Weimar, in English, by day.

For the German version go here --> www.sachermanindeutschland.blogspot.com (It might not be updated for a little.


I just got back from 5 days in the city of Weimar, Germany's so-called "culture city." The city is well known for being the home of both Goethe and Schiller, some of Germany's most famous writers. The lived there in the 16th century, before the United States existed, but their houses are still standing. On a darker note, Weimar was also kind of a starting point for the Nazi party in the 1930's, and one of the first concentration camps, Buchenwald, was built just a few miles outside of the city. After the war, the city was in the DDR, East Germany. These contrasting histories make this city an ideal place to learn about German history and culture.

This trip was organized by the German side of the exchange program (GIVE, ASSE, PPP, CBYX are all abbreviations I have heard for it.). I don't want to bash the American side too bad, but the German side really seems to have their shit together, and they put on a great couple days. If anybody has read my blogs about the Washington DC trip at the beginning of the year, they will know the little issues I had with it.

So here it goes with:

Day 1

Day one was mostly traveling. I got pretty lucky with my train tickets and managed to meet up with a few friends on the train.
The train ride was uneventful, but I got to see some new scenery from the train, we went through Berlin and East Germany, and we hat the switch trains in Leipzig. Everything was going pretty well, I made all the trains in time and I brought plenty of snacks so it was looking like it was going to be a pretty smooth day, but then I did something stupid; I left my bag on the train.

Now, for travelers, leaving a bag on the train and leaving a bag on an airplane are completely different. If you leave something on an airplane, you will have about a half-hour time period where you could go back to the train and ask to go get it, but unlike an airplane, a train leaves one station after about 3 minutes, and after that it's gone, the train won't stop or turn around. I noticed it just as I was leaving the station, and even though I ran at full speed back through the station to the platform, I couldn't even see the train by the time I got there. Now, there wasn't anything too important in this bag, I had my backpack and my wallet, cell phone, and such, but 5 days without any new clothes or toiletries would have been a disaster.

The next step was that I went to the help desk with a friend (his German is way better than mine and I didn't want to screw this one up) and we told the lady there that I had forgotten my bag. Upon hearing this, she pulled out this HUGE book, which in my mind is always a bad thing, when someone needs pulls the big book out. As it turns out, it wasn't very complicated at all, she called someone who called the train, and someone on the train went searching for the bag, and they managed to find it before the train left the next station, which was Erfurt. They aren't allowed to mail people's bags, so I had to buy a ticket and take a little adventure. In the end, I was 6 euros lighter, with both my bags and a few pictures of Erfurt. Success.

That night the whole group got together, 47 of us total, 3 went home early, and watched a film.  I say film because even though it was about 90 minutes, I always consider movies to be interesting, and films are things you watch in school, or on the History Channel, where the same 5 pictures float across the screen with creative zoom techniques with an old guy talking for a long time.

We also took an initial tour of the city, to get an overview of some of the things we will see later.

Day 2

After the excitement of day 1, I could hardly wait for day 2.  I got a room with 2 guys from Oregon, Johnny and Ryan.  Breakfast was the normal German affair, rolls with meats, cheeses, pig-based spreads, and jellies.  Did you know that the direct translation of the German word for breakfast is "early piece"?  Pretty funny.  After early piece we headed into the city to look at Goethe's and Schiller's houses.  I was pretty bummed that you weren't allowed to take any pictures inside, but that's something you readers will have to deal with.  The houses were interesting, considering that they were hundreds of years old.  We also got to see Goethe's traveling coach, back then it must have been the cadillac of horse drawn buggies.

Day 3

Day three was a day trip to Wittenburg, the city where Martin Luther lived during the reformation of the Catholic church.  This trip started with an hour and a half on the train, then we had a tour of the city.

This is Martin Luther's house, actually one side of his house form the view of the courtyard in the middle. It was pretty giant.

This is the city church in Wittenburg, different from the castle chruch, below, where Martin Luther "hang his 95 thesis' on the door" (He didn't really hang them there, but it's close enough.)

After lunch we went to the Kennedy center for international economics (or something along those lines) for a seminar on economy ethics.  Now, I'm not going to say that it was bad, but it was just extremely confusing.  We had to play this card game together.  Each table had a set of rules that were slightly different, and the rules were extremely vague.  Because nobody could really understand it right and therefor nobody was playing right, the guy leading the seminar was getting pretty angry and he kept changing the rules.  By the time the rules were settled, the game ended up to be a variation of Hearts, but stripped of all skill based elements and fun.  You would deal the entire deck of cards out, and you weren't allowed to look at your cards.  Then the person to the left of the dealer put their top card out, and the other players each put a card out.  The suit of the first card determines which suit counts that round, like Hearts, but since you weren't allowed to look at your cards, it didn't matter.  The person with the highest card of that suit (usually the person who started, because there would not be any other cards of that suit played) would win.  To make it more confusing, we weren't allowed to talk with each other.  The winners and losers moved to a different table, where the rules would be a little different.

We didn't learn until it was over that it was teaching us about global economics.  The lead guy tried to explain that the girl who won the most rounds won because she had good leading skills, even the game was 100% (I'm not exaggerating here) luck, and that everyone else lost because they couldn't adapt to new rules or work well with other people.  He had a good message, but the method of telling it was broken.  In the end, it turned out to be another lesson about culture shock, which is pointless by now because we have been living here in Germany for 6 months now.

The cards.

An excited participant. (roommate Ryan)

Day 4

On day 4 we got down to some of the heavy history of the area, starting with a trip to Buchenwald, one of the first concentration camps built by the Nazi party.  First some background information on the area.  The city was one of the first cities that gave its full support to the Nazi party (There was a time when many people supported the Nazi party, before the war.)  This city was also the first to start making Hitler's youth groups.  Because the Nazi party had been in the city for so long before the war started, nobody had a problem when they built the concentration camp, Buchenwald, just a few miles outside the city.  It wasn't until the end of the war, when General Patton forced the residents of the city to walk through the camp that the town knew what was going on just around the corner.

I didn't take any pictures there, under the request of our guides, even they taking pictures was allowed.  All of the original prisoner barracks were gone, but the main gate, the fence, the crematorium, and a few other structures were still there.

After that, we headed back and in the afternoon we had a very awkward group discussion, nobody had much to say so we sat almost completely silent for about an hour and a half.  That brings us to,

Day 5

Day 5 was also just a travel day, but because I booked my train on the safe side (later) I ended up waiting about 2 hours longer than everyone else, and I traveled alone.

Me waiting, self portrait, too bad that the weather was so nice for the travel day.

The rolling hillsides of East Germany, pretty nice view for the train ride.

Well, that's it (alot, I know).  Check back for "Weimar, by night" for the lighter, social based version starring Jeff Condor and brought to you by MayO's, It's Mayonnaise for Breakfast!

Till then, write some comments and tell your friends to read this,

-Kevin Sacherman

Edit : I mixed up day 2 and 3, oops. (They are still mixed up)