"Long Trip"---Days 6-10

           We were all able to visit the temple while we were in Freiberg, Germany. It was a great experience. I was able to play the piano in the chapel next door for a bit. They had a grand piano so I was excited to play.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Temple in Freiberg, Germany

The group

         We drove to Berlin and on the way had to take a mandatory half hour stop for our bus driver. During our half hour we were able to get out of the bus and play Ultimate Frisbee! It was so fun! The team I was on dominated the other team. It felt so good to be up and running around. Once we arrived in Berlin we went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. We learned about different ways people escaped across the Berlin Wall. Some people are so creative! We also got to see a place where a Gestapo office was located. It was mostly destroyed, but the foundations and part of the basement are still there and were made in to a museum. It talks all about the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich. It was super interesting. We then climbed on the bus again and were brought to our hotel. I was overjoyed when I realized that our hotel was within eyeshot of where I stayed in Berlin in July! I was back in my part of town!

At Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin!

In front of the Berlin Wall near an old Gestapo office. 

           

Cool looking clouds!

          We visited several important places in church history in Berlin. We visited a spot in the Tiergarten where the mission office was located. It was destroyed during an air raid in World War II. The whole street was destroyed so it is now covered in trees. We also went to Plötzensee Prison where Helmuth Hübener was murdered by the Nazis in 1942. It was quite the sobering experience. He was only 17 when he was killed.

The room Helmuth Hübener was executed in.
 From the time he entered the room until the time he was killed was 18 seconds.

            Later I walked from the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) to our hotel on Karl-Liebknecht Straße. It was relaxing to walk alone passed buildings I knew well. I made a detour on the way and visited the Alte Nationalgalerie so I could see my favorite paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and other artists. I bought a decorative plate of Berlin. I’m excited to have it because this city has become important to me. I also ended up buying a hat and a bag while in Berlin.

Brandenburger Tor!

            As a group we visited the Reichstag and got to climb to the top of the Siegessäule. It was cool to see in all directions from the top of the tower. It was very windy and cold, but worth the long climb to the top. We then walked to where Hitler’s bunker once was. It no longer exists, but it is where Hitler died. We walked around the monument to the murdered Jews of Europe. I don’t understand the symbolism of the blocks. One girl in my group commented that it was hard for her not to want to play hide and go seek in the memorial because it was so abstract.

Reichstag

Siegessäule

The view from the Siegessäule...(Reichstag, Fernsehturm, Berliner Dom, Branderburger Tor, Rotes Rathaus etc.)

             After dinner I led everyone to Hackescher Markt. We met up with Bishop Bartsch and his wife. They showed us around the Hackesche Höfe. It is interesting that the Höfe exist and you wouldn’t even know it unless you were super curious or were ‘in the know’.
            We went to the Gesundbrunen U-Bahn station and climbed a nearby flak tower. We then took a tour of a bunker under the U-Bahn station. We got to see a bunch of rooms and some artifacts they had found. It was interesting to see a type of paint that glowed after it was exposed to light. It was only used in some rooms so it the lights went out the others would be completely in the dark. We also got to see an old enigma which was used during the war to encode messages.

WWII era Enigma

Other artifacts...

            I showed a few people around the University and St. Hedwigs. We also went to Marienkirche so they could see the “totentanz”. We then bought Döners from the store near Hackescher Markt I went to a lot when I lived in Berlin. The Döner tasted amazing! Döners in Berlin are way better than the ones they sell in Vienna.
            We stayed the night in a town called Forst near the Polish border. Ten of us stayed at a place called Gasthaus zum Grünen Baum. We had Schnitzel and French fries for dinner.
            The next day we focused on church history. We visited an old pedestrian bridge in Forst which was destroyed during WWII so it wouldn’t be used by the invading Russians. We got to go to Poland for a few minutes. We then drove to Brno, Czech Republic. On the way we watched “Five Pennies” and “Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince”. “Five Pennies” is a movie from 1959 starring Danny Kaye.

The whole group and our bus driver! 

            We went to church in Brno so we had the missionaries translate for us again. We were a little better at singing the hymns in Czech the second time around because we practiced last week. After church we drove to Burgenland where our bus driver lives. As we were driving we could see Bratislava from a distance. We stopped so we could walk across the border between Austria and Slovakia. He must have liked us a lot because he bought us all a Schnitzel dinner. He said that in his thirty years as a bus driver he had never done that before. After dinner he drove us home to Vienna. He was so nice. We were all glad he was our driver for both of our trips.

