Bergen-Belsen, Concentration Camp

Today we went to Bergen-Belsen. It is a Prisoners of War Camp, Concentration Camp and Memorial. We got to learn about the terrible things that people went through at this camp. It was awful. We walked through the grounds of the camp and there were these mounds every where. They were like these hills in the middle of a field. These hills were graves of 1,000's of people. And they weren't separate graves. It was one big hill with sometimes 5,000 people in one hill. There were several of these hills just at first site. There were tomb stones there, but they were just symbolic, they didn't mark the actual grave. Bergen-Belsen is the place where Anne Frank has her tombstone.
After we took a look at the grounds we went inside to a small museum to learn more about personal stories about people. We didn't stay long because it was hard to learn about so many horrible things at once, and we were tight on time. It was sad, but good to know.

After we got home from the museum Valentine's mom, Uschi, invited the three of us over for lunch. We had spaghetti. We go to know Valentine and Max better. They are some funny guys. We jumped on their trampoline, looked at some funny videos on youtube, and went into the city for ice cream. Kaelei had to go home do work on some homework stuff so she skipped out on the ice cream, but Karo came with us. The 5 of us went into the city for ice cream but Lisha left after 20 minutes so she could go to swim practice. Kali decided to stay with the others in the city. Lisha got back home and went with Kaelei to swim practice. We had lots of fun. Lisha might not see the swim team again while she is here so everyone wanted to get some pictures and email addresses. It was cool.
When Kaelei and Lisha got home from practice at 9:45, Kali was still out with friends and had arranged to sleep over at Anna's house.

Heide Park- Wednesday, June 25

Wednesday was SO MUCH FUN! Benny (Quinn's Husband) took us to Heide Park. Heide Park is like Lagoon. It's an amusement park. Well, all 4 of us decided to wear our Germany shirts to the park and we got a lot of different remarks. The things that people said have some explaining behind it. There is a good portion of the population here that are Turkish. (kinda like Mexicans is Utah) Well there was a soccer game for the European Cup tournament. This was the semi-finial game, Germany v Turkey. So with this game being that night we got a lot of cheering for Germany saying that we will win. We also got a lot of bad comments. Sometimes Benny wouldn't translate everything that they were saying... Ha Ha. We were at Heide Park for about 8 hours and by the time we left we were practically dead. While we were there we stoped at one of the souvenir shops and had some fun with the German Apparel.
We took the 45 minute drive home and then we got ready for the Big Soccer Game, Germany v Turkey. Kali went with Anna to Anna's aunts house. She said that it was fun to see how excited people would get during the game. Kaelei went into the city to watch the game with Max and Valentine but came home early and watched the 2nd half of the game of the game at home. Lisha staid at home with Quinn, Tori, Jeffrey, Niklas and Steffen. It was so much fun to watch because it was tied 2-2 with 1.5 minutes left in the game and Germany scored to win then game! IT WAS INTENCE! On Thursday there will be a game Russia v Spain. Who ever wins the game on Thursday will play against Germany on Sunday.
GO DEUTSCHLAND!

Everyone watching the BIG GAME at Quinn's house:

