Day 11 & 12: Last Days at the Chateau

Monday, We got an extra 45 minutes to sleep in before meeting the bus out front to take us to the Council of Europe!! Of course the buses were over 30 minutes late again. Dr. Brawter was not happy. We got to the building and had our tour and a man who worked in the council talked to us about it for a while. It was really cool to see the building. Many European Union debates have taken there as well. I didn’t really know as much about the Council of Europe so it was nice to learn a little bit about it. I definitely geeked out a little at the Council of Europe. Taylor and I got I heart COE tshirts and so the picture below is us standing outside with the shirts!

We are having class at 2 today We talked about rescue and liberation and then watched a movie about Austwitz told by a greek boxer who survived the camp. It was really depressing and by the time the film was done my brain and emotions were fried. But then Dr. Brawter and Brantz gave us our exam. It was a difficult essay question so we all were worried. We had dinner at the Chateau and then started studying for the exam. I literally had no motivation to write my study guide. I got as much done as I could and then skyped Ian and went back to work on it after that.

Today we woke up to take the final. The exam went well, I feel like I was a little scatter brained but we'll see. We then had escargot at 11 for lunch. It was really good, extremely garlic-y. Now we are waiting until 12:30 to go into Strasbourg for the last time. I'm going to try to find something for Ian today, which is kind of difficult because he won't give me any hints. Tonight we are having a crash course in German...that should be interesting. And then we have a barbeque cookout with the other schools that are here right now at the Chateau. It's our last night, and I'm sad to leave France but SO excited about Germany and Austria.

Day 10: Day of Depression

Sunday we had to be ready by 8:30am, so getting up was a little difficult. We were all ready waiting outside, but the bus ended up being 30 minutes late, so really we could have slept in. But we headed toward Strutthof Concentration camp about an hour away. The bus ride put me to sleep every single time we were traveling. I kept banging my head on the window. We got to Strutthof and the area was beautiful. We were at about 2500 feet in elevation, a little less than Boone. But it was so pretty with mountains in the distance. It was sad to think about all the horrible things that happened there in such a pretty area of land.

This concentration camp was mainly a work camp. It was occupied by all male prisoners. There were not as many Jews that went to that camp. Most of the prisoners were there because they were political prisoners, homosexuals, jehovah’s witnesses, common criminals, etc. They all wore triangles that were colored according to the reason they were there. If there was a bar above the triangle then they were repeat offenders. Jews did wear yellow stars. The concentration camp mainly worked people in the quarry. They did have a gas chamber off site and a crematorium. They had doctors who performed medical experiments on the prisoners as well.

The museum was layed out well, in one of the former housing for prisoners. We got to see the crematorium, which was hard to view. All of us were depressed when we were leaving.

Thankfully, we headed to a neighboring town Obernai to get lunch. We ate Turk Doner Kababs. It was really good, a lot like a Yiro but on more bread. We had to scarf the food down to get back on the bus in a hurry and then head to our wine tasting. The winery showed us their cellar, which was awesome. They were absolutely huge and held thousands of litters of wine. They also showed us a small museum of tools they used to use to bottle the wine and cut out corks. Then we got to have our tasting. We got to try 5 white wines: two Rieslings, 1 Pinot Gris, 1 Muscat, and 1 Guw (i dont know how to spell it)… They were all really good, but I definitely like the dryer wines. I got two bottles and two glasses to take home. The wine tasting definitely improved everyone’s moods.

We headed back to the Chateau after that and by the time we were back we only had an hour until dinner. None of us were really that hungry but we still tried to eat the food they had for us so we wouldn’t be hungry later. Taylor and I went on a walk around the grounds for a while after dinner to wind down. I got to skype with Ian finallllyyyyy! It was a really good day.

Day 9: Back in High School

Saturday we got ONE WHOLE extra hour to sleep in. Class started at 10am instead of 9am. We had class literally all day. We had four or five lectures. They gave us breaks for 10 minutes every hour to hour ½ or so. The lectures were interesting, it was just a long day. We got to watch Conspiracy, a movie about the Wansee Conference that Hitler had his major SS generals and leaders of other groups get together and decide on the Final Solution of the Jews. It was basically already decided by Hitler what would happen. The construction of the gas chambers and crematories was discussed. It would be a complete destruction of the Jewish population if the plan ran accordingly. The movie had British actors in it such as Colin Firth. It was a great movie, we all got really into it.

