We Must Never Forget What Hate Can do..............

Hello,

Today I visited Mauthausen, a concentration camp here in Austria. I won´t go into graphic details. I took lots and lots of pictures, but I won´t post them either.

Mauthausen, the town, is small and beautiful. Everything seems rather old there. The train there was old, and the trainstation was oldschool. After getting to the trainstation, I took a taxi to the camp. After driving through the nice little hills, the camp pops up out of nowhere.

Many buildings aren´t there anymore, but I guess the most important ones are. After the main entrance area, Just a couple of the barracks, the old laundry building and the gas chambers. There was also a new memorial museum with personal belongings and testimonies.

The weather was awful today. There weren´t many people there so sometimes I was all by myself. Being alone in the torture chambers was eerie.

Being there was intense. I went to the gas chambers and the rooms where people were tortured. And the intensity in that room is so thick you could cut it with a knife. I can´t see ghosts or energy, but I sure felt it. Just to stand there and know that people were brutally murdered in the same room was awful. And although 60 years have passed I could still smell the stench of death.

Seeing all that brought to life all the things I read about the holocaust in school. I also walked back to the area outside where people had to carry heavy stones.

I was, and sill am at a loss for words. I couldn´t cry. All I could do was take as much of it in as I could because I never am going back there again.

This is what hate does. Everything in that camp was systematic. This hateful acts were carried out systematically and with accuracy. All this energy of building the camp and conducting experiments was done to kill. It boggles my mind. Records were kept, there were lists of names and people were given numbers. Did you know that around the barracks flowers were planted ?

One thing that was nice was the memorials. There were so many memorials from so many different countries. All these different countries came together to show support and vow that people don´t forget. There were also so many pictures. In the gas chambers, outside, on walls........ People came back after all these years and put up flowers and pictures of loved ones they lost at the camp.

Although there is no more holocaust in Europe, there is still a lot of hate in other countries. Unfortunately history is being repeated. The world definitely needs more tolerance. We don´t even have to like each other. Just accept that we all have our differences and leave the other person alone.

Anyways, tommorow the weather should be sunny, so I am going to do something fun. I may go to the salt mines. Or I may take a train to the Czech Republic. Who knows.

Ciao.

 

Edelweiss, Edelweiss.............

Hello My Lovelies............... ( As Fez would say)

The weather here is so depressing. It´s June and I am cold !!!  It´s also cloudy, rainy, windy......... That´s not right.

I just came from Barcelona last week. I was sweating like a pig there and starting to wear my little tops. And now I am back to sweaters and shivering. The first three days here in Austria were beautiful. Now it´s awful.

Anyways, I spent the weekend in the alps with my grandma.  A couple weeks out of the year she stays in a hut and serves hikers food as a volunteer in the Mountain Club. Bergsportklub, as we would say in German.

I got to go with her this time and I served food and helped with the dishes and talked to our guests. Thank God I didn´t have to help woth the cooking. I am a horrible cook.

 My grandma, or Oma as we say in German, doesn´t speak English. So I got to brush up on my German. She always scolds me if she finds out that I am not practicing mein Deutsch. When I told her that I was in Barcelona and learning Spanish, she scolded me for not learning German. " Nein, Sandra ! Dein Deutsch !!"

I like having a grandma that doesn´t speak English. I think it´s rather cool if you ask me. Even though I am not very fluent in German, I always end up understanding her. All of my mother´s side of the family is here so I like to come and visit whenever I get a chance. 

Anyways I got to eat lots of good Austrian food and good Austrian cake. I also read a lot because it weas rainy and there was nothing else to do. I also played Solitaire for hours with the spare deck of cards. I also taught one of the guys how to play so he wouldn´t be so bored.

When I left to go to the train station my grandma loaded me up on chocolate and candy. She always feeds me. I ate so much chocolate on the train. And it was sooooo fingerlicking good.

