My German dress

When Stephanie and I went to Munich to go to the Embassy for my passport, we had some free time and found some German dresses we couldn't resist trying on. I wanted to buy one but they were so expensive (this one was on sale for about $80 american dollars but most were a lot more) so Stephanie and I split the cost and are sharing the dress. It fit both of us so we figured, 'why not?' I took the dress home with me and will ship it back to her in a few months. Isn't it neat?!

Time is flying

It feels like this year has been flying by at a speed I'm not sure I'm a fan of, but what can I do but go along?

I started my job at the church and I love it! It's such a peaceful atmosphere and I love what I have to do. I organize things on my own, for FUN, anyways, so being paid to organize, file, label, and all that fun secretarial stuff, is awesome! It is really neat to see how a church works from the inside out. I work there Tuesdays and Thursdays, unless I'm unable or if the pastoral staff is gone for whatever reason. I'm still working at Larsen's 3 days a week, so it's adding up to a full 40 hrs per week of working - crazy!

Here's Eloise and I just hanging out :) I love having an ever present companion!

This picture was taken on Photo Booth on my Mac, but my camera is fixed and back in my own hands, so my posts from now on should have more pictures :)

The month since I've been home

Today marks one month back in the States, and what a whirlwind month it has been! I can't recall a month ever going quite so fast, even though at the time it didn't feel like it. Is it just me or is time in general speeding up?

The month has been a fairly busy one. I worked quite a bit, went on a weekend trip to South Dakota, and came down with some ridiculous sickness. I'm halfway convinced it was H1n1. A little over a week ago my friend Kyle (he's in a few previous posts) asked me to prom. Obviously I'm out of high school, but he goes to the school here so he can ask anyone, whether they go to the school or not. It's on April 17th so I have just about 6 weeks to find a dress and all that goes with. If I can keep my worrywart self in line, it should be a lot of fun!

Also, I got another job. I'm now my churches new secretary. My pastor called me a couple weeks ago and asked me if it was something I'd be interested in. He still had to present it to the board but he checked in with me first. I said yes, that'd be awesome (secretarial work has always intrigued me) and a week later he had the 'ok' from the board. I just talked to him today to go over some details and I will start tomorrow! It'll just be 2 days a week, working with my schedule at Larsen's (I'm still working 3 days a week there) and my job will consist of taking calls, organizing, and pretty much whatever else needs to be done. I'm excited to be on the other side of a church, to see how it functions and all comes together.

So there you go, my last month in a nutshell :)

A summary of the rest of the trip.

Since my camera quit working, the rest of my trip will have to be described without pictures. If you go on my facebook, you can see all the pictures I was tagged in, but I don't have my own pictures of time in Germany, just Paris and Dachau.

So here goes... I'll summarize the other things we did.

First off, I somehow managed to leave my passport, license, and army pass, on the train home from Paris. I'm still not sure how it all happened, as I was obsessive about making sure I knew where it was at all times. I was surprisingly calm, although certainly embarrassed and scared I would ruin things for the others. Stephanie's parents immediately went to the train station to report it missing. They also called the embassy and put a block on my passport so no one could travel with it. Nothing more could be done that night so we all went to sleep, leaving it to be dealt with the next day.

February 1st - The day after getting home from Paris was Stephanie's 19th birthday. We celebrated with some friends of hers by playing a karaoke game on her Wii. Yes, I actually played, but I would only sing with someone else, not solo. Anyone that knows me knows that that is still a big step :) Usually games that will single me out make me run in the opposite direction. Also, due to my passport ordeal, the day was also spent in the MILITARY POLICE STATION, reporting my army pass as missing. Apparently going in the station is a pretty big deal. I had to be taken back to this room next to the holding cells, where I was questioned for what felt like forever. It wasn't like I was a criminal, but the soldier had to file a report in order for me to get a new pass. As previously said, I got very excited whenever soldiers were around, so you can imagine my excitement (hidden, of course) over this scenario. Anyways, I got a new pass, so that was taken care of at least. Also, when I got my pass the first day, they made a copy of my passport, thank Jesus. We were able to obtain a copy, which was supposed to help me get into Garmisch.

