There are a lot of languages out there... can you speak any of them? Travel Week One, Part One, Spain

Finally our first free-travel week approached on the horizon and everyone excitedly planned, re-planned and talked about their ideas. A couple of groups went to the United Kingdom and a couple went to France (including ours) and a few others split off on their own to visit friends. Our group morphed during the week from including Earl, his lovely girlfriend Natasha, Joy, Bethany, Margaret, Jeanette and I during Spain, to losing Earl and Natasha but gaining Stephen for the Paris portion of the trip. It was fun traveling with different people, most of whom we didn’t go on any other travel weeks with.

The week started out with a bang with a confusing start to our train ride. As we were getting ready to hop on the train, quite a crowd had developed and suddenly the doors directly in front of us had been closed with train attendants blocking them, not allowing people to enter. We were initially just confused, but confusion quickly changed to worry when we realized part of our group was already on the train and we obviously weren’t! Somehow, we managed to squeeze on somewhere and share a seat with someone kind enough to allow us into her personal space. The train brought us to our first of several encounters with the Memmingen RyanAir airport!

RyanAir is a discount airline used by many a starving student, backpacker, and cheap traveler. Surprisingly, though, we saw a fair amount of families and business people on the flights as well. After all, who can beat a 7 euro flight from Barcelona to Paris? With RyanAir though, you get what you pay for. No more. No less. At some point, “If I Die Young” was declared to be the official RyanAir theme song :) Guessing the number of skips we’d experience during landing became the prevalent game. Positively speaking, we laughed in the face of death and won!

From our first discount flight we jumped right into the next adventure: our first night sleeping in the airport like homeless people. Our first of three in that very same airport to be precise. Who would pass up bumpy seats, bright lights and a random assortment of jazz, pop and weird arrangements of Over the Rainbow all night? I mean, where’d be the sense of adventure in missing that? Jeanette and maybe half the rest of the group slept like a log (that was mostly Jeanette)... and others of us (yours truly... aka Chelsea) only wished we could, and rejoiced over an hour or two of shut-eye.

When we decided we couldn't stand sleeping on hard objects anymore, we freshened up a bit and headed outside to the bus station to catch the first bus into Girona. We stumbled off the bus, and valiantly searched for Equity Point, our hostel for the next couple of nights. Our first efforts proved unsuccessful as we walked right past our goal along the river and turned down the wrong street. But thankfully we got on track soon enough and found the place where we met the nice lady at the desk. She was very nice to us and made our first stay away from Regensburg “home” a very nice and easy one. We left our bags with her behind the counter (it was too early to check in), had a bite to eat and went off on our first adventure, to find the old city wall. Thankfully Earl came prepared and he was able to find it fairly easily. What a beautiful walk it was! Misty, a little rainy and very overcast, it left the city below in shrouds of gloomy clouds perfect for pictures and exploring old ruins that looked like they were straight out of Ever After.  : )  (I, Jeanette, was so very happy about that. And I, Chelsea, was happy as well, after I’d seen the movie). After the wall ruins, we walked by the old town cathedral and through the many narrow, windy, streets full of steps and vendors.

By this time, most of us were tired, we were looking at our watches counting down the time until we could check into the hostel and crash for a few hours. The time finally came and we headed to the hostel forgetting about lunch for the thought of sleep. What seemed like moments (but was actually hours) later, Chelsea and I woke up about the same time to a racket of what sounded like explosions and gunshots.  Our first Spanish Revolution!! YES!! What we'd been looking for all along...  Well, after shaking the sleep from our eyes and heads we found that the revolution was just a drum band doing a street performance pretty much right outside our window along the river. After a few pictures and videos, we went exploring with a bit more energy than we had earlier that morning. The highlights of that walk included one of the best gelato shops of the entire trip (I, Jeanette, will say it was my absolute favourite gelato shop of the whole trip, Chelsea will say it was definitely one of the top three.), and the very strange, very sad, very pathetic... John Lennon Gardens. Yes, you read that right. What “thing” they have for John Lennon, we will never know. We didn't really understand the John Lennon part of it.  We almost didn't understand the garden part of it.  ; ) So basically we didn’t understand any of it. And we’ll leave it at that. It did afford a good view of the cathedral from the top of the "gardens" though.

