Guess what??

Well I don't know how many of you know this or not but I came home to New Mexico last Wednesday night! SO I am home and I already have a job. I will be writing again soon to talk about the trip home and our trip to Berlin right before I left and then that will probably be my last blog. Check back soon!

Weekend at Jeremy´s

So this weekend I went down to Grafenwohr to visit my cousin and his family. The trip there was pretty simple, except I almost missed one of my trains because they changed platforms. Luckily I made it there just fine. He picked me up from the train station and we went to pick up some groceries and things. The great thing was that it was on an army base and everything was american pretty much. They had american food that you can´t get in germany and it was in USD. Everyone spoke english which was great. I bought some snacks that I haven´t had in two months and then we headed out to pick up his daughter. She is shy around new people so I didn´t say much to her when she first got in the car. We drove to their house, which is totally awesome because it has 4 floors. I love houses like that! I had bought a princess coloring book for laura and so when we got back I gave it to her and she sat down and started coloring in it right away. Lucky for me she is into princesses! We just kind of hung out, we had country fried steak and mashed potatoes for dinner YUMMY! While Jeremy and Jamie were making dinner I slowly got laura to sit on the couch and read with me. That was a lot of fun. Later on she wanted to read to her bear and I took a couple pictures because it was so cute the way she sat on the floor.

It´s kind of dark but her bear is sitting between her legs and she is reading to him. SO CUTE!Jeremy and I played his Nintendo Wii for a while that night, those are so fun! Then went to bed. I just took it easy the next day, we ran to the train station to get my ticket and then went to the euro store. We ate and watched Tin Man (really weird mini series kind of like wizard of oz) and then went to bed. I was originally going to stay until Monday but we weren´t able to find a good ticket out so I left today. It took me a while to get home but it was a good trip, except for when the ticket man scolded me for putting my feet on the seat. Oh well. Here are some more pictures from the weekend.

Laura hamming it up for the camera. Super blue eyes!Giving bear some love. She´s carrying her purse around.Their dog Zoe.

This is one of their cats, skittles. She is actually a self mutilating depressed cat and she scratches herself so bad that they have to put this on her so she doesn´t scratch herself to death, pretty much.Jeremy and Laura.Dad´s a jungle gym, don´t ya know?Jamie was playing peek a boo and Laura would laugh and laugh. It was very entertaining.
The family: Jamie, baby, Laura, and JeremyThis tower is where Hitler used to watch the SS men from, pretty crazy huh?I never have any pictures of me because I just don´t think to ask anyone to take them so I took this one of myself on one of the trains home, I have headphones because I was watching The Two Towers.Another quick cute story because I am ready for bed. I have this yodeling rat-squirrel keychain for natalie´s house key that I let laura play with. After pushing it over and over again she started to sing it. It was so cute. Ok, well I don´t know what´s next but I hope to go to the Herrenhausen Garten tomorrow or Tuesday so I will post pictures of that!

Bergen-Belsen Memorial and Celle

Today I took a trip with Natalie´s dad to the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, about an hours drive from Hannover. It is the site of a concentration camp that opened around 1940. About 30,000 Jews were killed there from 1940 until the liberation in 1945. Anne Frank died there from Typhus a few months before the liberation of the camp. It was very... umm, I don´t know the word for it.. just sad and a time to remember what happened. This is one picture of MANY mass graves. See how it is elevated? Well they have many of these throughout the memorial. This was a smaller one and if you look at the next picture...

You can see that it says 1000. That means there were at least 1000 people put in just this one mass grave. Although at the time it was just a ditch they threw the bodies in. This big square used to be the water basin, not water for drinking but water to wash vegetables and put out fires. It´s hard to see in this picture but on the right in front of that man is where the vegetable cellar was.The next two pictures are of block 9 and 10, huts where people slept. Of course they are ruins now but you can see in the second picture very clearly where the building was. There were also holes that may have been bathrooms at one point. (not pictured)

This is the sign for the memorial. On the left you can see another elevated mass grave and the rememberance wall and tower.This is a huge mass grave. There were two of these long graves combined and they each hold 2500 bodies.Another picture of the wall and tower. Again in front is a different mass grave than the one above.The Jewish Memorial. The next picture shows what it says in English.

This isn´t really Anne Frank´s grave but her and her sister still died on this property, probably pretty close to this headstone.They had a House of Silence and this thing had hundreds of rocks and messages on it. Putting rocks on different memorials must be special because there were a lot fo them. You can see them in the picture above.Another mass grave with 5000 bodies. This one was attached with two others, one had 2500 and one had 800. In one mass grave that is 8300 bodies.The polish prisoners put up a cross just like this soon after liberation, in this exact spot. The cross has been replaced several times because of decay.The Wall and Tower of rememberance.