We were literally in class from 10 until 5. We finally got a break for a few hours until we had dinner at 7pm at the restaurant outside the Chateau. Saturday was kind of a boring day, but definitely a day we needed to recover from Paris. We just hung out after dinner. There was a wedding reception that night at the Chateau. The music for the reception was playing until 3 in the morning. I watched Grey’s anatomy from last Thursday to try to get tired, but the music kept me up late.

Day 8: Ready to go back to our second home

Friday morning a small group of us got up early to go with Dr. Brawter to mass at Notre Dame. We left extra early to go drop our luggage off at the train station and then to the cathedral. We were a little late getting there, but then realized there was not a mass. Later we discovered there had been a private mass at the very front, but we could barely see it. So Taylor, Ben and I walked around the area. I really wanted to find the boutique my dad and I had been to before and Sergent Recruiters restaurant. Somehow we did manage to find them!! The boutique didn't open until 10am though, and it was 9:30. So we had to go back. We met up with the rest of the group outside of Notre Dame and walked through the church. When wehad gotten there earlier in the morning there were barely any people there, but an hour later the line was huge! After that Taylor and I went back to the boutique and bought some scarves.We were really excited because we had been looking for cute things like that the whole time. We walked back and hung out in the garden behind Notre Dame and people watched for a while. Before meeting up with the group we got a nutella Crepe! So good! We were going to go to Sainte Chappelle, an all stain glass cathedral, but the line was huge so we ended up just going and finding lunch. We ate with Dr. Brawder and Brantz at a Greek restaurant they had been going to for years. It was SO good! A nice change from the normal food we had been eating.

We got to walk around a while so we went to a starbucks for coffee since most of us were ready to go to sleep. I heard the civil wars in the starbucks which made my day. The whole group then headed over to the Jewish museum. It was a cool museum but we were all soooo exhausted from walking. We then went to the new Holocaust Memorial. They had a museum as well, but it was so amazing! They had all the names on the victims on walls. It was really powerful to see. It was one of the best museums I've seen. Definitely worth going to.

After that we headed to the train station and got free time for dinner and to hang out until the departure. I was so excited to sleep on the train, but then once we were on it I couldn't sleep at all. We finally got back to the Chateau and they had prepared a cold plate late snack for us. There were lots of light meats and cheese. It was perfect to end the night.

Day 7: "We're going to the Louv-ray!"

Thursday morning in Paris was painful. I was SO sore. My feet still hurt and my legs were aching. We got up early and got ready for the day. Had another good Holiday Inn breakfast then headed out for a full day of museums! We first caught the Metro to the Louvre (or as we liked to joke, as Americans we call it the Louv-ray). I was so excited about the Louvre, I've never been before and I had always heard it was amazing. We got into the museum and immediatly headed to the Mona Lisa. Of course we got cut off by running Japanese tourists hurrying to the front of the swarm in front of the Mona Lisa. I got a few good pictures of the painting. Taylor, Kristin and I got one with it behind us. I saw a lot of paintings I recognized from Art History last fall which was cool. The Louvre was so big it was exhausting. You could literally spend 3 days in there and still probably not see everything. We ate lunch there and then I decided I would go to the D'orsay instead of the Military Museum. I really wanted to see some Van Goghs. So A few of us went with Dr. Brantz to the museum. There was a Manet exhibit we got to go in that was awesome! I saw the Van Gogh's, Monets', etc. I love them. The D'orsay is definitely my favorite art museum in the world (other than maybe the National Gallery in London).

After the museum we went to meet up with the rest of the group at Napoleon's tomb. It was a nice memorial for him, but by that point we were all so tired we just wanted to sit down. BUT, Dr. Brantz and Brawder took us to the Rodin gardens here we saw THE THINKER statue!! I was so excited because of the SNL skit Will Ferrell did on the Thinker and the Stinker haha. We got pictures in front of it and then walked around the gardens.

After that we headed to the Champs Elysees where all the shopping is in Paris. We wanted to sit down so bad so we found a place to eat and sit for a while. It wasn't a very good restaurant and the prices were jacked up but we definitely needed to sit time. After that Taylor, Ben, Katie, Derek and I walked around. We didn't really find anything in the shops and circled on the other side of the street. We were going to go into the Nike store but noticed a huge crowd outside of it. People had cameras out and the were security at the door. We finally asked someone and found out Rafael Nadal was inside!! When he came out we all moved toward him and I managed to get a pretty good picture. It was so cool though to see a celebrity like that.

