Friday morning Bernd, Chris’ and my host took us to the city center where they have their market each Friday morning. Here are a few pictures I took around town.

Saturday we all met again at the town square and boarded the buses for another trip. This day we went to the Bergen-Belsen Memorial. It is a concentration camp in Northern Germany and was one of the last camps to be liberated by the allied troops.

It is also the camp where Anne Frank and her sister died just weeks before the English Army arrived. It was a very sad and somber place to visit but I think everyone walked away with a lot of information and a better understanding of the things that happened here. Everything in the camp was burned to the ground to get rid of the disease that was there and only a few foundations are left now. Around the foundations, people who were once prisoners have placed bricks with their names and numbers around the foundations.

Many memorials and headstones have been placed around the grounds; one of these is for Anne and her sister Margot.

Also remaining are large mounds with stones that say how many people are buried in these mass graves. Some say 1000, some 800 and others 5000. These are the grave sites of thousands of prisoners that the English soldiers found lying on the ground when they arrived at the camp and other prisoners that died shortly after the English’s arrived.

Our German hosts had gone on a separate tour with a German speaking guide and when we met back at the vans things were a little quiet for awhile. They were almost embarrassed and a little reluctant to show us this place for fear that we would think less of the German people. For a group of girls this age, they showed a great deal of respect and reverence while at the memorial. Our hosts took us all over their area, paid for all of our tours, welcomed us into their homes and feed us during our stay. The German people and government want to make sure the people of the world understand that they are not the same Germany from World War II.
Things were much less tense when we went to the city of Bremen and the girls were able to go off with their new friends and do a little shopping together. The city of Bremen has some very neat old buildings and it is famous for the fairy tale by the Grimm’s Brothers about the 4 animals who were the Musicians from Bremen. I’m not sure of the exact name of the story but I know I have seen it before. If you find the story, let me know.

Sunday we all had a little time with our host families and then we met back at the club house in the afternoon. The girls played in a little tournament with 2 teams from Westerstede. The German girls who we had been staying with divided their team in half and that way there were 4 different teams and each team played 3 games 30 minutes each. Our first game we lost 5-0. The second game was 3-0 and the score of the last game was 1-0. We seemed to improve a little with each game or, they just took it easy on us. Either way, the girls had a lot of fun, even in the last game in the pouring rain.

After the games we went into the dry clubhouse, had a Bar BQ together and exchanged gift with our new friends.

Monday we all met at the train station at 6 am. We said goodbye to our host families and new friends to continue our journey to the city of Trier, Germany.

Trier is supposed to be the oldest city in Germany. It was founded around 16 BC by the Romans.

It still has structures that the Romans built like a coliseum and the Porta Nigra which a gate to wall that once surrounded the city.

Our visit there was short and we only got in a little bit of sightseeing. Here are some photos of the Themenfuhrungen, Trierer Dom. I cannot give you too much info about the place because they only had brochures that were written in German.

This is supposed to be the church where the robe that Christ was buried in is kept. It is behind many things and we could not see it, only the place where it is kept. This is where the robe is.

Now we are done with Germany and on to Venice. I will tell you about Venice soon.

Diane