Weimar

Hello hello

A quick note from Germany. Arrived here in Weimar yesterday afternoon after spending a day in Salzburg, Austria, where I saw some of the most stunning scenery Ive witnessed. I climbed through the hills and made my way to a fortress in Salzburg, took a nature hike and had a fabulous meal before visiting a garden where part of The Sound of Music was filmed. The city was very clean and beautiful.

Weimar is neat, though Germany has not been as enjoyable as some of the other places Ive seen (not to say that I have no enjoyed it, however). Things Weimar is known for: Bauhaus, Goethe and Schiller. Yesterday I took in the Neue Museum Weimar, which houses a ton of Bauhaus beauties (Bauhaus was a design movement during the 20s that originated in Weimar.) This place is so proud of Bauhaus, and it makes me happy! The museum was fab. I wandered a bit around the city center and found the Bauhaus University before returning for dinner.

I was pretty grossly bitten by some sort of insect while in Italy (likely in awful Lido di Jesolo or perhaps Venice), and have bites on my feet, ankles, and hips. Im not certain what got to me but it went to town anyhow. The bites itched like crazy for days, I finally went to a pharmacy when we arrived in Weimar and bought an anti itch gel. To add to things, Ive been feeling like garbage. May have been something I consumed, etc. but Ive been trying to sleep it off. I know I am not just sleep deprived because Ive gotten a solid 6 to 8 hours a night the entire trip.

Thus feeling like terribleness, I went to sleep last night right after dinner, at 20:30, and woke up at 08:00 this morning. Today was unreal. My day began with a visit to Buchenwald, a concentration camp that is right outside of Weimar. It was operated as a labor camp for prisioners from 1937 until its liberation in 1945.

Wow. How do you describe this experience? Unbelievable? Shocking? Surreal?

Most of the buildings on the camp are no longer, but the main entrance, many of the barbed wire fences, the crematorium, and several other buildings remain. I walked through the crematorium...sickening. There was a photograph on the wall of stacks of bodies, and I looked out the door and saw the exact spot that the photograph was taken. There are no words.

I am in Weimar this evening, then headed to Amsterdam in the morning. Well be there until Tuesday when I jump on a plane and head back to the States. If I dont have a chance to write again, Ill be arriving at Fargos Hector Intl at 6:20pm.

Goodbye