We all decided to head to the hotel and drop off stuff the go to the Supermarche and pick up some wine/beer and head to the Eiffel Tower for sunset. So we got to the Supermarche and got our wine/beer and were in line. There was a homeless lady in front of Derek that was talking about us "americans" and laughing. It was bizarre. Then we saw one of our trip mates on a balcony just chilling. Then on the Metro there was a man doing a puppet show. It basically just got weirder and weirder. But we got to the tower and started taking pictures. It suddenly started sparkling! We were so excited. We found a nice place in the grass and just hung out for a long time, talking about stuff and watching people. It was a great night. We eventually went back to the hotel and hung out a little longer but finally went to bed. It was a great ending to a long, tiring day.

Day Six: First Day in Paris

The first day in Paris was extremely long. The group literally got drug into the ground by two seventy year old men.We saw so many beautiful sites, but by the end of the night we were all so tired and sore.

We were all supposed to meet to leave the hotel by 9am, so Taylor and I got up early and showered and went down for breakfast. The Holiday Inn Express had an awesome breakfast. We finally got some yogurt and real fruit, and bread of course. We headed out at 9 sharp to get on the Metro and the RER (another train that is more regional in their destinations) and head to the Palace of Versailles. On the ride some accordian players came on...it was perfect, it was like the soundtrack to France. It was gorgeous. All the Gold around the palace and the gates. It was what I always thought it would be. The huge statue of Louis XIV was out front. I could imagine other kings and nobles coming to the palace and being so intimated by the Sun King. We went inside and got our audio tour guides and then walked from room to room. It went on for ever. Every room was more elaborately decorated than the last. It was kind of a tight squeeze in some rooms as more and more people were touring. The gardens outside were beautiful. Dr. Brantz said it was one of the prettiest days they had ever had for Versailles. My favorite part was the Hall of Mirrors. It was so cool to be standing in that room where so many important treaties were signed.

After Versailles, we went to go find lunch. A group of us ate with Dr. Brawder and Brantz at a pizza place. We all got our own pizzas we were so hungry. Then we headed back on the RER and Metro to the Eiffel Tower!

I was really excited to see the Eiffel Tower again. Some people wanted to go up to the top of it. I have never been after 2 times of seeing it, so I decided to pay the fee and go to the top. The line wasn't too long and it really wasn't that expensive. We got in the elevator and it started going up to the 2nd floor. I got a little nervous! Its a loooong way down and looks so much higher up there. We had to change elevators to go all the way to the top at the 2nd floor. The view was already gorgeous. Once we got to the top we slowly made our way around to take pictures. It was really crowded, but the view was spectacular. I could see Notre Dame, Sacre-Coeur, the Louvre, etc. It was awesome. We walked back down and by the time I was at the bottom my legs were shaking. I realized I hadn't drank any water that day so I was probably dehydrated. Not smart, but everyone was exhausted by that point. BUT our day was not over.

Next we were heading to the Arc d'triomphe (thats in the picture I took from the Eiffel Tower above). There was a military ceremony going on. They actually stopped traffic at like 5:30pm and had all these older military people walk across the round about. It was cool, we were just all tired from standing. After that we headed to Montmartre to see Saucre-Coure and eat dinner. The church looked beautiful, we got to walk through it. Then we went to eat. We were allowed the night free so we ate separately and got ourselves home on the Metro. The metro system really isn't difficult so it was a piece of cake.

For dinner we sat in the square. Taylor and I had a duck, and everyone else had steak and fries. It was really good duck. Then we walked around the touristy shops and found some stuff for friends and family. We got some gelato at the same place mom and I got some last year and then went and sat on the steps in front of the church. There was a fire guy putting on a show in front of us.

It was so nice to just hang out with a few people instead of the whole big group.. traveling on the metro with 17 people is extremely stressful.We all headed back to the hotel and hung out watching Rugby in French. Finally we headed to bed.

Day Five: Midterm then Rewards of €50 and a train ride to PARIS

Today I woke up with a little reluctance around 7:30, but forced myself up and to shower. Thankfully this morning we had hot showers! We then went to breakfast and headed to class at 9am. We talked about the Siege of Poland and Jewish Ghettos today. It was very interesting to hear how the Germans took over Poland so fast. Then started setting up ghettos for the Jews. They appointed certain Jews to be leaders of the ghettos or Juden a Heste as they are called in German. These leaders were in charge of clothing, providing food, heat, water, etc to the Jewish population of the ghetto. Unfortunately, the Germans did not give them many supplies to do this adequately. These leaders also had to decide who and how many were to board the trains to the death camps. Some leaders sent 500 or more children at one time, to save their own skin. Others could not carry out such a crime and committed suicide. It was sad seeing the pictures and hearing of the horrors they had to all go through.

