My latest visitors

Even though they've only been here a few days now, I can tell that this is going to be a great visit with my mom and sister. Yesterday we wandered around Bamberg. For those of you that haven't been here, it means that I took them on a "meandering tour" of the city center and the old parts of town and up to the cathedral and around the river. In my mom's words, it meant that we walked and walked and walked at a pace that was much more than a meander! But we saw a whole bunch of great things and enjoyed the sun. We were having such a good time that we even took one of the river boat tours in the afternoon. Then I had a concert with one of my high schools. The conductor made a big deal about how I was the assistant at the school and how happy he was that I was willing to take part. To be honest though, it's been a nice time. I've been able to hang out with my students outside of class and have had the chance to play some oboe. double yay!

Today was a long day, especially for a Sunday. We got up early and took a train to Weimar, which is one of the more cultural cities in Germany. It's about 3 hours north of Bamberg, and just outside of the city (~10 km) is Buchenwald, which was one of the three largest concentration camps in Germany -- the others being Sachsenhausen and Dachau. The facilities were expansive and even more striking/impressive than I remember Dachau being. We were on the grounds for almost 4 hours and saw everything from the railway station and the main gates to medical experiment facilities and the crematorium. The whole day was particularly emotional for my mom and sister, since both hadn't ever been to one before and therefore had no clue as to what to expect. There's only so much history that you can learn from a book and a teacher. This is something that can only begin to make the appropriate type of impact when you are walking around and imagining just exactly it would have been like to be living through all those stories, movies and facts.