Guten TaG!

hahah sooo I'm a slacker.. I know I know! SO... let's recap. ummm Brock and I flew into the airport, went through customs, blah blah blah. lame. lol it took for freaking ever! So when we got here and pulled up to the base, it was 10 am here.. where as in utah it was 2:00 am so we were freaking jet lagged. Unfortunately the best way for us to beat jet lag is to immediately adjust our sleep cycles to match the time zone which ment figuring out how brock and i were supposed to stay up until 9 p.m. this time. it was so hard! first we had to go and get military id cards so that we could get on and off of the base.. and that took FOR FREAKING EVER! then we came back and brock and i finally got to shower! huzzah! that was really nice. after ms nancy made us pho (vietnamese food in germany.. it makes sense?) haha jake, joe and adam decided to drag us downtown to the christmas market to try and keep us up. so after walking through the freezing cold, HUMID weather, we took the train downtown and walked through the booths and stuff. it was cold, everyone was really loud, there were the cutest little things, cider, lights, wonderful smells, it was so fun! it was like fairdays times a trillion!
SO the next day we got up and drove to southern germany to this small little town.. very touristy. i loved it, we stayed in this little bed and breakfast ran by this old couple, i played the piano and what not. We went out and walked around the market and had snichtzel and stuff (its actally really really really good!) i have a new favorite food... schneeballen (it means snow ball?) its yummy you dip it in hot chocolate (schoko) and its wonderful. we went through the medieval criminal museum (brady lee i thought of you the entire time and took a million pictures!) it was pretty sweet... and so the first full day past.
We got up the next morning and drove to nuschwiensien castle (its the one that disney fashioned cinderella's castle after) it was gorgeous! we toured the lower hunting lodge before taking a horse drawn carridge up the mountain to the castle. it was amazing. everything was so decorative and elaborate, though it was freezing! after we toured the castle we drove to the next little lodge.. Hauss Lilli it was run by this tiny old bavarian woman and she fed us a lot and we just kind of ran around. lol at like 11 at night brock and i were craving chocolate so we ran down the road to the gas station and were praying that the lady there spoke english. though she did, when we got back we were locked out! we set off the bells and it was just a huge mess. lol it was so funny.. me and brock.. unsupervised in germany... hahaha
Ok so today we woke up and drove to Austria to tour a little bit! The alps are wondeful! the ski lodges were so amazing and i wanted to hit the slopes sooo bad! hahahaa i'm so jealous of how much snow utah has right now, they don't have nearly as much.. maybe a foot. lammmmee. ok so after that we drove to Dachau (duckow).. it was the first concetration camp in germany. When you get to the gate you see a sign in german and it means Free Labor... the people who were sent there were told that it was a work camp, that they were taken there to make money. after i walked in my breath was immediately taken away, not in a good way. I was staring across an empty plane, there were guard towers all around and the temperature dropped as you walked in. The entire place felt evil. It felt that it was crushing your hope and draining the life just being there... it was so hard to breath. We walked around the barracks and it was horrible........ i dont know how to describe it. The entire thing was draining. the worst part was approaching the "red building" it was horrible.... i walked toward the building and my head started hurting... when i walked across the threshold my breath caught. We first walked through the room they stored dead bodies in.... next into the room with all of the ovens...... through the gas chambers.... another body room... and finally back outside. it was horrible. everyone was shaking and white as a sheet.... you walk through the rooms and you can imagine what happened and its completely sicking.... it pulls into perspective what humanity is really capable of. reading about it and seeing the actual place was completely different.
Ok so now we're finally home... I miss you all and I can't wait to get home. Happy Christmas!!! I love you all and you're always in my thoughts. Write back!

hugs and kisses,
Erin Jo