After class we had our midterm. It was not bad, I just used my outline. I didn't take as long as I thought I would, but I was ready to be done with it. Hopefully I did well. Dr. Brantz gave us €50 that they had extra in the budget for spending money in Paris.

After the midterm I tried to pack my things. It has been extremely difficult to pack for Paris. We are just using our book bags and I have a bigger purse. We'll see if I can fit everything in there. So we are just hanging out for now. We leave at 3pm for Strasbourg to take the train to Paris. Tonight we are just checking into our hotel and then having dinner. I'm excited to get to Paris. It's a beautiful city and I want to grow to like it more.

More to come tonight or tomorrow. I'm still deciding on whether or not to take my computer.

Au revoir!

Day 4: Finding our Home in the Chateau

We have all finally found our way successfully around the Chateau by day four. There are lots a twists and turns and weird flights of stairs, but I finally have it down. A few of the other girls and I need to do laundry tonight before we leave for Paris tomorrow! We have a midterm tomorrow morning so tonight we are all figuring out an outline for the essay and IDs. We don't think they will grade too hard, but are a little worried. Dr. Brawter wants a lot of information and for us to make sure to put every detail in: Who, what, when, where, why, how, and a Thesis Statement (even for the Ids). I'm not used to having a thesis statement for an Identification, but we'll see how it goes.

This morning we all got up and had our usual breakfast. Then we had a crash course on French for 2 hours, some of which was a little painful at times. We went through tons a phrases that are important in any language: how to present yourself, thank you, etc. French is a beautiful language, but its difficult to say some of the words. There were sentences I had no idea where to begin on the pronunciation. The teacher did not speak in english AT ALL. The only time was the first sentence and the last sentence. The rest was in french. We had to you context clues and two students knew a little french to help the rest of us out. It was fun, I'm excited to learn more french next year at App.

After class we took a brief break and then had another lesson on Germany. Later on we had a guest speaker come talk to us. He is a member of the FDP in the Bundastag (German Parliament). He told us about his work in foreign affairs and it was so interesting! I asked him what he thought about Turkey entering the EU, which he didn't think would happen in the upcoming years but he hoped would eventually happen. He was extremely insightful. After I asked him if he ever had interns work for him from America. He said it would be more beneficial for me to know German....SO I need to get Rosetta Stone for german! haha. I really do want to learn French and German and be able to work with both countries some day so it would be good to learn both. He gave me his card so maybe one day when I know German I'll contact him. He also told me to look into the US embassies for internships in the two countries, so I'll definitely do that.

We went to the supermarche (french for supermarket) for cokes, snacks, and wine of course. We had some time to hang out and then had dinner downstairs in our breakfast area. It was a great dinner: chicken, rice, beef soup (that we realized after you were supposed to put the rice on), salad, and a north german red berry pudding with whipped cream. Dr. Brantz and Dr. Brawter are starting to loosen up now, they had a few bottles of wine out as we started studying for the midterm. We all had our own wine/beer, which helped until the last bit of the evening when we couldn't concentrate any more. I feel good about the midterm, a lot of it is common sense and just pulling what we have learned the past couple days. It was a fun night. The whole group has really bonded since Day 1.

Tomorrow we go to Paris! I'm really excited, even though I've been before, but I can't wait to see the sights again.

Day 3: Class at the Chataeu

Sunday was definitely a lazy day full of class. We were able to sleep in an extra hour and a half, but had to get up to eat breakfast and make sandwiches to have later on for lunch. At 11 am we had class that lasted quite a while. We went over Jews in Eastern and Western Europe, lots of information on Germany and the Weinar Republic, and then Hitler himself. Hitler was interesting to learn about. He was never at the top of his class in grade school in Austria, in fact he was at the bottom of the class. He wanted to be an artist, something I had never known about Hitler. His watercolors were actually very good, but interestingly he did not know how to draw the human form well. He rarely put humans in his paintings. He talked of how Hitler made his political strides to power and about the Nationalist Social Party (Nazis). It was a lot of information over the course of a few hours, but very interesting.

We went to dinner at the little restaurant outside of the Chateau. This time we had salad and quish, then a meat (not sure what it was) and vegetables, and then an amazing cherry cobbler/pie. We ordered wine with our dinner and had a hard time figuring out which wine to order and how to speak to the waitress. Thankfully things worked out in the end.

