Salispils Concentration Camp

Okay, so I don't really know the date of this trip, but I do believe it was in November. The date really doesn't matter. This place was in the middle of nowhere. Greg and I had tried to go before but I think it was my fault we were late, so we missed the train. But we decided to go another time and Serena came with us. This was an interesting experience. I didn' t know what to expect or the feeling I would have being in a concentration camp. The train ride wasn't really too long, but long enough you wouldn't want to walk(important later). So we depart the train station in Riga and Greg notices a nice graffiti(sp?) tag on a concrete wall. Pearl Jam was spray painted. I was very excited about this. So we didn't really know what stop to get off on so we ask a very nice elderly woman who didn't speak English or Italian(imagine that). She in one way or another told us that she would motion us when we needed to get off. So we make a few stops then all of the sudden on one stop she motions us that we needed to get the hell of the train because it was our stop. So we all grab our crap and jump off the train. I forgot my juice(I always had juice with me everywhere we went). I just put it as a loss, but as the train started to take off the old woman comes to the door and tosses my juice out to me. The old woman ruled!!!!!! So with juice in hand, me-greg-and serens notice this really wasn't a stop. They dropped us off in the middle of the woods. The pictures will show you. So we follow very bad wood painted signs in the middle of the forest in order to make it to the concentration camp. We arrive and look around and feel the very weird feeling coming over us knowing that poor and innocent people died here just because they were who they were. Still happening today? Maybe not to that extent, but that is left for another blog. After we walk around we decided to walk back to the train stop, well a concrete platform anyways. We look at the train schedule posted on a wall and notice the train wasn't coming back for a while. So now what. There was nothing else to do. We were in the middle of the forest. We decided to walk back. Turns out that it was a wonderful idea. It was a very nice feeling walking along the railroad tracks in the middle of nowhere in Latvia. To me it felt like a cover of a Dylan or David Gray album. Once we get back to the outskirts of Latvia, we took public transportation back to our hostel. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience with two of my very bestfriends. Also, it isn't a very popular tourist destination for people in Latvia or the other exchange students for that matter. Here are some photos. The statues are enormous and the pictures don't do them justice.:

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