Yay tax season is over! I can call my mom now! Now I just have to figure out when to call... moving on. Today was.. interesting...
The first place we went to was the Struhof Concentration Camp. I kinda wish we hadn't gone there, because I already felt guilt for all that Jewish people went through; I didn't need to see the oven and the graded floors that allowed all the blood to be drained. Disgusting. It was sad to see such a beautiful view from such a sorrow filled place. We spent a lot of time there, learning about what happened to them and how horrible we were. Oh, and there were graves for the french who had tried to free the Jews from the concentration. That was sad, but it was also comforting that they tried to do something. There was even some Jews in it.
What visit to a concentration camp would be complete without seeing the museum full of scary and sad pictures of their experimentations and death of the Jews. There were also the pictures that were of the camp getting freed. Those were happier.
It was hard to eat luhch after that, but I was rather hungry so I managed. We travelled down the road to the gas chamber, but we [thankfully] didn't stop there. I wouldn't have gotten off the bus if we had, so either way.
Our next stop was the small town of Colmar, where we were given free time to do whatever. They did want us to go check out a certain house though, so we did. Eventually. But before we did, we found an ice cream stand... yum. Then we just lay out in this park and ate it. Then Shannon and I suntanned. Not that she needs it of course. Dork. Lisa wanted to go do something, anything, but we didn't. It was the first time we have stopped I think since we came to Europe and have nothing we needed to get done. It was great, one of those gorgeous summer days. Murray got adventurous and bought frog legs, so Morgan of course tried them. I didn't actually want to... so I didn't. I did, however, get a picture of Morgan eating them. Ew.
Lisa finally convinced us to get up and do something, so we wandered on down to see la maison des tetes. That was exciting. It was.. a house? I don't know the significance behind it, because we were too afraid to go inside. Didn't know if we were allowed or not. So we didn't chance it. After, we just returned to our spot on the grass. Lisa wanted to go shopping, but no one else did, and she couldn't wander off on her own. Soon it was time to go, jump back on the bus, and drive away.
We left, and headed over to a sticks farm [Wolfberger] to drink our sorrows away. First, we went on the tour there, and that was cool. In one room, there were kegs to the roof. So big. They gave us shotglasses, well not really shotglasses because they were somewhat bigger than a shotglass is, but anyway, and then we got white wine. Drank our sorrows away. It was rather disorganised though, there was no whole organisation as there was whenever M. Hebert organises the drinking. He gets all the french people to line up on one side of the table we were drinking from, and all of us on the other side, and takes a picture down the centre. But today it was just a free for all where the french drank right away. So we were like, whatever, and just drank the wine. It was strong. Well for Canadians I'm sure. Or maybe just me. But the coolest part was the fact that we were allowed to keep our double shotglasses! I didn't buy any wine because my family told me they were giving me some wine from the Alsace region. They said it was soft, so I sure hope it is.
After our drinking party, we headed back to Mulhouse. I didn't do much in the evening; just recovered from the lack of sleep the night before because of the discotheque. I emailed my parents instead of calling them, because they wouldn't have been home anyway I'm sure. They had actually sent me an email as well. The keyboard gave me some troubles before, what with their messed up keys. It took me a full minute I'm sure to just find the 'm' key. Complicated stuff. I didn't do anyhing else wild during the evening; watched the Simpsons in french with the family, wrote postcards and in my journal. I actually read a chapter in the book I brought with me. Then I caught up on some sleep.
