Ober Aber Uber Oberammergau

Last week was probably the most tiring so far. It felt like I was constantly doing something, never resting, and I was being drained physically as well as emotionally.

Our trip to Buchenwald and Erfurt was on Thursday. Buchenwald was a bit more than I thought it would be. I didn't expect to see the things we saw. It was quite an experience for everyone. I didn't know how to react a lot of the time and the hours seem to go by so fast while we were there. It is not something I think I will ever do again. Standing at the gate of the concentration camp really scared me and part of me was reluctant to go in. I'm glad I did because I faced the truth of something that I have been studying since I was in middle school. It was too much to handle and I think back on it wondering how I could have been standing in the places we went in to. It's going to stay in my memory forever.

After Buchenwald we went to a city called Erfurt that I immediately fell in love with. It helps that it has a very Hogwarts looking cathedral sitting right in the middle of it. The city was very typical German for me so I think that's why I liked it so much. It was how I imagined Germany to be. There were narrow streets filled with interesting shops and it gave off a bit of an old world feel. We had a nice tour through the city with some free time to do some shopping in which I bought some freaking ridiculously good chocolate truffles. It started to rain but a few people in our group went up a tower that overlooked the city. We left in the evening and returned back to Jena safe. We had class the next day and our weekly group meeting at Joe and Jo-Ann's in which we reflected on Thursday. It was interesting seeing different sides of people come out. I guess it's things like this that make a group bond stronger.

Yesterday I went on a walk on the outskirts of Jenzig with Jo-Ann. It was pretty neat to think about the fact that Martin Luther has probably onced walked the trail we were on. If there hadn't been the sound of a helicopter overhead then it might have almost felt like we were back in the middle ages. It was a very charming forest. We saw a gigantic ant hill that scared the crap out of me once I realized there were tons of ants on the ground by our feet surrounding it. We took a detour to observe what we thought was a ruin but it turned out to be some shady storage space. It had rained earlier that day so the ground was muddy and I ended up slipping and getting mud all on the back of my jeans which I had washed two days prior. Our walk ended with a picture of me posing in front of a statue surrounded by muschelkalk and a long walk back home. Today was a German holiday, Kindertag, so I have been inside most of the day sleeping. I was feeling pretty sick earlier and it didn't help much when I looked at my bank account and saw I had less money than I originally thought. I imagine I won't need much for service but I still want to play it safe.

Tomorrow we leave for Berlin from Tuesday to Thursday. I have been looking forward to this the entire time that we've been here. I just love really big cities. We leave really early in the morning and I'm not even done packing. We were told that Wolfgang Bathe, our tour guide for Berlin, is going to tire us out with our tour of Berlin. I am the slowest one in the group so we'll see how that goes. I'm starting to get use to the super fast paced tours that cover almost an entire city.

So I've realized that I have been online way too much and I hope that I don't have internet access on service so people like my mom can actually start to miss me. I'm already getting in trouble with her and I'm in another country! Hopefully that will die down. I think I'm just at a point where I'm starting to miss everyone because there isn't any school and I could be enjoying my time with them. I miss my city a lot.