The "Long Trip"--- Days 1-5

          Our whole group went on a ten day trip around Europe. We had Willie as our bus driver again. He was our bus driver on our short trip. On our first day we left Vienna, Austria and drove to Český Krumlov, Czech Republic. I spent most of the day with Shelly, Becca, and Kendal. We climbed a tower by a castle, ate cinnamon bread, looked through books at a few small bookstores, went to a wax museum, and explored a mirror maze.
         At first we didn’t want to go to the wax museum, but we found out that it was cheaper if you bought a combined ticket for the wax museum and the mirror maze so we agreed to go to the wax museum for Shelly. The wax museum was more interesting than I thought it would be. We saw lots of famous people including Charlie Chaplin, Michael Jackson, Franz Josef I, Maria Theresia, Sisi, and Harry Potter. We then wandered over to the mirror maze. They made us put on plastic gloves so we wouldn’t smudge the mirrors. We entered the maze a few seconds apart. It was super fun because you could see people as you were walking, but you didn’t know where they were. We took lots of pictures because it was funny to see more than one of you in the same picture.

inside the mirror maze

        When we went to find a restaurant for dinner we went to several places before we found one that would take us. The first restaurant we went in to looked nice and was empty so we were excited to have the place to ourselves. When we asked the people for food they asked us if we had a reservation. We told them we didn’t and they told us that they were booked. We were a bit confused how they could be booked when no one was there, but we left without much of a fuss. We eventually found a cozy place and had a bread bowl with goulash soup. It was not the goulash I was familiar with. I was afraid to ask what was in it, so I ate most of the bread and left the soup…good thing I wasn’t super hungry!

The disappointing bread bowl!

         We went back to the hotel and got ready for bed. We were about to watch Harry Potter 7 part 2 when some people from our group invited us to go bowling. Becca and I agreed so we all walked over to the bowling alley together. It was bowling, but it wasn’t like in America. The shoes were too big and had rips in them and it was hard to find a ball that was the right weight, but that added to the experience. It made it exciting and different. I ended up getting my normal average score of 110. It was great being able to cheer everyone on as they were bowling. We took up three lanes so I was cheering constantly when I wasn’t bowling. I just love bowling!

Late night bowling!!!

The next day we drove to a little town in the Czech Republic where our bus driver’s ancestors were from. We had been working on his family history for him ever since we got back from our short trip so it had only been a few weeks when we went. It was a surprise for him because he didn’t know where his family was from. We saw the church and cemetery in the little town and gave him a copy of the pedigree chart we had been working on for him. He seemed to really like it. Stephen got to play the organ in the church and we sang along. It was great that we could show Willi his hometown because it was on the way to our next destination... Prague.

On the way to Prague I read more of my copy of “Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen”. It is so fun! I love seeing words I just learned. It makes me feel as though I really know German. In Prague we stayed at the “A Plus Hostel/Hotel”. It was close to downtown, but it was not “A Plus”. We split up in the afternoon so I went with Annisija, Kendal, Becca and Lyndsi across the Charles Bridge to find the castle. The Charles Bridge was crowded so it was hard to keep track of each other. At one point we had to hold on to each other so we wouldn’t be separated on the bridge. Even though Prague Castle is the longest castle in the world we had trouble finding it because we didn’t know the word for castle in Czech. We found a monastery and some other cool buildings and even bought a few things at a market. I got a decorative plate of Prague to add to my collection.

Thank you Maddie!

The next day was Sunday, so we found the local chapel and went to all three hours of church. It was in Czech so we had to have the missionaries translate for us. It was an adventure trying to sing the songs in Czech. I’m sure we got the sounds all wrongs, but it was fun to try anyway. I learned that the word “Rodina” means family in Czech. We went back to the hostel after church to change our clothes then went to on a tour of the Jewish Quarter. We saw a really old cemetery with hundreds of headstones. It looked so chaotic because they were not in any kind of order and many were falling over. We also saw a few synagogues.

Monday morning we cleared out of the hostel and walked around inside Prague Castle. We went inside St. Vitus’s Cathedral, walked around the Old Royal Palace; saw the Basilica of St. George, and walked down Golden Lane. The Cathedral was my favorite.

Thanks again Maddie!

