Weimar

In the beginning of March, the fifty of us with ASSE traveled to Weimar (a small gorgeous town in central/east Germany) for our mid-year seminar. It was very fun seeing everyone again and Weimar is an incredibly beautiful town with so much history. Unfortunately I don't know what happened to the majority of my photos! But I posted what I could find. Besides reuniting with the other exchanges students and sharing our experiences thus far, and exploring the town, we got to see a lot of incredible historical places. Both Schiller and Goethe (famous writers, the German equivalents to Shakespeare, Goethe wrote Faust and The Theory of Colors, among others, Schiller wrote Love and Intrigue, William Tell, The Robbers, among others) resided in Weimar, and we got to tour both of their houses. Weimar is also the birthplace of the Bauhaus movement of the 1920's, the art and technical movement that popularized simplicity and 'form follows function.' We got to tour the bauhaus museum and walk around the bauhaus-style neighborhoods. The last very important thing we got to do was tour Buchenwald Concentration Camp, located just outside of Weimar. So far that is the only concentration camp I've seen, and it was very emotional. The best word I heard to describe our time there was 'reflective'. It really made you think and consider, I don't really know, everything. It was tough, and an experience I am thankful for but something I wish I never needed to experience. I remembered reading Night, by Elie Wiesel, in Honors English, and it was crazy relating his experiences in Buchenwald to the actual place. 

With that somber thought, here is (the pictures that I was able to find of) Weimar

 In the house of Schiller, I believe

A small jewish cemetery. Rocks are placed over the graves in lieu of flowers (I didnt know that before!)



I did not take any pictures of Buchenwald. While you can take pictures, I didn't feel like that was the point of my visit. However, here is a picture (from the website) of the gate, which reads 'jedem das seine' meant to be readable also to the prisoners in the camp. It translates literally 'to each his own' but means 'to each what he deserves' or 'to each his due'. Food for thought.

Berlin

Back a long time ago in February, Julia and Alex took me to Berlin for the weekend because Alex needed to go look at possible apartments. Berlin was awesome and for early February the weather was really nice and I can't wait to go back in May! Pictures

 the (old) border control btwn east and west germany

 the apartment we stayed in

 just like humboldt

 east and west berlin

 real berliner currywurst

 yum

 brandenburg gate with a 'save the whale' protest in the background

 the russian memorial

 berliner weisse, flavored beer at an irish pub

 i am tank girl

 checkpoint charlie ft. soldier who makes you pay for taking a photo with him

 sanssouci palace in potsdam, the summer home of frederick the great 'castle without worries'

don't read this if you don't like cute things that will make you happy

The blog posts that I am not on top of include a trip to Berlin in February, Weimar in the beginning of March, Paris for a day, and last week in Vienna to visit Alex, but all that has to wait because I have something much more important to share with you:

This is the love of my life, Opi. I'd marry him except you probably can't legally do that I don't think. But I really love him a lot and I'd take him home with me if I could.

Julia and Alex for Christmas got me THE BEST PRESENT EVER a trip to a camel farm and we went with Rachel and Sandra and Reiner and Clemens and Greta and we got to play with the camels and clean the camels and ride the camels and camel camel ohmygosh it was lovely. They had dromendary and bactrian camels and a lot of them came from circuses and the others were mostly born at the farm. We got to feed the 10 month old baby camel who was already huger than me, and we got to ride Karl the camel and wow it was all so great. Here are all the pictures and the video where I giggle a lot when Karl stands up.

Ps camels are really soft and really nice and they are so lovable they are the best