Free Day!

I started off my free day waking up bright and early at 6:30 am! I got into my running gear and hopped on a bus to the palace's garden and I had the most awesome and lovely run! It was a good 2 hour run around the garden, park, and through the city back to the hotel. My favorite part of the run was seeing mohawk squirrel... I named this squirrel that because it really did look like it had a mohawk. I later discovered it was a Fotografische Vorlagen (when I went to the natural history museum, this is tomorrow's entry)... I think its German.

After my run, I was back at the hotel by 9, ate breakfast, showered, and head out into town. I walked around the city by myself, but it was pretty enjoyable. The weather was sunny and warm. I hopped on the bus again and randomly got off at a stop and started walking. I chose my direction by seeing a shiny object in the distance (I really like shiny things). During my walk, I did happen to find a random shopping area and spent a bit of my time in a bookstore. I pretended I knew German and skimmed through the books like I knew what it was saying. I did accidently piss of a german man and 2 german women. Good job Anh for being an ignorant tourist!

For lunch I found a Vietnamese restaurant, which I found to be really entertaining. I thought the place was going to be owned by some Germans, and they were actually Vietnamese people!!! Well Vietnamese Germans, whatever, but it was still cool. I was able to read the menu in Vietnamese and order in Vietnamese. Oh my mother would of been proud. (Vietnamese isn't my first language).

After four hours of wandering the city it was time to stroll off and figure out how to get back to the hotel. When we got back everyone got ready to an orchestra.

We tried to look our best with the limited amount of clothing we had, it worked. The concert was beautiful. I've never enjoyed classical music over the radio or on cd, but seeing it live was an experience and I think I'll be going to more in the future. I just loved how each player put so much passion and love into what they are doing and into the performance. It was too bad that our seats didn't let us see their faces, but you can tell by the way they were playing. One of the flute players was very into it and moved around, she reminded me of Soya (a student back at Hiram)

When the concert was over, we had one more stop, the Holocaust Memorial. It was a very interesting memorial, and I can't explain what type of feeling you get. You just have to walk through this thing yourself. But the structure were these blocks of different sizes. They were suppose to represent tombstones. From far away, it looks like they are all the same size until you walk through it. You start of with these blocks being around ankle high to hip height, and then you walk in further. The blocks start to get taller and taller, till they are as a building. The passage way was narrow and you couldn't see the other side anymore, except for a light.

David said they wanted to create a feeling of discomfort and not knowing what was going to happen, just like how the people in the holocaust felt. It worked. Walking through that passage way was quite scary since we went late at night. Nikki held my hand while we walked, and then she decided to run and make random turns. This made it even more scary for me. When we finally reached the end, I was so glad to be out of that thing.

After a full day of events, it was time to hit the hay sack.