We took the bus to Dresden, Germany several hours away. I passed the time by sleeping and reading Harry Potter. Our first stop, after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, was the Frauenkirche. We climbed to the top and were able to see the entire city and the surrounding area. I have already been to the Frauenkirche, but it was nice to go up on top, because I didn’t do that last time. We then walked by the Zwinger and listened to the bells chime.

Day five of our trip started with a great breakfast at our hotel. Becca, Torrey, and I then went to the Frauenkirche and listened to a devotional type thing. I had a hard time paying attention to the speaker because I wasn’t sure exactly what the topic was because it was in German, but it was exciting to hear the organ. After the service I walked around the mall with Annisija. We had a great time walking around making fun of the odd clothing styles in various stores. Later that day we headed for Freiberg, Germany.

Normal life in Vienna

            Becca and I have been doing more research in church offices around Vienna. One day we decided that we didn’t want to do our homework in our apartment so we went in search of a more exciting place. We ended up in a library in the Rathaus (city hall)! We now have a library card so we can use the library in the Rathaus anytime we want!

            I have now seen the inside of the opera house! I went to “La Traviata” and “Die Zauberflöte”. I liked “Die Zauberflöte” better because I knew the story and was more familiar with the songs, but “La Traviata” was also good. I had standing tickets for both of them so the tickets were only 3 Euros. To get standing room you have to go early and wait in line then they let you in so you can claim a spot by tying a scarf to the spot of your choice on a railing. Now we joke that people wear scarves so they can mark their spot at the opera.

            We visited an old flak (FLiegerAbwehrKanone)tower in Vienna from World War II. The lower part of the building is now used as an aquarium. It was interesting learning about what happened there while looking over the city. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to see planes coming towards your city. I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about that!

on a flak tower in Vienna

Hallstatt: the cold, the rain, and the salt

     Day 1-Our journey began with a train ride (I slept becuase we had to get up at 6:00 a.m. so we had time to get ready and on the train before it left at 7:40). We had to 'umsteig' only once before we got to a lake. We had to take a boat across the lake to Hallstatt because it is built right on the side of the mountain. Because of this, many houses in the city use the mountain as the back wall of their house. I was not prepared for how wet our trip would be so it was miserable at first. My coat was soaked after the first few minutes in the rain and I forgot my umbrella in Vienna, so it was of no good to me. I was glad I wore a sweatshirt under my coat or I would have frozen to death.

     After we arrived, Maddie, Becca, Mary, Professor Minert, and I went and looked at the old church records at the local catholic church. We got to see an entry for a man who was found by miners who had died many years earlier when he got crushed by salt. The body was preserved for a long time because of the salt. We then got to see the cemetery and a room full of skulls and femurs. The skulls had the name of the person and when they died written on them. Some were also decorated in painted flowers. They were there because they had needed more room in the cemetery so they dug up the remains of the people and put them in the room so new poeple could be buried. I didn't feel comfortable in that room so I was glad when we got to look at the inside of the church.

taken by Kendal Babbitt

taken by Kendal Babbitt

        Mary and I then set out on our quest to find our bed and breakfast. We had no map so we were hopelessly lost and soaked. I gave up after an hour of looking and walked back to the center of town and met up with Maddie and Amanda. We went in search of lunch where I ordered an Apfel strudel. It was nice to be inside and eating something warm.

     We then met up with more people from our group and walked around the church again with people who hadn't seen it yet. We then found a pizza place for dinner. It was great to get out of the rain! We had to go back to our B&B early because all the restaurants were closed by 7:30. We had walked all the way across Hallstatt in one day. I had had a nice first day, but was still upset that it had rained the whole first day.

     Day 2- We got up and had a nice breakfast of hot chocolate and semmeln with meat and cheese. Our hostess was very nice. I was able to speak with her for a few minutes in German. I found out that she is actually from a town near Nürnberg, Germany and that she moved to Hallstatt with her husband because he was from there. I felt so great knowing that I could have a conversation with a legit German lady!

     Mary and I were on our way wandering around town when it started raining again. We didn't have a lot to do so when we stumbled upon an outdoor chess set, we felt compelled to play. We played for almost a half an hour in the rain when I finally won the game. It was odd because lots of asian tourist kept taking our picture while we were playing chess.

