Wow, I can't believe it has been a week since my last post! Time is starting to move fast here. My German class is going well. We have had alot of information thrown at us all in a very short amount of time, but I am at least starting to get the hang of some of the basics. I feel much more empowered when I go into shops and can recognize some of the words people are saying to me. I am a little worried about the test we have at the end of this week which determines if we pass the course, but I will deal with that later. Starting a new language is hard because you have to start at the very beginning and it feels kinda like being back in kindergarten. I also have another class starting at the end of this week called Cultural Sensitivity Training...which I guess with help me to become more culturally sensitive.
Other than classes, I have been finding lots of stuff to keep busy with. We have been enjoying the fact that class doesn't start until 2:30 and staying out late. I had a particularly interesting night at a club where it was lady's night a few days ago. Rachel and I were talking about how odd it is that all of our friends in the States are getting ready for midterms and I haven't even started real classes yet...but I guess I will make up for that when I am still in class in the middle of June.
Last Saturday our group took a tour of Mauthausen which was a concentration camp and is now a museum and memorial. It was a very emotional experience and definitely not happy, but I am glad that we got to go there. In a way, I think that our group going to Mauthausen was particularly poetic because it was hatred and fear of "the Other" that caused much of the atrocities committed by the S.S., yet we are such a diverse group of people who have all come together to learn more about each other and become friends. Below are a few pictures, there are more on Picassa which I now have a link up for on the upper Left hand side of the page. Hope everything is well with everyone else! Oh, and Laura asked me if I had heard anything about the protests here, and I have not. I didn't eve know they were going on until she told me about them, but rest assured that I will not be getting in to trouble while I am here. The last thing I want is to end getting deported.

This is a picture of the quarry and the "stairs of death" where prisoners where forced to carry huge stones up and out of the quarry for 8-12 hours a day.

One of the watch towers where guards watched from above as prisoners suffered in the overcrowded yards. In some places, guards would not enter the actual yards because of the disease that was so rampant among the prisoners.

One of the many memorials now in place to remember the people who suffered in Mauthausen.