AMBER: Submerged in German culture

A little more on the weekend with my German friend!  Saturday night we had her fathers 50th birthday party.  It was a really big party with lots of people.  Her mother cooked a ton of German food, as you would expect.  There was also a good bit of German alcohol.  I was completely submerged in German culture! 

The food included wurst, goulasch, German bread, red kraut, cheeses, potato salad, fresh salad and for dessert these chocolate corner cake things.  The food was really delicious.  One of the alcohols I had was called 43 and it is mixed with milk, it taste a lot like Baileys.  I do not remember what the other alcohols were, they were some German liquors.  I do know it was very good tasting and you could easily drink too much because it tasted so delicious.  

She and her family lives in the west side of Germany and it was very interesting to hear them talk about when the Berliner Mauer (the Berlin wall) came down.  They also told me many differences in the people.  It was very cool to hear and to see some of differences here in Germany.  I have learned about the West and East side people in class but that does not compare to actually being in Germany and witnessing it.  Something her parents told me, which I find very interesting was that in the east side the older people were taught Russian and on the west side the older people were taught English.  That explains why I keep finding so many people here in the east side who do not know English.  People on the east side are not fans of Rammstein, which is my favorite band but they are well like on the west side.

(Svenja’s garden)

The view outside of her house was amazing and very Germany looking, as it should be!  Svenja has lived in this house all of her life and was very used to how her backyard looks!  The two pictures I have included in this blog is the view from her playroom window, which is her backyard. 

(Svenja’s backyard)

I absolutely fell in love with how it looks!  It was a sight like I have never seen in America!  Just to think that she wakes up to this view everyday and it is completely normal to her and her family amazes me! 

I really enjoyed getting the chance to spend a weekend with a German family and get to experience a German birthday party!  That is a unique experience I get to take away from this trip. 

So this leads me to talking about the German food and alcohol!  The food here is amazing! The restaurants I have been to have not been too expensive and I get a huge plate full of food!  I did not this but Germans also love their sour kraut and bread!  With almost every German meal I have gotten it either comes with some kind of kraut or bread and in some cases both!  Of course we all know that Germany is filled with Wurst!  When you walk down the street you can find some much Wurst to buy and eat!  Wurst to Germany is like hamburgers to America.  A typical German breakfast must include bread, cheese and meat.  Every single day I have been here my breakfast includes at least one of these.  I do not think I have heard the words waffle or pancake here once!  When you order a soda here, it is in a smaller glass than America serves their soda in.  The sodas also come with no ice.  If the waiter notices you are American they might try to find a couple of ice cubes to put in your drink.  Of course the beer is delicious!  At almost every meal I have had a beer.  The Germans put a little more alcohol in their beer and it is served in a much bigger glass.  This leaves me with only enough room for one or maybe two at a time!  One last thing, the ice cream is amazing!  Also, everyday I have been in Germany I have had ice cream!  When I go back home that is the one thing I will miss the most is the ice cream here!  It taste, to me, like frozen yogurt!  There are also very exotic flavors here in the ice cream! 

KYLE: Geld!

So lets talk a little about money. First, the exchange rate is horrible. I got 438 Euros at the beginning of the trip for like 700 dollars. I remember when the Euro first came out and it was worth less than the dollar. Why didn't I go to Europe then? Then there’s the many ways money works differently in Germany. One thing I've noticed consistently is that when you pay in Germany you are expected to have exact change, if you don't they act like you have caused them the greatest inconvenience of their lives. Sometimes they won't even allow you to pay, or will lie and say they cant make change. It is bizarre. I would think that Germans must keep some sort of stockpile of change with them at all times because I have yet to see a German not be able to pay. Another strange thing is that the smallest bill they have is a 5 euro bill, worth roughly 7.50 US dollars.

Most daily transactions use 2 or 1 euro coins, which are also hard to come by, as the ATM dispenses only paper money. The only thing I can think of is they much go to the bank and get huge amounts of coins once a month or something, it is truly odd. Just the other day I saw for the first time that a 500 euro bill exists too, this guy at the post office pulled out a whole wallet full of them. I couldn’t help but think about how unsafe I would feel with that and how horrible of a day he would have if he lost his wallet. Having a 100 dollar bill makes me uncomfortable enough, let alone a 750 dollar bill. Germany is a country that runs on cash and coins. I haven't seen a single transaction made by a German using anything but cash. Do they even have cards here?

Feeling Fremd,

Kyle

JEN: Buchenwald Visit

On Saturday a few of us visited Buchenwald which is a concentration camp right outside of Weimar. After everything that I saw, and having time to think about it for a few days , it was extremely disturbing to me. We took a train to Halle then got another connecting train to Weimar and then took a bus to Buchenwald. Once we got off of the bus , it just looked foreboding , because the sky was filled with dark gray colored clouds, and it was extremely chilly outside. We walked down to the front of the camp which looked like a huge wooden fort surround by barbed wire fences. We walked through his iron gate and into the camp which no longer contained the barracks that the Jews and other people stayed in, either they were destroyed or they where tore down either way they were no longer there but you could see their foundations, and be able to tell about how big they were and how wide they were.