Tori Jeffrey Steffen Niklas

Shopping in Hannover

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 Lisha: Kaelei and Tori got up early and went swimming at 6 AM (good job Kaelei!) Kaelei taught Tori some swimming things so she could get faster. Then she swam to get her work out in. When she got home Kali and I were just waking up and starting to get ready. By the time we were all ready the three of us got on the train to Hannover to go shopping! It was loads of fun! We found lots of GREAT deals! With the dollar being weak if we spent 10€ it would be like spending $16! So everything we bought had to be on a GREAT sale, but don't worry we found some AWESOME sales. We bought some Germany/Deutschland shirts. It was lots of fun! CAN YOU BELEIVE IT COSTS €1,10 TO USE THE WC(bathroom) AT THE HANNOVER TRIAN STATION! AHHH! Well after we were done in Hannover we took the train back to Burgdorf. When we got home Anna took us into the city (of Burgdorf) on our bikes and we went shopping some more. We didn't buy anything else, we just got some stuff that Quinn needed. By 7:00 PM we got back home and went on our way to swim practice by 7:30. It was so nice because everyone knew us better from being at the 24 hour relay last Saturday. Everyone was talking to us and we had lots of fun... there was only one problem... we went outside and practiced in there 50 meter pool that wasn't heated! IT WAS SO COLD!!! We only swam in the outdoor pool for 30 minutes, then we went back inside for the rest of practice (yay! much warmer!) After practice got over with at 9:00 we talked to some of the other swimmers and we told them about the HUGE spider! They laughed and told us that we are funny when we tell "exciting" stories. We had a nice bike ride home and slept very well from being so tired from swim practice.

Monday

On Monday, the 23rd, Valentines mom, Uschi, took us to a Museum. It was called Deutsches Auswandererhaus, which means German Emigration Center. It took two hours to drive there, so it was a long drive. The museum was all about Germans and other Europeans that emigrated to America. We were there for about 3 1/2 hours. We got to learn about what it was like to be an emigrant from Bremerhaven, Germany to New York, and what it was like on the ship that went there. After that we drove over to where a bunch of restaurants were and we got some chicken and fries. Then we took the 2 hour drive back home.
When we got back to Quinn's house we went to the grocery store to pick up some bread, meet, and cheese... and some chocolate of course. That night we had abent brot for dinner. Abent brot is just having a bunch of bread and a ton of different kinds of cheese, meet and spreads with it. It was way good. Then we had strawberries and ice cream! Mmmm... yummy! Then watched another soccer game, Spain v Italy, we think Spain won.

Saturday/Sunday

On Saturday Kaelei and Lisha slept in till 10 AM because we were up late again the night before. Kali slept over at Anna's house the night before because the ball that she went to ended really late. Kali came home from Anna's house at about noon and at 12:30 Anna's mom, Katharina, came and got the three of us to go to a swimming activity. Anna's little sister, Laura, was swimming in this too so she was "the cool girl with American friends". This swimming activity was a fund raiser of some sort and it was a 24 hour consistent relay, 3 PM on Saturday to 3 PM on Sunday. Kali and Kaelei were disappointed that they missed church because they couldn't see Tobi (the cute kid). There were several other teams that were involved in this relay too. The teams there were not very big compared to the ones at home. Our team was the biggest and it had about 30 people including the three of us. Each team was divided into groups with about ten people in each group. Each group (out of all the teams) were given 3 times that they were to swim. Lisha's group swam from 4 PM - 3 PM, Midnight - 1 AM, and 8 AM - 9 AM. Kaelei and Kali were in the same group and they swam from 8 PM to 9 PM, 4 AM - 5 AM, and Noon - 1 PM. So each group did there own little really for an hour at a time. We had loads of fun! We set up our own little tent with sleeping bags so we could sleep between our time sto swim.

We got to know a few people on the team. Sabrina was a very nice girl and is going to be turning 18 this year. Dimitri was nice but seamed really shy because he thought that when he spoke English that he sounded dumb. But we were able to talk to him a little bit even though he would get really embarrassed if he didn't know the English word. Dimitri looks like he is 17 or 18... but he's 15... he he. There was one boy, Jannik, that spoke really good English. Jannik is 18 and he went to school in America for a year and that's why his English is so good. Lisha talked with him nearly the ENTIRE time. If she wasn't sleeping or swimming in the water, she was talking to Jannik. Kaelei and Kali went jumping of the diving platforms in the side pool but Lisha didn't want to go with them because she was still talking to Jannik. Kaelei and Kali went of the 5 meter platform a few times. The three of us, Sabrina, Dimitri and Jannik all played ladders and Uno together. Since Lisha was always with Jannik she taught him all sorts of card games.