After dinner we went back to the classroom to watch "Triumph of the Will", a Nazi propaganda film that Hitler commissioned in 1934. I was a little tired after dinner and fell asleep for a bit, but it was extremely repetitive. It was about Hitler arriving to Nuremberg. It showed all the excited women and young Aryan children fawning over Hitler's arrival. There were rallies where he made speeches talking about God, victory, the enemy, the rebirth of Germany, etc. He was a very generalizing speaker, never speaking of one specific thing, but hinting at a broad range of ideas. The film was interesting, but longgg. After that we all hung out for a while and went to bed, ready to get up Monday for our crash course in French at 9am!

Day 2: Beautiful Strasbourg

Day 2: Beautiful Strasbourg

On Friday I woke up and was still pretty exhausted. We were all worried about alarm clocks working to wake us up in the morning. The program gave us little orange alarm clock bendy men that we couldn’t figure out how to work. I was relying on my roommate to wake me up but it all worked out thankfully. Breakfast was great. We had French bagets, fruit cocktail, cereal, really good orange juice, and I had tea! We all made extra sandwiches out of the meats and bread to eat later on in the morning.

After breakfast we went to our classroom outside of the Chataeu. There had been a small incident the night before with one of our trip mates. Due to a bad mixing of alcohol and medication, he had a manic episode and destroyed an office and made lots of noise, so much that the French police was called. Thankfully things are worked out now, but he is having to go home. So Dr. Brantz was dealing with that all morning and Dr. Brawter taught instead. We went over basically the history of the Jews from 1500 BC to present day. It went by fast and was a lot of reviewing from my past religion and history classes.

Then we headed into the city of Strasbourg for lunch and touring! It is beautiful! It looks like the beauty and the beast village, but bigger. In the center of the city is a huge cathedral. It looks exactly like Notre Dame with the gothic style, but it has one tower on the left side. They couldn’t build another tower because the foundation won’t support it. For lunch we went to a little sandwich place. Ben and I split a Bratworst with sour craut. It was surprisingly really good. We had some free time to walk around so naturally we got a beer, before our tour of the cathedral. Inside the Cathedral was beautiful. Stain glass windows and an amazing clock that we got to watch turn to 2:30. After that we toured the city a little and then took a boat cruise on the canal. We had the option of our choice of language to listen to the tour and I decided to change mine to British English, which was more Pirate English. It was extremely amusing but then we realized it wasn’t really telling us anything important. I changed it back to the regular English and within 2 minutes I was asleep. So basically I slept for the whole tour. After that we had some more free time (another beer) and then went to dinner. For dinner we had a weird salad and then a pizza thing. It had cream cheese and thin bread and mushrooms, onions, and bacon. Desert was like an icecream cake gelato thing. We were satisfied.

After dinner we met Daniel for the bus and went back to the Chateau. Most of us stayed in and tried to go to sleep early. I got to talk to Ian for a while J and then went to bed.

Day 1: Traveling to Europe

Traveling went very smoothly on Thursday. We all met at 2:30 at Charlotte Douglass Airport. Dr. Brantz gave a rundown for the parents and we took pictures. All of us were cracking up, it was still a little awkward, but the parents wanted pictures. We went through security and down to the gate to meet the two Austin Peay students and Dr. Brawter. I realized at the gate that I had left my ipod in my car. Thankful Dad was at the airport so he went out to my car to get it and then came to the gate to say bye to me and meet the professors. He also introduced me to the flight attendants and crew. I was so glad he did that because they really took care of us on the flight. Cale, a guy on the trip, also knew one of the flight attendants and she gave us beer and wine.

I watched the Kings Speech and Due Date and tried desperately to sleep. I didn’t sleep at all. We got through passport control with no problem and then on to the bus. The drive from Frankfurt into Strasbourg was beautiful. It reminded us of North Carolina, with lots of farmland and mountains in the distance. Dr. Brantz told us not to sleep and try to stay awake for the whole day. The problem was we arrived to Germany at 7 am, but 1am our time at home. So we were up all day for a total of 36 hours.

We got to the Chateau and it was absolutely beautiful. (pics will be up later!)To try to keep us awake we took a long walk, but we were all so exhausted. We went to dinner at a little restraunt outside of the Chateau that night. They brought us salad and this cheese bread thing. I thought that was the only thing we were eating and maybe desert, but then they brought chicken and French fries, then apple pie. I was SO full by the end of the dinner, but definitely needed to eat. That night we all tried to go to bed early since we had breakfast early in the morning and class at 9am.