This was the largest mass grave on the site. I went to see how many people were buried here and the sign read.. (next picture)Number unknown. There had to be at least 10000, if not way more than that.This is the POW Cemetery. It was quite a walk to get here.This is the Soviet Memorial.

I am so glad I had the chance to see such a huge part of history. Now onto some lighter stuff. When we were walking to the POW Cemetery we were just walking down a dirt road the whole time. Once we got out of the boundaries of Bergen-Belsen we saw this sign on one side of the road.Well soon after that we turn a corner and this same sign was on BOTH sides of the road. It made me feel very safe.... NOT! After we left the memorial we went to Celle, a city on the way. We stopped in to see the downtown part and the castle. When the war was going on pretty much everything in Hannover was destroyed but Celle was left standing so there are some VERY old and VERY different looking houses. They are setting up for a fitness fair this weekend.Cute little German houses. They weren´t houses really, shops on the bottom apartments up top.The building on the left was made in 1649 and the one on the right was made in 1532. Pretty crazy huh?The park by the castle. Weeping willow trees are my favorite.
The castle and the weeping willow again.The pond with so much green!I thought this tree was pretty neat because you had to walk underneath its twisted branches.Hope you enjoyed seeing Bergen-Belsen and Celle through my pictures!

The rest of Austria

Day three was much of the same as Day two except when we got to Oma´s house she informed us there were 16 baby pigs born the night before! I am SOO excited about that and I went right away to see them. (CAPTIONS FOR PICTURES ARE ABOVE THEM NOW... it makes more sense.)

Unfortunately when we left the following Wednesday there were only 11 left. Some of them are too weak to walk to mom and drink and sometimes the mama lays on them and kills them. It is very sad but it is nature I guess.

They are so little when they are first born! I wanted to hold one but I don´t think we were allowed to.
In my spare time I just liked to walk around and take pictures so here are some of them.

I had to zoom in a lot on this picture because the cat was sitting in the middle of a huge garden.
Time for the cows to come home. That is Oma and the neighbor.

That night after we went home I took a walk down the street just as the sun was setting and I LOVE SUNSETS so I took a lot of pictures. Here are a few.

Over a huge lake.

I don´t know why I like this picture so much but on the bottom there are trees and stuff and the top is clouds, but it looks like nothing. This is a waterfall I found. I love waterfalls, unfortunately pictures don´t do justice for anything that I saw.

A pretty sunflower.

Day Four- Well this day we went to an aunts house in the village about halfway up the mountain for lunch. We had soup, veggies, and some good meat. It was really cold and rainy that day but it was a fun time. After staying there for a little while we went back up to Oma´s for dinner. Nothing too exciting happened. Except that night I got pretty sick in the stomach (which lasted for the next several days).

It rained this day but when the sun started to set it got clear except for a few foggy parts, as you can see.

Day Five- Monday morning and most of the afternoon was spent in bed because of the stomach thing. Natalie went to an aunts house for lunch then came by and picked me up and we headed to an uncles house for dinner. I ate (not a good idea) but the food was good. We just hung out and talked for the rest of the evening.

Day Six- We went to another aunts house for lunch. Then back up to Oma´s for our goodbyes. I took a walk down the street behind Oma´s house. It was quite a hike on the way back up but it was worth it. Here are a few pictures of that.

The trees into the foresty part of the road.

Do you remember the smurfs? The cartoon about little blue people who live in mushrooms? Well I found one of their houses!

The exit of the foresty part, looking out onto green hills. Amazing.

This is a nut tree. And it is all by itself on the property where the cows graze. I like this picture a lot.

After my walk I went up to say bye to the baby cows and pigs. A few more pictures.

When it´s cold they all huddle in together. It´s so cute!

"You´re leaving?" I miss those baby cows who loved to suck on my hands!

Then Natalie, Jamie, and I headed up to the top of the mountain before heading home. It was awesome. There was a lot to do, a wildlife park, a restaurant, jumpy things for the kids. We only stayed for a few minutes but here are some pictures.

Looking down at the lake and the cities from the top.The play area for the kids and all the mountains in the background.

We went home after that and packed up and went to bed.

Day Seven- Well we woke up and got everything ready. Of course when we were ready to leave the lady who owns the apartment wasn´t there and the guy who works for her can´t take money so we followed him through town to the store she was at. Luckily she was still there and we paid her then left. We dropped the rental car off and waited for a taxi. The first one that came was too small so they called for another one. We took the taxi to the train station and had plenty of time before our train left, so we waited. We found a pretty good seat and the ride wasn´t bad. The only real trouble we had with the trains this time was we only had 7 minutes between trains so we had to run to get to the other train, which meant I went down the stairs and back up carrying the suitcase which was SOO heavy on the way back! We arrived home about 730 and her mom met us there. And that was the end of our trip. We were tired and ready for our own beds. Up next... The visit with my cousin at the army base in Grafenwohr... coming after this weekend!