I didn't know it was in fashion anywhere to look like a bloated cow. You learn something new every day!

An old mural map on the ceiling :)

Smoking can kill? No kidding? I don't think most Europeans have heard that news. 

Once our stomachs realized we had skipped out on lunch, we headed back to the hostel to see if everyone else wanted dinner as well and met them on the way out. We went toward a big outdoor courtyard of restaurants we had spotted earlier and picked out the most reasonably priced one we could find. Jeanette and I split a delicious (but very small) sandwich and the others ordered the first of several Patates Braves for the trip (Chelsea’s favorite Spanish dish). We took our time eating and chatting, enjoying the cultural atmosphere. Around the time Jeanette’s and my order got messed up is when Chelsea’s Spanish came in handy so we didn’t get over charged for things we didn’t get. Always a plus on a student budget. Although everyone could have gotten along fine without the use of Spanish, it was fun to use when I could :) Jeanette's language skills were about a country behind on this whole trip.  ; ) But she’ll be up to speed the next time we’re in town.

When we had finished our dinners we walked through the shopping district and were on the look-out for gelato, though Chelsea and I were pretty set on going back to our amazing previous find.  We ended up splitting off from the rest of the group to get our gelato and then met them back at the hostel.  

Next morning, after breakfast in Girona, we set off via train to Barcelona.  We had a hard time figuring out how to get to our hostel and what train/train pass to take/get.  We finally got to our hostel about 1:30 and began the check in process which required a lot of documents and strange money collections.  ; )  Then we had to pay exorbitant fees for sheets, blankets, and locks (if desired) for our "closets" (which were really cabinets hardly big enough for a backpack... but oh well).  After getting all that sorted out and figuring out what we wanted to do,  we decided the beach would be the thing fun, but... we were starving.  So we had lunch.  Good plan. But where to go? The main street just outside had oodles and oodles of restaurants to choose from, expensive, cheap and in between. Finally we settled on a nice place without pictures on the menu, which made ordering fun, because even the main Spanish-speaker of the group was really no help (Chelsea) :)   We got some kind of food... it was good, don't know what it was.  To this day. ; )  

Then we headed to the beach to enjoy the sun and the sand and the water! We were all very surprised at the warmth and peacefulness of the sea. The waves were almost nonexistent, perfect for swimming, and the water was the perfect balance between warm and refreshingly cool. We stayed and enjoyed the beautiful sunset, then headed back to the hostel.

After getting cleaned up (the first step of which was finding the showers, which was quite a task in our maze-like hostel!), we headed out to find some dinner. Earl, Joy and Bethany headed down to the main shopping district, Las Ramblas, while Margaret, Jeanette and I found a new favorite restaurant called Tapa Tapa. It was here that I (Chelsea) quickly discovered my favorite dish (which Earl had ordered in Girona previously), the Patates Braves (Spicy Potatoes) :) Bite size fried potatoes (think chunky french fries) drizzled with an amazing white creamy sauce, enough to make my mouth water every time I look at the photo!  And I (Jeanette) had some yummy Cheese Croquettes (deep fat fried cheesey things :)).  

We got back to the hostel at a decent hour, ready for a full day of sight-seeing tomorrow!

Our second day in Barcelona was full of walking around town and enjoying the sights! We didn’t know much about what to see, but thankfully or travel partner, Margaret, had a suggestion: La Familia Sagrada.  Once we found it there were differing opinions on what we thought of it... It is a relatively new Cathedral and therefore very modern architecture. It was an incredibly unique and detailed building, that incorporated a lot of smaller features within the larger facade of the outside, as well as some colored elements amid the entirely cement-colored exterior. The line wrapped all the way around two sides of the outside, which scared us away from paying to go inside. Earl, Natasha, Bethany and Joy braved the line and price, however, and said it was really amazing inside. Something for our list for next time!  Maybe ; )  The opinions are still slightly divided. However, it is agreed that it was a very unusual building, whether it was liked or not.

