol of the Iron Curtain between the Capitalistic West and Socialistic/Communist East.
Dachau. Until the Nazi’s takeover of Germany, it was a small town with an artist colony. In 1933, the Nazi’s would forever link Dachau with their reign of terror. Dachau was more than a concentration camp. It was the master plan for all other concentration camps. Like many visitors to Dachau, I arrived via the U-Bahn train station from the city of Munich. I was then planning on taking a bus to the camp.