Bach N Buchenwald

On Thursday, June 18th, we had a short class day because we are headed to a Bach organ concert tonight. By now, our professors as well as the students are getting sick of class. They’re becoming much more lenient with everything.
The organ concert was very cool. It took place at St. Thomas’ cathedral where Bach used to write and perform his pieces. It was very relaxing and historically, pretty crazy to think about. They were times that I doubted there was only one organ player playing due to the intricacy of the pieces. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
After the Bach concert a few of us met up with Anne at the campus festival. There were lives bands, great food, and cold beer. The first band was a ska band and sounded similar to Sublime. The second was a light rock band and sounded eerily similar to Coldplay. Anne gave us a tour of the University’s facilities between the next set. When we returned there was no gear on stage. There was only a black barrier in the middle of the stage with the word PuppetMastaz on it. At this point we weren’t really sure what to expect. What we saw next cannot be described by words. All I can say is watch this video. INSERT VIDEO HERE>. It was about 23:00 when we arrived back home. Another exhausting day was in the books.
I don’t know how many times this happened, but it was often. In Germany you wake up thinking you overslept because of how light it is outside. When you roll over and look at your clock and its only 5:00 it hurts. But then you realize that you have 4 more hours to sleep. You put the mask, that you stole from the airplane, on and you go back to sleep.
Friday morning, it was off to Weimar; a quant little city with a great amount of historical significance. Weimar is the city located near Buchenwald, Germany’s biggest concentration camp in WWII. It was also the central point of command for the SS. We arrived, got on the bus, and ate lunch at there. We started the tour by watching a 30 minute movie about the camp to give us some background information.
Buchenwald was not a traditional concentration camp; it was a labor camp run by the SS from 1935 to 1941. It was built by political prisoners from stone quarried from a gravel pit nearby. It was originally built to house eight to ten thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war it had over 55,000 men; not including those 35,000 who died. It was a very different tour then we were used. It left me feeling deeply depressed; a feeling that I’ve never really felt before. It was very strange. It was unreal to think about how many people died in the very spot that I was standing. We saw the ovens that cremated the bodies, and the hooks that they used to hang people by; deeply disturbing to say the least.
Monday night we had our final dinner with the professors, the students, and our mentors. I had the Schnitzel, which was delicious. I gave my gift to Anne, which she loved. We ended up flipping through the Michigan books because she had many questions about it. I gave her an American $1 bill, because she had never seen one before as well. The dinner was followed by a sad night at Killy Willy pub. A night where drinks were shared and tears were shed; for none of us knew whether or not we'd see each other ever again.

Stay tuned: Tuesday we depart for Berlin. We fly to Dublin, Ireland. Then to Edinbrough, Scotland, and Finally to London, England. Should be very interesting to see the cultural differences. I will do my best to write on here, but i may not be able to until i return home.

Tchus!