After a train station lunch, our next stop was Las Ramblas, main shopping avenue of the city, that led straight to the harbor, where we also spent some time. We took our time finding the actual avenue, wandering side streets and finding camels and strange large... fake people.  ; )

Love the reflection in the window- so perfect :)

After the random findings on side streets, we found a huge indoor market that reminded Chelsea of La Marceta (the market) in Mazatlan. Lots and lots of shops/booths crammed into one big warehouse type building, selling everything from organic food, to fresh meat, to candy, to smoothies (which was our pick). We decided the leg of a cow wouldn't be very useful in a foreign city. Especially with those crazy-strict RyanAir baggage requirements. So we went for the fresh fruit drinks instead. When we finally found the actual Las Ramblas street, we were met with lots and lots people, tons of touristy t-shirt shops, lots of animal shops (as in buy a pet and take it home with you... again... those pesky RyanAir requirements kept us from finding our perfect pets) and weird street performers who occasionally attacked people who got close enough. They ranged from creative to “what in the world is THAT?!”

At the end of Las Ramblas, was the dock in front of which was a very very tall statue of... American hero Christopher Columbus! But wait... he was Spanish, wasn’t he? I guess it makes sense they would memorialize the man who discovered America.  We took some pictures there (with lions, just didn’t climb in front of them this time) and then moved on to the floating bridge. The dock was pretty awesome- very streamlined, modern looking and very fun to sit on the edge of, tempted to jump off of.

A relief of part of the story of Columbus

The creative buoy

Being a very pleasant day we decided gelato must be in order (I mean when is it NOT in order... really?) and found a place that was good but expensive. We were becoming quite the gelato connoisseurs by this point. After finishing that and wandering around the harbour a little bit we wanted to wash our hands from the sticky mess of lovely gelato.  We saw signs for a McDonald's (which, when hearing this word applied in a European setting, please don’t think of your average American McDonalds. Think of your corner McDonalds getting a pay raise (from an hourly wage to a salary)... and marrying a Starbucks and you’ll almost get the picture).  How far away could it really be?  I mean really.  Turns out... it could be quite a ways.  Around the corner and down a few feet doesn’t exactly cover it. More like around the corner 5 times, under a freeway (where I, Jeanette, conquered the skill of climbing up a straight wall), and maybe 500 more feet. Thus we learned that in Europe, the finding of a McDonalds ranks right up there with the finding of an international monument.

The rest of our sight-seeing included walking past the oldest portion of a medieval wall, and seeing the Spanish Arc de Triomphe (or so we assumed). 

After having a final dinner at Tapa Tapa with the whole gang (which turned out to include the only really rude interaction we had with anyone in Spain, thankfully) we, Chelsea and Jeanette, headed back to Girona to get a day earlier flight to Paris. On our way back to the airport, we happened to meet two very sweet English ladies who were looking for the very hostel we had stayed in earlier that week! We were able to lead them right to it, then get on our way to the airport for another very... long... night :) During which... Jeanette slept and Chelsea... kept watch.  : )  

A Lot of Sad Things Happened in Germany... are you ready for that?

Our first week beginning our "two week class" schedule was a class called "Christian Worldview and Apologetics" taught by Dr. Sam Baker from Corban University, sponsor school of AMBEX.  In this class we studied some of the "major" religions and philosophies of the world, discussing their basic tenets, how they compare to Christianity, and how to reach followers of those religions with the gospel in a loving and caring way rather than with a harsh attitude. One of Dr. Baker’s frequent points was that in all interactions with people, we should approach them with the open hands of loving discussion, not the closed fists of argumentation. We seek to win them over with the love of Christ and logic of the truth, not beat them into submission and a false agreement with us. Our main textbooks included two small interview style books by Ravi Zacharias featuring conversations between the Krishna of Hinduism and Jesus of the Bible in one book and a conversation between Adolf Hitler and Jesus in the second. Both these books gave insightful thoughts into who these people were and how Jesus would have conversed with them in an effort to better understand their philosophy while showing His to be the only truth.  The other main textbook we used was by Nancy Pearcey called Total Truth and gave a wonderful basis to the entire class, giving the framework of the perfect Creation of the world, the sinful Fall, how it affects the world and the Redemption of the world which brings restoration and perfection to the world.  This framework gave us a a very thorough view through which to study and analyze different worldviews. The premise of this framework is that every worldview and religion has an explanation for how the world was created, how sin and evil came into it and how it can be fixed. Once a worldview is analyzed through that stratum, it can be compared easily to Christianity and the differences then examined and discussed.