(The gate into Buchenwald.  Inscription reads “Jedem Das Seine”—“To each, his own”)

We walked down to the disinfection building which now contains a museum about the camp , which was very interesting and informative but also extremely disturbing at the same time. With pictures and videos of dead people in carts piled high and in the ovens as well, they also had pictures of shrunken heads and skin that they would give to the SS Officers as gifts. We got to see the spoon and forks and plates and bowls that they ate with and we actually got to see there prisoner garb and some of there shoes and buttons and things that they had with them when they had arrived. They had a room near the crematorium where they would tell people they were taking their height only to end up shooting them in the back of the neck, and at the bottom of the crematorium they had a room where they would keep dead bodies or the urns of ashes, and they also had hooks on the walls that were used for strangulation.

(Basement of the Crematorium.  Notice the black hooks on the walls)

So if your reading this and are disturbed just imagine what it was like seeing these things up close. After we toured the camp we headed back up to the front where the soldiers’ barracks where and watched a thirty minute long movie on the camp and some of the Jewish people who actually survived and lived to tell their tales. In the video one of the Jewish men said that the Officers figured that the people needed 1.50 a day to live, so in other words $1.50 was used to buy food and other supplies each day for every prisoner, and yet the blood hounds that were used to track down the prisoners when they tried to escape where allotted $3.50 a day for food and materials.

They showed how the Nazi's would make propaganda movies by filming the officers and their children at the zoo  that held a bear, which was no more than five feet from the barbed wire fence that enclosed thousands of people.  They would also get prisoners to smile and act like everything was perfect, so that they could fool everyone as to what was really going on.

At the end of the video it told that when the Americans arrived they found dead bodies piled high in carts and in the crematorium where the soldiers had left them as they flied the camp so they wouldn’t get caught. The most interesting thing though was that the American soldiers made the citizens of Weimar come and tour the camp and see all of the bodies and the people that were left, it showed women fainting and crying and as well they should have been.

Seeing things like this really give you a greater respect for life, and the hopes that nothing like this will ever happen again.

KEL: There was blood on the ground

(The original gate at the Buchenwald KZ)

Yesterday, the group and I went to Buchenwald.  It was an Order I concentration camp in Germany during World War II.  Order I means that it was classified as a "work camp."  This means that the living conditions were supposedly "livable."  It was an Order II camp, which means the same as an Order I, just worse living conditions.  Towards the end, they tried to change the order rank of the camp, but I pretty sure, from what I've seen and heard, they failed.  The only other order (Order III) were death camps, where people were taken to die.

The day was the perfect day to go to a concentration camp: Wet, muddy and raining on and off.  When we were on the train towards the city where the camp sat, I got this sudden sick feeling in my stomach.  I felt like one of the people who was taken there years ago.  It's hard to describe this sudden fear that came up inside me from no where and then the turning in my stomach as I realized I was completely safe, when all those others hadn't been..

No one was really talking on the way there, and I'm not sure if it was because it was early, or if they all felt the same way I did.  When we got there, we walked down to the gates.  They still had the barbed wire and fence still up, so walking up to the front gates was like walking into the actual camp.  Some buildings still stood and if you looked at from the right angle, it looked like it could still possibly function.

We split up.  Everyone went straight, and I went left.  I saw the monument where Obama had laid flowers, and saw where the brothel use to stand.  I read about how the Jews and the Homosexuals had it the worst, and I saw a movie where they said that if you were a Jew or a Homosexual, they could beat you for no reason other than they wanted to.

(The Crematorium at Buchenwald)

The Crematorium still stood.  There was a place where the inmates would be brought in to have their height taken, and then they would be shot in the back of the head.  There was an a place where inmates had experiments run on them.

There was a small camp towards the back were the sick and others were placed.  Staying there was worse than the large camp.  At one point, 100 people were dying each day from disease and starvation.

There was a memorial for all the Jews who died, and different ones for the homosexuals, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Gypsies.  After I walked around for awhile and watched the movie, I went into the book store and bought a couple of books.  One of them, "The Theory and Practice of Hell," talked about the set up of the camps and how they worked from someone who survived Buchenwald. 

There isn't much that needs to be said about Buchenwald, but I'll leave you with two facts from this book:

1) The Jehovah's Witnesses were lined up as a group on a regular basis.  The would be asked to denounce their beliefs for their freedom.  The Nazis really didn't mind them, but the Witnesses are against war and fighting, which was what the Nazis needed.  Every time someone refused to sign the papers, the Nazis would shot ten other witnesses.  They did this four times before stopping.

2) The children were placed in their own bunk and not forced to work. They were rationed food and educated by other inmates who were assigned to them, but they got over crowded.  One day, the Nazis rounded up all the Jewish and Gypsy children, who were crying and screaming for their fathers, and sent them to Auschwitz to be gassed.