At the 24 hour relay the team gave us nice t-shirts with the team logo on it and team caps too! Kaelei and Kali's grope got a first place trophy for swimming the most meters out of all the groups. And Lisha's group got a second place trophy.



On Sunday after the relay was over, Katharina took us all back to Quinn's house had we were kinda lazy because we were so tired from not getting very much sleep with the relay and all. We watched an intense soccer game, Spain v Italy. It went into over time and it was still tied 0-0, so it went into a shoot out. Spain won 2-4 and it was a great victory because Italy won the world cup two years ago. The game went late so we went to bed late... again. And we were about to go to bed when this HUGE SPIDER came in the room. Now we are not exaggerating when we are saying that it is GINORMOUS!

The Spider Story, as told by Kali with the help of Kaelei and Lisha:
It was about 12:22 at night and we we sitting on our beds, talking. When out of no where an ENORMOUS spider crawled sinisterly into the room. DUHN DUHN DUHN DUHN (organ sound) ...then Kaelei said, "OMG YOU GUYS THERE'S A HUGE SPIDER SITTING BY LISHA'S SHOE!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Kali screams like a damsel in distress as she lunges onto Kaelei's pillow, saying with wide eyes, "Sorry 'bout your pillow, Kaelei, but my butt's on it now!" Then as we contemplated the horror of the situation, we realize that we need to do something before it crawls into Kali's half packed suitcase and is lost forEVER. "Who's gonna squish it?" we ask. "I will if I HAVE to," Lisha squeaks bravely. "I won't! I would cry," Kali says almost in tears. "Me neither," Kaelei says, "but here's my shoe, Lisha." " THANKS a LOT, Kaelei," Lisha groans. "You're welcome, have fun," Kaelei responds, grinning. Lisha slowly stalks the spider, tail sticking straight up in the air, tensing for the kill, when all of a sudden..."Guys, I can't DO it! It's eyes are looking straight into mine...and it looks so BIG!" she wails pitifully. We sit there, plotting for about 5 minutes. "What should we do?" we ask. "Let's get Benny!" someone suggests. "Maybe he'll hear us if we yell!" Kaelei says hopefully. "BENNY! HELP US! THERE'S A BIG HUGE SPIDER!" Nothing happens. "Darn it." "Kali, go wake them up! They're YOUR relatives." they suggest. "Not by MYSELF! What if there's MORE?!" "Ok fine," Kaelei snaps, "I'll come too." "What about Lisha?" Kali squeaks pitifully. "Oh yeah, just leave me here to DIE!" Lisha exclaims, "when you get back, make sure to pay for my funeral!" So, Kali and Kaelei left, making the long trek up the stairs, leaving Lisha at the mercy of the terrifying spider.



Lisha with the sp-sp-spider (as told by Kali and Kaelei while Lisha diligently helps Quinn with her math homework):

So, while Kali and Kaelei are upstairs doing who knows what, Lisha is downstairs sitting on her bed carefully watching the spider for any movement. I really want to get a picture of this spider, Lisha thinks, but my camera is in my shoe, right next to the spider. Oh well, I'll try it anyways. So she creeps down to Kali's bed and perches precariously on the edge, trying to find a way to get the camera without disturbing the spider. She looks into the spider's eyes, engaged in a crucial staring match with the spider, "No, I can't do it. It's just too scary!" she says out loud to no one in particular. Then suddenly the other girls showed up with reinforcements. The scare was over.



