Weimar, Four months, und so on und so forth!

Wow! I apologize for the long spaces of time in between my blog. I often find myself pushing it off just so I can make a big juicy post for everyone to be really happy with. I have just about four more months left in Germany, which is quite sad. I start to find myself missing this home already. I was just in Weimar, Germany for five days with my original ASSE group for a few seminars and a look at old cool German things in the beautiful city. Coming back home was so nice, the big welcome from my family and my dog made me feel so welcomed and the smell of my room was so comforting. It will be strange leaving... I don't dwell on it too much.
So I think the easiest way to start this is simply at the beginning. I think this blog post will be more of a virtual tour yay!
So first, I had to actually get to Weimar. Let's see where that is.

I live in Hamburg, or close to Hamburg you could say. So, I had to take the 8.30 am train to the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (central station) to get on an ICE (which goes like 250 k/h) to get to Weimar.
That takes five hours. There was one transfer and my train was late and my travel companion Lili and I only had four minutes to transfer anyways so we had to book it to the next train and it ended up not leaving for 15 minutes.
Awesome.
Anyways, finally got to Weimar around 1.30 pm. We gathered as a group and spent the afternoon greeting and catching up with eachother. The ASSE part of the whole CBYX scholarship consists of 47 kids from around the north west, I have two buddies from Idaho.

Chelsea and James. You may remember them from Washington a long time ago. We've all changed a little, but Idaho never leaves Idaho.
So, the first afternoon we wandered around Weimar in small groups trying to find historic points on a illegible map. It would've been fine, but the thing about old German towns is that the roads are extremely narrow and wind every which and way and buildings are all glued together and sometimes it just gets confusing. I never went wandering on my own in fear of getting lost.
I roomed with Chelsea and Lili in a cute little three bed one bathroom room at the EJBW (youth hostile).
It was cozy :)
The next morning things started right off the bat (this is Thursday morning by the way, I left Wednesday). We went to the Buchenwald Concentration camp about 18 clicks out of Weimar.
Buchenwald was one of the first and largest camps inside of Germany. Primary prisoners were political activists, but there was also a mix of Jews, Slovenes, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, Freemasons, and POWs. It was a working camp, so most people were used as forced labor to build arms and chemical weapons for the war.
During WWII, around 238,380 people were imprisoned here, and an estimated 56,000 people died in the camp.
There is a lot more deep history behind the camp. After the American's freed it, it became a camp to hold SS officers, some of which who had worked in Buchenwald during the war.
I will post some of the few pictures that I took. Its quite an experience and nothing that can be captured in a picture.

 The main gates from inside

 "Jedem das Seine" which stands on the front gates. In literal translation, it means "To each his own" but in the way that the Nazi's had meant it, it was basically saying "Everyone gets what he deserves"

I didn't take a lot of pictures for a good reason.
This is not my history, it is not my past. While I have deep respect and sorrow for what had happened, one of my teachers, Wolfgang, put it quite well. It happened. And there is nothing you can do to understand it. You can try to, but you can't. It is simply accepting and realizing and the thinking in your head that is whats needed.

That afternoon we watched a movie about the camp as well.
So onto Friday, the day of German people and their old houses.
First I visited the house that once belong to Friedrich Schiller, or as you may possibly know him as, the author of William Tell and Don Carlos.
Schiller was born in 1759 and died in 1805. He was one of those incredible people that are political, but also extremely well educated in just about everything. He was obviously an amazing poet and author, and was good friends with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
His house was awesome.

 It consisted of many big rooms as this one, leading into other big rooms, leading up rickity stairs, and felt like it never ended and I could live there forever.

Schiller seemed to be a humble kind of guy because Goethe's house was crazy.
First, we went to a museum dedicated to Goethe. This was really cool.

He was quite the artist.
And I wasn't allowed to use flash in the musuem.
Onto his house! I didn't take many big room pictures here, but it was quite similar to Schiller's house, except for a lot larger and dramatic and filled with more awesome-er things.

 A common way of welcoming people, this is right on the front door step.

 His freaking fancy carriage that he probably totted 1800's chicks in. (I assume. What else would you do with a carriage like that)

STEIG EIN MÄDELS. 

 He was into collected things. He would go to Italy all the time and get cool stuff and bring it back to his house.

 His working room.

So! After Goethe's house, we had the rest of Friday afternoon to ourselves. I walked around with Jamesy and we took pictures and chilled out by this very cool river next to the hostile. I am also sticking other pictures from around town on here. Because I can.

 Schiller and Goethe!

 I feel honored!

 Jamesie.

 Awesome freaking sculpture in the middle of the park?

And the road up to the youth hostile.
So! Saturday morning we went through this neighborhood thats entirely Bauhaus buildings. Its really funky, because all of Weimar is old beautiful classic houses, and BAM awesome houses and funky stuff that looks super modern and awesome.
Bauhaus was born in Weimar. We went to the museum there and saw a pretty cool movie and unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures.
Here is, however, a sneaky photo of one of the most famous Bauhaus houses.