At the end of this week we got to go on a weekend trip which included probably one of the hardest things we've ever experienced emotionally. The trip took us to Flossenburg Concentration Camp, the city of Weimar, and Buchenwald Concentration Camp (near Weimar). We started and ended our weekend with intense mornings visiting Flossenburg Concentration Camp first, then Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Flossenburg is where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed just days before the camp was liberated by American forces. Though a comparatively "small" concentration camp,it was overwhelming in emotional feelings mostly consisting of thoughts of hate, anger, and extreme sadness. Buchenwald only continued these emotions and probably strengthened them, though at the time it just numbed us more.  The atrocities committed at these camps by men and women not too long ago in history against other men, women and children were sickening to hear about. It's hard to explain the hurt and agony we went through to others who have not visited a concentration camp.  Until that experience, hearing or reading about these places and their victims was simply a historical exercise.  Though sadly it had little, if no "personal" impact on us. But we couldn’t walk away from the sights, sounds, buildings, fingerprints, photographs and personal stories of these people with simply a "historic knowledge" now.  All of us are changed now seeing these places, knowing a little more of what these men, women, and children went through.  Any comment referring to these places brings back the emotional pain of this weekend. However deep the pain though, the hope offered through a life in Christ is always greater. And hearing the stories of the brave Christians who were part of these camps was incredibly inspiring to say the least. Bonhoeffer and others like him gave their lives standing against Hitler and his regime, keeping hope and love in all circumstances, even horrific endings.  But they held to that promise of Matthew 10:28 which says "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." One of the most sadly memorable stories was of a camp survivor who said when his best friend was brutally executed, he lost all faith in God. The physical brutality was only outmatched by the spiritual demolition caused as a result of those horrific events.  On the opposite end of the spectrum was one of the most moving stories: that of Paul Schneider, a pastor, who was held at Buchenwald and eventually murdered there as a result of deprivation and torture.  Standing in front of his cell, hearing about his passionate life for Christ from our professor was indescribable.  It was saddening and convicting to hear of one who loved Christ so much and was willing to hold to that hope as long as he was on this earth no matter the cost.  He was willing to love others more than himself by giving his rations away and taking other's beatings. Standing in front of his cell, knowing he spent long cold nights naked on that floor made both of us consider what we are living our lives for, what we're willing to die for and whether or not we would be willing to endure such sheer evil for the sake of God’s call. The questions and convictions stirred by that moment in the cell block will always be with us, always challenging us, and always reminding us of the hope Paul Schneider held to through the very end.

Roll call grounds.

One of the holding cells in which prisoners on death row were held. 

A monument dedicated to famous prisoners executed in this courtyard. Included in the list is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 

Each slab of granite in this yard represents the prisoners from different countries. 

The personal stories of many of the prisoners. 

A breakdown of the number of prisoners from each country. 

The very organized Nazis kept careful records of every single prisoner. Unfortunately this is only one representation of how these prisoners simply became a list of numbers. No longer humans. 

One of the many atrocities committed at the concentration camps was the sorting of the prisoners by vocation, belief, social standing, and many other things.

One of the many stories of the prisoners here. 

A few of the demoralizing quotes.

Photos of Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Roll call grounds.

Remains of the medical buildings.

Probably one of the saddest pictures I've seen.  Three children who were imprisoned at Buchenwald.

Paul Schneider's cell.