And this was all completely normal.

KYLE: Dancing place of the witches

(The Bode River near the Hexentanzplatz)

So our next memorable trip was to the Harz Mountains in the southern part of Sachsen-Anhalt near Thale. We went to the Hexentanzplatz (dancing place of the witches) which is a place on top of the mountain known for lots of legendary stories and such. It was an interesting ride up a gondola to the top of the mountain, as some of us are afraid of heights. Normally I would be included in that group but the scenery and beauty of the mountains kept my mind off our tiny gondola held up by a string suspended hundreds of feet above the ground. It also reminded me a lot of home and shared striking resemblance with places I know very well. After getting off the gondola we walked a short trail through the woods up to the dancing place of the witches. Small shops adorned the area selling all sorts of witch and other Halloweenish type memorabilia.

(Halloweenish type memorabilia)

The views from the top of the mountain were pretty breathtaking, but again didn't stand out as being something unfamiliar.

(View of the Bode river from above)

It was somewhat strange, being in an entirely different continent yet not feeling far from home. After taking some pictures and walking around that area we went to go ride a ride.

(Getting ready to bobsled)

It was probably the most exciting part of our trip that day as I wasn't so heavy on the Bremsen (brakes) as we went around the track. It was a little too short but the 2 minutes it lasted was a great time. After that we got back onto the gondola and returned to the bottom of the mountain. We went along the river down a path until we hit a Biergarten next to the river. I enjoyed several delectable Schwarzbiers and then we went back to get on the train to Magdeburg. It was a good day.

Bis Bald,

Kyle

EMILY: Nachtleben

Sometimes I quite like to fancy myself a seasoned club goer.  I´ve been to my fair share of clubs- big ones, small ones, dark ones, well lit ones.  I´ve been to clubs with big name DJs and clubs with nobodies spinning for the first time.  I´ve been to clubs in London, Miami, Atlanta, and New York City.  And now I can say that I have successfully been to a club in Germany.

For as long as I have been flipping through the pages of magazines such as Gothic Beauty I have known that Germany was the place to go for all things Industrial.  If you wanted underground catwalks and body modifications to the max than you would have to board a plan and prepare for an 8 hour journey.  And so, as our trip starts to wind down I figured that getting to a goth club was a must for me.

Dawn and I prepared to head to The Factory's Depeche Mode party on Saturday night.  After throwing on hot pink fishnets, blinding eyeshadow, and a black leather choker, I was ready.  Our adventure to the club was one to go down in the books, hinging on epic, but when we finally got there I had mixed emotions.

Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe the theme of the night just drew in an older and more sedate crowd, but the party's turnout was dismal.  Oh, a good amount of people were there, especially as the clock ticked onward, but their creativity was lacking.  Many were in their 30s and 40s it seemed and they danced with merely a swayed drugged look.  Their outfits were akin to everyday wear- pants and shirts, tanktops and sneakers.  Oh, there were a few acceptable people- such as the guy in pvc pants and the girl in a cinched corset.

I had a blast though (and I'm hoping Dawn did too!) and was glad to experience a different side of German culture.  So often throughout this trip I have seen the everyday living- the going to school, to work, doing the shopping.  Now And in a very small way I feel like I'm beginning to fill in the puzzle pieces of German life.

KYLE: Dresden & Wolfsburg

(At the Semper Opera in Dresden)

So following our stay in Berlin and our trip to Potsdam, we got on the train and headed to our home base for the rest of the trip, Magdeburg. Almost immediately upon arrival (the day after) we boarded another train and headed to Dresden. We stopped in Halle and Leipzig on the way as well. It seems everywhere we went there were big open cobblestone squares adorned with statues of composers, artists, religious figures, etc. and there was certainly no lack of large old churches and cathedrals. Dresden was particularly beautiful, probably why it was the subject of many famous paintings and works of art. Again, my vocabulary and writing ability falls short of describing such an amazing place, so I won't even begin to try.

(The restored Frauenkirche in Dresden)

Shortly after that trip, we again went on the train to Wolfsburg, the home of the largest automobile factory in the world. We went on a tour of the VW factory and saw the production lines of several of their cars. Unfortunately, we were forced to leave our cameras outside to avoid industrial espionage. After seeing the factory, which was only moderately interesting to me as I'm not too much into car production (though I do enjoy the final product) we went to the Autostadt which was directly adjacent to the factory.

(Designing our own VW’s at the Autostadt)

The Autostadt was much more my kind of place. The first main building we went into had lots of interesting exhibits many of which were about alternitive energy, fuels, transportation and other things. All of them were very interesting to me because I'm a biology major hoping to go to graduate school to study biofuels. After going though all of that we went to explore the many automaker pavilions. My favorite was the probably the Audi pavilion, though seeing the Bugatti and Lamborghini offerings were also pretty awesome. Overall, the Autostadt is another experience from Germany I'll remember for a long time.

Wiederschreiben,

Kyle