Back to the other girls: tap tap tap...Kali, quiet as a mouse goes up to the bedroom door of Quinn and Benny and softly taps on the door. She's afraid to wake them up, but she's even more afraid to leave them asleep with the danger in the basement. "Quinn?" she softly whispers. No answer. "Quinn?" Again, no reply. "QUINN?!" "What? What happened? What's wrong?" Quinn says groggily, sitting up in bed. "There's a HUGE spider downstairs in our room and we don't know what to do about it. Will you help us?" Kaelei cackles like a witch, thinking how hilarious the whole situation is. "Yeah, sure, just gimme a second," she says, getting out of bed. So, we hurried down the stairs to rescue Lisha from the utter peril of the beast. "OH MY GOSH!" Quinn exclaims, finally awake, "THAT THING IS HUGE! You guys weren't kidding! That's the biggest spider I've ever seen!" So, Quinn goes to fetch a jar to capture the spider with. "HOORAY FOR SPIDER-WOMAN!" we cheer, semi-quietly. (Don't forget, we wouldn't want to wake up the little ones.) Then we took pictures of the spider, now at OUR mercy, in a transparent glass jar. Kali got an awesome close-up picture of the horrendous hairy monster. Then we flushed it down the toilet and went to bed.



***Author's Note: We will post a picture of the spider later, for now, just use your imagination.***

Testing pictures...this picture was taken at Heidelberg Castle when we were staying with Coni and the girls

Swimming and Fun

Well there was a little more that went on Thursday. From 7:30-8:30 PM we went to a swim practice. Anna Rust has a little sister named Laura and she is on a swim team. The practice realy wasn't that hard but we were DIEING and gasping for air. Well.... that's what we get for not having practice for 3 weeks. And we haven't had an actual SWIM practice for 4 months. But as you might have guessed, we are still alive. There wasn't a lot of people there, about 10 people, but therer was another soccor game. This soccor game was part of the European Champianships and this game determined if Germany went to the finalls or not. It was Portugal v Germany and we won 3-2. Kaelei and Kali went the city park to watch it outside with Anna and her friends. It was crazy because the city goes WILD for this game. You could not belive how crazy it was. Lisha stayed home with Quinn and Benny's family and whenever a goal was made by Germany the house went into an earthquake with noise and people jumping up and down with excitement. Becasue this was such a big game the swim practice was cut short. Usualy it goes till 9:00 PM but it was shortened to 8:30 for the game. Tori (Quinn's daughter) came with us to swim practice but didn't swim with us. Lisha asked Tori how long the pool was because it looked about 25 yards but she knew it had to be in meters or someting. Tori said 50 meters. There was NO WAY it was 50 meters! We've seen a 50 meter pool! So Lisha and Tori went back and forth a few times arguing about how long it was becasue she KNEW it couldn't be 50 meters. So she asked one of the other swimmiers (in German) how long it was. "25 meters." He was laughing while he said it because he knew English quite well and knew exactly what they were talking about. Lisha was all excited and was teasing Tori a little bit about how she was right. But Tori was fine with it becasue she made some jokes about it after.

Friday
Because we were up kinda up late Thursday night Quinn let us sleep in. We woke up at 12:30 in the middle of the day. We were a so supprised that we actualy slept in that long! Not just one of us slept in that long, ALL THREE of us did! It was quite funny. Today we all went different ways Kaelei went to Pauline's, Kali went with Anna to get her hair done for the ball that night, and Lisha went rock climing with Steffen. While Kaelei was at Pauline's house she had a ton of fun, they played the wii and then they watched a movie in german so she could start learning the language. Also one of Pauline's friends came over to hang out with her, her name was Carmon. She was happy to get to know new people. Later on at around 8:00 they started playing Ligretto Kaelei LOVED it! They played it until around 9:45. Then they took her home. (Kali will add to this post later about what she did). Lisha went rock climing with Steffen, Quinn's brother in-law. She had a lot of fun. She said that going up the wall was so much fun, untill she got to the top and didn't really know how to get down. Steffen told her just to fall backward and the rope will catch her but she was till scard. It took her about 3 minutes to get ready to fall but she did it and repelled down the wall. She also went through an obstical chors that made her very tierd but it had a zip line that was tones of fun. She went all the way down the zip line up side down. CRAZY! And she had her camera but forgot to ask Steffen to take any pictures of her climbing, so she doen't have any pictures of herself climbing! But oh well, we'll have to live.