After the most difficult day of the trip yet, we went to wonderfully uplifting (haha j/k) Friedrich Nietzsche’s house. He was one of the most famous Nihilists not only of his day, but also of the present time as well. Only a few of us, Joy, Ken, Taylor I. and myself to be exact, had to truly pay attention, because the following week we were giving a class presentation on the Nihilist worldview and this was our first dose of that outlook. Nietzche believed that all reality is only a figment of every man’s imagination and there is no source of truth or definitive purpose behind anything. This view of life not only eradicated God from the picture completely, but also made “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” his mantra. If there is no purpose or truth behind reality, then pursue whatever makes you most happy and question whatever threatens that happiness, Nietzche  would say. For him, power was the only thing worth pursuing and Christian principles threatened that, hence his vehement attacks on the religion throughout his life. This worldview highly influenced German culture, and subsequently, the rest of the world. Although many people wouldn’t hold to the extreme views of Nihilism (although a very few do, which is ultimately based on circular reasoning that doesn’t make sense), those views have “seeped” into popular culture thought of today. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Nietzche went insane and died in 1900 at age 54.

The streets of Weimar

Cutest little German boys fishing for money in a fountain.  :D

The "Jugendherberge" (youth hostel) of Weimar

A beautiful cemetery just next to our youth hostel. 

The only Russian Orthodox Church in Germany

The beautiful courtyard of one of the Libraries of Weimar

The famous Cranach altar piece.  

To complete our depressing day we watched a movie called Sophie Scholl: The Final Days.  This movie tells the inspiring story of brother and sister passive resisters Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend Christoph Probst who tried to warn their fellow citizens of the evils of Hitler's Regime in a peaceful way.  While spreading pamphlets around their university they were arrested.  This lead to interrogation and a "trial by the people."  The trial found them guilty (because they wanted to) and sentenced them to death.  While we were inspired by their duty to their country to show that what was happening was wrong, this was a heavy film to see at the end of a very heavy day.  

The next day we headed out on a city tour of Weimar which started with famous author, Johann Goethe's (pronouced Gur-teh), house.  We got an audio tour which was a massive (extremely massive. As in opposite of small. As in did we mention utterly large?) info dump. Although it was very interesting, some content editing might have made it a little less overwhelming and mind-numbing.  Most of what we remember from the audio tour is that he was considered the Shakespeare of Germany and beyond that there were a myriad of stories covering his life and furniture that we no longer remember. Unfortunately photos inside the house weren’t allowed, but his outdoor garden was very beautiful and the photos we took out there more than made up for what we couldn’t get inside.  

Goethe's House

We continued our city tour with highlights of famous sights such as Franz Liszt's house, a statue of William Shakespeare, an awesome library with a sideways piano (see picture), and before going to our last stop at Fredrich Schiller's house we got some amazing gelato.  

At this point, "get-out-of-the-rain" was more a motivation than genuine interest about this house/museum. On any other day this would no doubt have been very interesting, but we were so tired and brain-dead that unfortunately we have almost no remembrance of what we heard here.  We know that he was a good friend of Goethe’s and a playwright whose most famous work is William Tell. Fellow German playwright Richard Wagner wrote a play about swans (Lohengrin) which was premiered in Weimar and conducted by Franz Liszt in Schiller’s honor.

Outside Liszt's house were giant "pieces" of music strung from the trees.

The giant piano on display in the Library courtyard.

We ended the day with a very interesting "interview" with the owner/manager of the youth hostel we stayed at in Weimar.  She grew up in East Germany, living under communism for 25 years and has now lived 23 years in a free capitalist country.  We got to learn about the extreme differences between the two ways of living and why communism doesn't work. Thanks to Kelley, we had an awesome running translation of everything Frau Frederick told us- everything from the demoralizing idea that “you are only as good as the job you hold” to the cardboard cars most parents got for their children after a 15-year wait. Although the freedom from socialism was much needed and greatly sought-after, the reunification of Germany and of Berlin was a difficult process socially, economically, and politically. Two completely different cultures, basically two different countries were merging immediately and as soon as the "honeymoon" period was over, the clashes began and are still being worked through.  

The discussion with Frau Frederick ended our very intense but very enlightening weekend and we were happy to head back home to Regensburg and get ready for our first travel week to Spain and France!