And let me tell you about the train. I absolutely love taking the train throughout Europe. I used to take the train in Spain too. Gorgeous view, or sometimes you get to chat with your neighbor.

Today I took a train to Linz. I was going to the art museum, but when I got there it was closed. So I went to the Schloss Museum and decided to learn about post war history of Upper Austria. Very educational. It was all in German, and it was so hard to understand most things. But I managed through some of it.

They also had an exhibit of Austrian life during the postwar years of 1945-1955. There were exhibits of typical furnitures, kitchens, advertisements................. The kitchen they had on display is similar to my grandma´s kitchen.

Anyways, enough for now. I am gonna go and think about where I am gonna go tommorow. I would like to sneak out and go to Italy or Holland while I am still here in Europe, but I know I can´t because I am broke.

Ciao for now.

 

 

I Made it to Editor´s Pick of the Week :)

Hello Everyone,

I just came back from my little trip on the mountains to find out that ´my AOL journal was chosen as the pick of the week.

This happened last year too, but my journal didn´t get picked in the end because I was too busy with school in Spain to send a reply.

I am really happy about this and I am so happy that people are finally leaving me comments. All this time I would receive maybe 1 or 2 comments on a good day.

So I wanted to thank people that have been reading my journals and leaving comments. I will reply to my comments and e-mails as soon as I can.

I will also post more updates about my little trip to the alps. I have to go get ready for another little trip.

Ciao for now :)

Hello,

Not much to write about today. Stayed in all day and did absolutely nothing. I watched TV in German and just read stories online about Barcelona.

I am gonna get out of the house tommorow. I will go to Salzburg to see my grandma and then we will spend the weekend on the alps. I will bring lots of books and my digital camera to keep busy.

Thats all for now.

Journey in Spain is Officially Over

Hello Everyone,

As of this morning I am no longer in Spain. I am now in Austria and will go back to the states in a couple of weeks. I love Austria. It´s beautiful and peaceful. But, it´s not Barcelona.

Yes, my journey in Spain is officially over and to be honest it feels really strange. At both airports in Barcelona and Frankfurt I think I was in the same terminals as when I left for Spain. It brought back so many memories. I also found the huge luggage that I left behind in Austria before coming to Spain. Seeing my old motorola cellphone and the papers and magazines that I left behind made me feel the same way as I did the day I left for Spain.

I kinda relived the same feelings I had the day I was on my way to Spain. I remember feeling so excited and anxious about going to Barcelona. I only had a little idea of what I was gonna do there. I was so excited to get to the airport. I had no idea what to expect, who I was gonna meet, how I would end up, how I would change. And now it´s over. And I have bittersweet feelings.

I have come a long way. As I look back I realize that besides getting my TEFL certificate, nothing happened as planned. Yeah it was rough because it was really my first year away from home without family in a foreign country without knowing anyone but I stuck it out.

I can´t deny that though I did struggle a lot and openly bitched here about it, I also had a lot of fun. Especially the last two months because my roommate invited me to take train rides with her and go out to nice clubs. The weekends were awesome. We were both from the US and left to come and live a different life in a foreign country. I miss her a lot now.

Yeah, I made a lot of mistakes here. So many its not even funny. You wouldn´t believe how dumb I can be sometimes. (Wait, people that know me, can.) I also didn´t see and visit every place that I wanted. I know that I am gonna miss Barcelona so much more when I am back in CA. That city really does hold a special place in my heart. I feel like I am under a love spell.

But although Spain is so beautiful and I enjoyed it a lot when I wasn´t working, it´s time to come home. Although I could live in Spain without any problems forever if I choose, I don´t really feel like I would be going anywhere.

I know that I am gonna look back on these memories that I have and give anything to relive them. Luckily, I am a young, single woman withoutso much as even a plant to look after. At least now I can take comfort in the fact that I can come back and do it all again or experience other countries if I want to. It´s all up to me.

Anyways, gotta go now.