Birthday and Stuff!

Well now that I am a bit caught up!! All my trips are over and I have moved into my third families! They are so sweet and a lot of fun! Liege I know like the back of my hand, the bus system is no problem and trains are second nature now! People are starting to leave and it really puts into perspective that school is almost over and here soon I will be heading home too. This is by far one of the saddest thoughts I have ever had!

School is becoming more of a pain, if it were not for my Belgian friends I would do everything I could to not even go! But I go and see them each day! Teachers are starting to hand out exam material and there is that end of school stressful feeling that is overtaking everyone!

My Birthday was last weekend and my family was so nice and surprised me with a cake and some cute clothes! They are so sweet! They also took me and another of my good friends to a Mexican restaurant! It wasn’t quite the same but it was still good!

I love Belgium and am already dreading the day I have to leave! Belgium has taught me not only the obvious like how to navigate your way through town on a bus, how to use trains, and French, but I have also learned so much about me! I have made friends here in Belgium and friends from all around the world! I can always come back to visit but never will it be the same as this year. 

SPAIN!!

I love Spain!!! Spain was absolutely amazing!! The country was beautiful! As soon as we crossed the French border into Spain you could see a difference. We left Brussels in the evening and spent the next 22 hours in a bus driving across Europe!

We saw a million churches and cathedrals.. all their stories have ran together now and I am not really going to go and Google all the information just to put in here… pictures will have to do it! : )

Day 1: We arrived after a long 22 hours in the bus. We were left to go explore the town of Salamanca !

Day 2: WE had a guided tour of the city. We saw a lot of stork nests and also learned that the words victor that were written around the city were from old scholars who had completed their studies!

Day 3: We woke up and headed to our next city…Avilla. We had a tour of the town then were allowed to explore the city. That afternoon we were given a tour of a monastery.

Day 4: We were on the road again to Segovia were able to see one of the world’s most breathtaking cathedrals! Then saw an actual castle with a mote!

Day 5:  WE loaded up the bus yet again and made our way to Madrid! We stopped along the way to see a monastery. It was quite impressionable! At one point a royal family lived there and there is a section of the house/castle/monastery that has all the tombs. We were not allowed to take pictures but if you remember the movie Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy… it was just like the room in the movie where there are a bunch of tombs. That afternoon we explored Madrid for a bit!

Day 6:  Holey Toledo!!! Toledo was so amazing!! WE had another guided tour… our tour guide was not the sweetest! But the town was gorgeous!

Day 7: We made our way to Barcelona that next day… almost a whole day in the bus! WE went to the beach by our hotel and then had a party in the hotel and learned a bunch of Spanish dances!

Day 8: Exploring Barcelona! We saw some of the most amazing things in Barcelona!

Day 9: Exploring Barcelona Rotary style! WE were given a tour by our Rotarians who accompanied us… it was a tour of the city by foot, but was so much fun! Barcelona is one of my favorite cities!!!!!

Day 10: Well we just sat in the bus all day and headed home… I am pretty sure we all slept the whole way back!!

Spain was AMAZING!!! One of the best two weeks of my exchange!! :)

Dachau

Well my computer has been broken so a lot has happened since then but I will start with where I left off!

So our second camp was Dachau, this camp I found to be “better”. There was a museum inside of the SS buildings and that gave us more of an incite as to what actually happened there. We started with a general explanation of the camp in the Roll call area. Here we learned of the different buildings we would be going to the prison, barracks, showers, former SS building and the crematorium.

We started our tour in the SS building that had been turned into a museum. We were given an explanation as to how records were keep and how orderly the camp was ran.  There were cards for each prisoner the important information such as date name and nationality was written in pen. All other details were to be written in pencil. We were shown the shower room, where hair was cut and a few other general buildings like this. In each building there was information about the daily activities that took place in that building as long as the horrors that took place there as well.  We were also informed of one of the only known prisoners who managed to escape the camp. 

The second building we went into was the prison of the camp. It was not uncommon for prisoners to be kept in solitude for days without food. Here we were also shown the cell of a “famous” prisoner who attacked an SS officer and we were shown several cells that held famous political leaders.

After the prison we made our way to the barracks. When we entered the barracks the first thing we saw was the “bathrooms” there was no plumbing to the toilets so all the waste would just fall under the barracks explaining why there was such a plethora of diseases. On either side of the barracks there were rooms each different room was filled with beds. Throughout the history of the camp there were 3 different styles of bunks used. Inside the barracks the floors were hallow and there was “nothing” under them.  It was explained that it was so if anyone was walking around it would be heard. The prisoners rotated through different jobs they had a day of manual labor then two different kitchen jobs then a day off.

After our visit to the Barrack we walked through what would have been the rows of barracks but what is now a cement foundation, due to disease the barracks were burned.

We made our way to the prison fence not long after then made a little walk to the crematorium. The first section was where the prisoners clothing was chemically cleaned.

 The second room was where people who had just arrived were told they would receive a shower. 

The showers.....

The following room was the showers.
Then bordering the crematorium on either side were rooms that were used to store bodies until their turn to be cremated.
 Each oven could take 4-5 bodies at a time, but it wasn’t uncommon for bodies to be piled up behind the building awaiting their turn in the oven.

The wooden beams were also used to hang prisoners as a form of punishment. They would be hung there while forced to watch bodies burning....

That evening we returned to our hotel we ate a quick dinner then were encouraged by the teachers that accompanied the other two schools to run to our rooms drop our baggage off then to come back to the lobby and have a beer with them…. Never in a million years would I have imagined teachers encouraging students to drink…… la vie belgique!! We put our stuff down then talked with the Rotarian whom accompanied us. We heard his story and how he went to live in the country during the war and he also showed us some books that he had.  That next morning we headed back to Belgium!