February 2nd - We headed off to Garmisch the next morning. It was a 4 or 5 hour drive and we went through Austria. I was very excited yet nervous that the Austrians would sense I didn't have my passport and kick me out. Our destination was Edelweiss, an American army resort located in Garmisch, right in the middle of the Alps. Even though we had our army passes from Mannheim, we had to get into the Edelweiss system as well, since it was on an army base. That is where my passport copy came in handy. Things went smooth and I was issued into the system successfully. That day we settled in and ate at a restaurant within the resort hotel. Us 4 girls had our own room while Stephanie's mom and 5 siblings were in the room next door.

February 3rd - This day was spent going to Dachau, so the other post will explain all that.

February 4th - Originally this day was supposed to be spent going to Neuschwanstein, the beautiful castle that is said to be the original Disney castle. However, with my passport being lost, our plans were changed. Throughout the last few days, Stephanie's mom and dad had been making all kinds of calls. It was finally discovered that if I had a copy of my birth certificate and I.D. (thankfully had my college I.D. with since my license was lost as well) I could go to the embassy and pay $100 to get an emergency passport. So instead of heading to the castle, Stephanie and I (Katie and Rianne went to the castle by themselves) headed to Munich via train. It was an hour and a half away, but the European trains were so fascinating to me that things went pretty quickly. We had to find a taxi and get ourselves to the embassy by 9:45AM. Apart from a few mishaps (involving us getting scolded by German guards) we made it, and after the most intense security check I've experienced, we made it inside the embassy. The people were very nice and less than an hr later I walked out with a passport. We had over 3 hrs before our train left, so what else could we do but... explore! We walked around, took taxis once we realized we couldn't navigate ourselves, and just enjoyed the day. I ate my most German meal of the trip (sausage, of course) and we shopped and tried on authentic German dresses. We had to race to not miss our train. It was such a fun, perfect day. This is what I wanted the trip to be like. Carefree, spirited, and full of random happenings. I would rather walk around and get the feel for a town, than going to only the known landmarks. I think I got a much better feel for Germany and the German people due to this day. And to think the only reason the day happened is cause I lost my passport... God works in such mysterious ways, and He blesses us through seemingly bad circumstances. This day really showed me that.

February 5th - We headed home from Garmisch, with a stop in Stuttgart on the way back to Mannheim. We also stopped and took a walk around a beautiful lake at the bottom of the Zugspitze, the highest peak in Germany. The Alps are amazing; the air is so fresh and clean. We had a snowball fight, made a snowman, and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

February 6th - Back in Mannheim, we had a full day planned. We were going to take a train (the strauss) to Heidelburgh, a bigger German city less than an hour away. It was the neatest place. We shopped for chocolate and gummy bears, ate at the Hard Rock Cafe there, and explored the pretty city.

February 7th - Our last day in Germany was spent shopping for Superbowl food and getting our stuff together to leave the next day. We also went out for a Greek dinner with two of Stephanie's friend. The Superbowl does, in fact, show over in Germany (at least on the American bases) but it doesn't start until midnight. We tried to stay up until the game was over but only made it to halftime.

February 8th - We had to leave for the airport pretty early that morning. International flights require you to be there a few hours before departure, plus we had to drive an hr to Frankfurt to get to the airport. Saying goodbye was sad, and our flight was pretty rough, but we made it. Due to the time change, we still got back to the States on February 8th. My flights afterwards were a disaster. Delays, turbulence, and noise were plenty on both flights. Finally, at six thirty in the morning on February 9th, I was home.

Dachau Concentration Camp

The only other thing I have pictures from is Dachau. Stephanie let me borrow her camera so I was able to take pictures on my own memory card. We went there on a tour through Garmisch (more on that later) a few days after returning home from Paris. It was... sobering, heartbreaking, hard, among so many other emotions. Dachau was one of the more famous concentration camps, Auschwitz being the most well known. The day was cold and wet, which really added to the whole atmosphere. These pictures get kind of intense, and these aren't even the real graphic ones.

I had seen this sculpture before but never really understood exactly what it was depicting. After standing right below it and looking at it, I realized what it really was. It's showing the prisoners writhing in pain while stuck in barbed wire. This picture can't really show how horrible it really is, but seeing it in person made me gasp in horror and just want to start bawling. The whole barbed wire thing will make more sense after seeing a later picture.

Dachau was rebuilt, meaning that most (if not all) of what you see is not the actual buildings that the prisoners were in. They were rebuilt true to form to show people what things were like.

