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Published: April 18th 2006
Prague
A view of Prague from the Charles Bridge.Hey guys! I hope that everyone is doing well! I am finally back in Spain and somewhat glad to be back to the slower pace of life here. Last week was a fun, but exhausting week.
Like I said, Prague in the Czech Republic was a great city. The set up really made it a beautiful city. One of the most interesting things that I did while there was visit a communist museum. The country was communist until 1989. Not too long ago. It was interesting to read about their history (in English) and watch some videos on what life was like when communism was coming to an end. It is crazy how different their lives are from ours. You rarely ever see people being beaten by policemen or cars set on fire by protesters in the United States. My friend came across a football (soccer in American terms) riot in the streets. The two main soccer teams in Prague were playing each other the day we arrived and there were about 1000 kids from ages 15-25 in the streets chanting and being rowdy. Then another crowd of kids (fans of the other team) came from another direction and started
Prague
A huge cathedral to beat up on the opposing team! Policemen were all out in their attire-they were wearing face shields, had shields to hold up to protect their bodies and had clubs to attempt to keep things calm. The policemen were using their clubs to "tame" the fighting and throwing gas bombs into the streets in an attempt to break up the fighting. Haha, you definitely never see that in the United States over a soccer game!
Munich, Germany was great. One of my favorite parts of the trip was from Munich. I have always been interested in studying about World War II, so on one of the days I took a tour about how Hitler came to power. The tour guide walked us around and showed us different places where he lived, buildings he had built, places where he and the Nazis had meetings, etc. It was very interesting to realize how much power he gained through manipulation and fear. There was one point in the city that if you did not do the Nazi salute when you walked past the monument, then you could get in BIG trouble by the police (thrown in jail, beaten, maybe killed). It was
Prague
View from the top of the tower in the cathedral. all extremely interesting. My friend and I also visited a concentration camp. This was a very different and weird experience. It was somewhat emotional. It was hard to read about how terrible these people were treated merely because of their race or religion. People were beaten and killed for the mere pleasure of the Nazis. Some "prisoners" would try to escape from the concetration camp knowing that they wouldn't make it out alive. The security guards would shoot and kill them. It was a way that they committed suicide to escape the horribleness of the concentration camps. While this was very sad, I really enjoyed the experience because I was able to learn so much.
Zurich, Switzerland was beautiful. It was a much smaller city than I thought it'd be. There wasn't as much to do in the city as there was to do outside of it such as hiking. Unfortunately, the weather was good for only one of the two days that we were there. We ran out of time to be able to go outside of the city and up into the mountains to hike. Zurich sits on Lake Zurich and then has the Alps (the mountain
Munich
The Town hall in the main plaza in Munich range in France, Switzerland, and Italy) in the background. It was beautiful. Our trip was very relaxing in Zurich. We visited a couple of churches and other sights, but we mainly strolled around the lake and enjoyed the sun on the nice day.
I also flew over the Pyrenees to get home. I took some pictures to show yall from the plane. Remember, the Pyrenees separate France and Spain.
How many more weeks do yall have left in school? I'm teaching here for only 3.5 more weeks! The time is flying by! Let me know how yall are doing! Enjoy the pictures!
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