I'll start from the very beginning, because apparently, it's a very good place to start. We all met in a street behind the Bonn train station at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning... the 27th of March to be exact. "We" consisted of five chaperons and 61 exchange students from all over the world -- Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Georgia, Sweden, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Venezuela, Canada, India, and the U.S.A.. (Sorry if I forgot any nationalities!!) We all packed our rather large bags into the bus and scrambled inside to try to get the best seats (it was a double-decker). We then went to the Haus der Geschichte (or the House of History) museum and had a guided tour through, which was interesting even though I had already been there before. Then it was on to Brussels, Belgium. The drive took a few hours, and when we got there, we were given a little free time to get souvenirs and eat. I was with my friends Kelsey, Hannah, and Vedashree (U.S.A., U.S.A., India), who were to become my regular roommates throughout the trip. We bought a few things, then ate french fries and Belgian waffles. Both were some of the best things I have ever eaten in my life, really. If anyone ever says they're making Belgian waffles in the U.S., I will seriously laugh, because I have never had a waffle that compares to the one I ate in Brussels. Anyway, after that delicious little distraction, we had a guided walking tour through Brussels. We saw the famous Mannequin Piss, which was cool. We also saw a lot of Brussels, which is GORGEOUS and old and beautiful. We headed to the hostel. It was not a good introduction to hostels, as the bathrooms were communal and the food was sub-par. At least we had a sink in our room! And the view wasn't so hot either -- a view onto a construction site. Oh well. It wasn't horrible, and we managed to sleep through the night.
The next morning we ate breakfast, packed up, and were hustled onto the bus to head to the Atomium. That's a giant atom made out of metal. We took normal tourist pics from a distance and then had a bus tour through Brussels. That was okay, but it started the tradition of sleeping during bus tours because no one had slept that much the night before. Directly after the bus tour, we drove to Koblenz, stopping at a Pizza Hut on the way for lunch. I want to take a moment and apologize to all of the people who work at rest stops on the highway and have to deal with groups such as ours. It really must be a horrible experience to randomly get a full tour bus pouring into a relatively small facility. Anyway, when we arrived in Koblenz, we went the the Deutsches Eck, or German Corner, where two rivers meet. We took an official picture of all of us and then walked around a little and ate crêpes. Then it started to rain and we headed back on the bus and went to our hostel for the night. This one was much better -- we even had our own shower in the room. Plus the food wasn't all that bad. We had a little introduction thing in the basement, which took forever because there were so many of us. Then we had a little party downstairs, with a dancing room, pool, table tennis, and foosball. It was fun enough.
The next morning, we drove for an hour or so to get to the Marksburg, a castle. We had the standard guided tour through, which was cool. I feel slightly bad saying this, but I felt like I'd seen it all before, because I've already been through several castles from the same time period and in the same region. It was still cool. We then went to a grocery store and bought snacks and things to sustain us in the bus. We drove on to Heidelberg, and had a walking tour through the city. It was one of the best walking tours we had. The tour guide was pretty awesome, and told us a bunch of random little anecdotes. It started at the old castle ruins and then worked its way down a few hundred steps into the city. The city itself was gorgeous, with old buildings everywhere. I saw the University in Heidelberg, in which 20% of the student body are foreign exchange students. I will definitely be looking into that. Anyway, then we went to the youth hostel for the night. The Rotary chaperons took us out into the city after dinner and we all went to a bar. We didn't stay too late, and then went back to the hostel to sleep.
The next morning, we got up earlier than normal to head to Strasbourg (spelled Straßburg in German), which is in France. When we got there, we began the day with a tour of the European Parliament, which was really cool. We saw the main meeting hall and some of the smaller rooms that they work in. The building was very modern and very cool-looking. After that, we went into the city and ate lunch and had free time. After that, we had a guided walking tour around the city. It was going relatively well until it started pouring, so we ran into a church and our guide told us little stories about the history of Strasbourg. Sadly, we had to leave shortly after that and had to drive a couple of hours to our hostel in Stuttgart. It was a relatively quiet night, which was nice.
Wednesday's mood was slightly more reserved than it had been previously, as we went to Dachau, one of the largest concentration camps from the Nazi regime. I can't think of the right word to describe how that was... it is a difficult thing to describe. Knowing that so many people died in this one place is unsettling. I've grown up in Gettysburg, where over 51,000 people died within three days, but it's not the same. Those people were soldiers, and killing each other was their job. The prisoners of Dachau, however, had no idea, no say in what they were doing. They were literally worked to death. One wrong move, like your hat falling off of your head, could get you 25 strokes of the whip. Some people were put into solitary confinement, where the cells were tiny ... less than a square yard. We also went through the crematorium, which held the gas chamber and the incinerator for the bodies. All in all... not pleasant. I feel like I learned a lot, but I didn't exactly enjoy learning it. After those two and a half hours, we headed into the city of Dachau and had a little chat with the mayor. He talked about how Dachau is such an artistic city, and said almost nothing about the concentration camp, which I found interesting. The highlight of the visit was getting free pretzels -- a specialty in Bavaria. We then drove a short distance to Munich, where we visited the Allianz Arena, a soccer stadium. The soccer team Bayern-München plays there, and the stadium is AMAZING. It can turn different colors on the outside, and inside, it is HUGE. We got to go to the locker room of Bayern-München, and we also went to the sponsors' club inside and of course got to sit for awhile in the stadium. It was big. And awesome. We then headed to the hostel in Munich and stayed there for the rest of the night.
Alright. I'm cutting this off for now -- I promise to post the rest later!
Liebe Grüße
Signe
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