The Christian memorial

The Jewish memorial

Okay, here's the barbed wire picture I was talking about. The fences were surrounded with 4 or so feet of this barbed wire on the ground. I didn't really understand why at first, then I was told if people tried to escape, climbing up the fence and actually making it over, they would fall upon... this. Makes sense now thinking back to the sculpture in the beginning... horrible, right?

Crematorium

This sign made me sick to my stomach. I was thinking of the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas the whole time I was here. If you've seen it, you know why.

The gas chamber. The minute upon stepping foot in there I felt like I was about to have a panic attack. The air, the feel, the lighting, everything... just horrible.

The spout where poison was released.

So pretty... but so haunting.

A bullet hole

The wall right behind the execution site. We weren't completely sure, but we are assuming this is blood.

They had a museum with sculptures, pictures, videos with more information, and other such information.

And so ended a very intense day. I've always been very interested in World War 2 history so this place was really cool to be able to go to. At the same time, seeing things first hand, where you are unable to close your eyes or deny what happened to these people, is hard to take in. Stephanie has been to Auschwitz as well and said that Dachau looks like a resort compared to Auschwitz. Also, Auschwitz did not rebuild or redo anything. I really want to go there now, although I can't even imagine how horrid that place would be.

PARIS! Day 2

Day 2 started out with me climbing out onto the balcony of the room Stephanie and I shared. We figured out how to get our window open, and out I went. I took this picture and enjoyed the view before getting ready for a busy day number two.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this. It's a bidet, which is, in another works, a contraption used as an alternative to toilet paper (don't ask, I really don't understand the whole thing)

The bathroom was tiny and pretty normal apart from the bidet.

The room was very small. Apparently French people consider two twin beds pushed together a full size/queen size bed. It was a cute little room though.

The hallway was fairly normal, yet everything is so different. Hard to explain

The hallway was super narrow.

The elevator was very very scary. It was tiny and made lots of noise and when it opened, we we were facing the wrong direction and it opened to a brick wall. We nearly started flipping out, but once we turned around we found the exit. Here's Katie and myself on our scary ride.

French breakfast! A croissant, how perfect :)

Our agenda for the day was pretty free except for one scheduled tour, the Louvre! We took what was called a muse tour, on which Americans living in Paris give tours to small groups of people. The tour was 2 hours long and included the main attractions. This elaborate arch is the Arc de Carousel. It was located right by the Louvre (you can see part of it to the left of the Arc)

This picture gives you a pretty good view of the massiveness of the Louvre. I was very ignorant before this and I, embarrassingly enough, used to think the Louvre was within that pyramid. The pyramid was the only thing I ever saw in relation to the Louvre, so I guess I'll blame that. Seeing it in person, I realized how absurd of a thought that was.

Inside the Louvre.

Hammurabi's Code.

A sphinx

The ceiling is this particular gallery was so elaborate it blew me away. Everything was so decadent.

And there she is... the Mona Lisa...! Much smaller than you'd think.

I recognized this painting as one in my house, so I had to take a picture.

Here's our tour guide - Christopher. He was a really nice guy. He was so full of knowledge.

Group snapshot

We had lunch at a food court in the Louvre. I borrowed a French fry and had to snap a picture, eating a FRENCH fry, in FRANCE?! I thought it was a pretty smart idea, haha.

Our tour was over, but our tickets still gave us access, so Stephanie's dad took us on a tour of his own. He took us to Napoleon Bonaparte's apartment, which was so elaborate it was mind blowing. There was a table set up in one of the rooms and my friends joked it was my families dining table. I counted the chairs and sure enough, we'd all (kids included) fit!

Napoleon's bed

I'm not sure what this statue is exactly, but I wanted to have a little fun and imitate it.

The whole tour I kept worrying we wouldn't have time to take pictures in front of the pyramid. For some reason I so badly wanted to do that. My wish came true, can you tell I'm happy?!

Back to the beautiful Eiffel tower.

Anyone that likes to take pictures will not be able to quit taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. It never gets old!

All those people on the road were rollerblading, it was crazy! Some kind of competition I would guess.

And so ended our time in Paris. It was such an amazing two days, I will never forget them. Ever since I was a little girl I have fantasized about going to Paris. I loved the character Madeline, who lives in Paris, and since my middle name was Madeline, I thought we were certainly kindred spirits and that Paris was calling my name. It's so crazy to look back and see childhood dreams, and then to be in the present moment where the dreams are being fulfilled. Dreams do come true, it sounds completely cheesy but it's so true.