 Quicky shout out to my dad, who enjoys the band, Bauhaus! Just be proud that I recognized the symbol AND bought you a super cool book that I shall read to you in German when I get back ;D

Inbetween all of these events, we had seminars and talks with some of the people running the GIVE part of things. It was nice to hear about other kids experiences and relate to them.
I also got the OFFICAL information that I will be going home on or around June 20th. I had heard the date may be later than that, but this is it.

And now I will post pictures of some of the in between friend stuff that went on :)

 And, out of the whole year, I just wanted at least one picture of the classic German beer. My friend, Ben (from Washington) spent our last evening in a little bar, chilling out, and ordering things in German. Like Germans do. :)

 Lili!!

 This was at the train station before we left...
I think my pictures uploaded in a strange manner.

 Dina!

 Matt!!!

 Yup. Dem be my boys.

So yeah. All in all, an excellent trip! Turned out a lot better than I expected and I'm glad I had fun :)
School is strange to go back to after speaking English with all the guys there for five days, but its comforting in a strange "I understand German" way.
I miss home, as usual! And thank you to everyone who has been sending me letters! Seriously, each and every one makes my day :)

Urlaub, Silvester, und Januar

After an amazing six days of skiing in Austria, I'm back at home wondering just how five and a half months passed by me so quickly. Yesterday was officially the halfway mark between when I left home (August 2012) and June 20th (which is the predicted date of departure). Already five months have passed? That means February  March, April, and May will go by faster than I can imagine. It worries me...and its a concept I've had trouble with for the last few days. Sometimes I can't decide whether to focus on how fragile life is (or seems) or how robust and extraordinary it is. I want to capture every single moment in a bottle so I can dwell on it later but they slip out of my fingers and before I know it, they're fading memories...

And with that frame of mind, I'll let you in on how awesome Austria was.

We were in Jochberg, (Kitzbühel) Austria, staying at an apartment right on the lift. At about 9:30 every morning, we were already on the first lift there. Once you get to the top of the mountain that we were on, you can either take a 12 minute gonadal over to the next mountain, or zigzag in the other direction for about and hour an a half until you find yourself in the middle of the alps. The first few days were amazing, sunny weather, not too cold, but still excellent carving snow. I spent a lot of my time on the other mountain via gonadal because there were a few choice runs over there. The last two days, it rained and snowed heavy wet snow, but we were up there anyways. On those days, we'd camp out in this cute little Austrian lodge on the slopes and warm up by the fireplace while sipping hot chocolate and sneakily eating our home made sandwiches.
I heard a variety of languages and accents. The Austria accent for German is quite interesting and I had a hard time understanding it just because its so...accented! I heard Russian, Dutch, lots of English, and I think an Asian language at one point. I only heard the American accent once, and they sounded like angry people so I stopped myself from saying hi. I also heard British and Australian accents, which was awesome, and met a kid from Manchester who looked exactly like a friend I snowboarded with last year, which was quite the trip.

 View from out our window there in Jochberg

 That thing there in the corner? I don't know if any of you know the T-bar lift, but it was my worst enemy during the whole trip. I think I fell twice, and ripped my ski pants on them the first day (I bought nice new ones) and a;dkjaf;sklj;dkl least convenient way to go up the mountain.

 My parents!

 In the lodge :)

 I only lugged my camera up with me two out of the five days because I only had my nice camera and was constantly worried about it getting hurt. And I'm really bad at selfies as such. And my fingers were really cold. So, all in all, I'm putting all the pictures up, even the bad ones. Because they're all I have. I know I look silly.

 In the gonadal!

 View out the windows from our apartment

My bed was one top, Tommy's bed was to the side on the left there, and then there was a bed dedicated to lego...:D

In the evenings, my German mutti and I cooked in the smallest kitchen possible with an old gas stove and a hot water cooker. After having spaghetti three evening out of the five, we've refrained from making that since we got home.
On New Years Eve, I found myself in a small Austrian hut pub, sipping a beer too big for me, listening to a band of ski instructors having the time of their life, and a very Austrian Austrian speak to me in his not-so-understandable German. I didn't stay out long honestly, I think we were all in bed by 11. Because of our not so festive (but still very festive, my family and I lit fireworks and stuff of course!) New Years Eve, we were able to have the slopes completely to ourselves the next day, which was the most gorgeous day of them all.
At the end, we had a ten hour ride home by car, which was quite strange for me. Its so cool how it only takes ten hours to get from one side of Germany to the other.
Now that I'm home, I feel like the whole thing was an amazing dream. I miss skiing desperately, I hope the snow is good in Boise.
Next month I have a week long seminar in Weimar, Germany that should prove to be interesting.
Big huge shout of to my host family for taking me to Austria, it was really amazing and something that I will never forget :)
Oh and my boyfriend and I had our year anniversary on Christmas eve, no big deal ;)