     We were again soaked so we went in the Protestant church so we could get out of the rain. It didn't help much as far as warming up, but at least we weren't getting wetter! (Wetter! :D)

      We then met up with others from our group and went to the salt mine. We had to put on oversized shirts and pants so our normal clothes wouldn't get dirty in the mine. We got to slide down two huge wooden slides in the mine. Ali and I went down together on the second slide together and went about 25 km/hr! It was so fun. We also saw some salt exhibits and a few short films about the history of the mine.

       By the time we got out of the mine the sun had come out and it had stopped raining. We saw a rainbow and got super excited. We were so glad it had stopped raining! We walked back to the center of town to catch our boat when we saw a funeral procession. We had to get off the street so they could pass by. They had a little band playing. Soon after they arrived at the church down the street it started to rain again.

   

 We took the boat back across the lake to our train and rode home. It was great not having to be outside anymore. It was an excellent experience even if it was rainy most of the time.

Bike Trip

     I really enjoyed our bike trip from Melk to Krems and our tour of the Monastery in Melk. The monks have a huge library which takes up several rooms! Today parts of the Monastery are used as a school while other parts still house monks.
    

Monastery in Melk

library

     Our bike trip took several hours because we went about 30km. It was a beautiful sunny day for us, but it wasn’t super hot. We had to follow little signs that pointed us in the right direction. Sometimes we didn’t see the sign, or had to go back to catch some of our friends who had missed the sign so they wouldn’t get lost. For the most part it wasn’t too hard to figure out where to go because we followed the Danube. Sometimes were biking in the country in little forests, in orchards, or near a cornfield, but at other times we got to bike around in little cities.

Cornfield

Castle ruins on a hill

Lindsay, Amanda, and I taking a short break

On the trail

     Most of us ran out of water early on, but were able to fill up when we found a hose connected to a spigot randomly on a street corner. We also found a little fruit stand with a sign advertizing pears as being 20 cents each. Food sounded great, so we put our money in a little glass jar next to the box of pears and took the appropriate number. We ate some of the pears before continuing on our journey and found that they were still hard, but we didn’t mind because we were so hungry. We saw lots of castle ruins on the hills along the trail. By the time we made it to the train station in Krems we were sore and sweaty, but had had a great time.

The "Short Trip"

            Our short trip was a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions. The beginning was depressing with our excursion to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. While many of the other people I was with broke down in tears at some point, I tried to block it out and therefore didn’t cry. I am glad I didn’t visit the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen while I had the chance. I don’t think I would have done well going to two camps. I will not show many pictures or explain what it was like to go there at this time.  If anyone really want to know what it was like they can ask me about it later.

Gate to Mauthausen

            I’m glad we had a few hours between seeing the camp and our next stop so we could pull ourselves together a bit. I enjoyed going to Mondsee to see the Cathedral where Maria (in the Sound of Music) gets married. I still wasn’t completely recovered from the prior experience from that morning, but the sun and the church helped me to feel more hopeful about the world.

Elysse and I by a cute gate in Mondsee

            I bought my first European scarf while we were in Salzburg! I had debated with myself for several weeks as to whether or not I really wanted one. Some of the other girls bought dirndls. They look so nice in them, but I couldn’t find one I liked enough to buy. I loved climbing up to Hohensalzburg (a really old castle) and reading the Fraktur from the 1500s on the walls. It made the castle so much more interesting and real!

Me wearing my new scarf!! Hohensalzburg is the castle up on the hill in the back.

Me at the castle...

Me in front of the house used as the von Trapp family home in "the Sound of Music"!!

We are at Chiemsee about to take a boat to see Herrenchiemsee!!

Woods near Herrenchiemsee.. we had to walk about 15 minutes from the dock to the palace.

       We got a tour of Herrenchiemsee by our professor because he worked there when he was younger. We were so surprized when he told us!

       I liked being able to see new things when we went to Munich. I had already visited the city once, but it was only for a short time so I didn’t get to see much of it. I liked learning about the Hitlerputsch and being able to climb the church tower, even if it was a bit scary.

Frauenkirche

Me on top of St. Peter's Church with the 'Rathaus' to the left.

            Visiting the Eagle’s Nest was an amazing experience, because I had no idea what to expect. As we drove up the mountain I felt as though I had never seen anything so beautiful. It was the most perfect weather. It was sunny and warm and we were able to see for miles in every direction. It was cool to see Salzburg from the top of the mountain after we visited it. I don’t think any other mountains will ever be able to match the grandeur of the Alps we saw.

I took this picture while we were driving around Austria. I thought it was cool.

Nature vs. Man