Germany & Austria

Traveling with a group of seventeen other people from the U.S. and Canada has many advantages. One advantage is we don’t wait in lines at museums or other must see and do activities. I love that! Because it is summer there are several teachers in the group. Teachers are the nicest people! We get to hear from local people about their history and current life in their country. As I listen to the local people I am reminded that governments make policies and wars but that all people want the same things in life. That is to meet their basic needs and to enjoy life.

I have heard first hand accounts from, Herr Jung, an energetic, 81 year-old man who experienced WWII as a 10 year old boy in Bacharach Germany. At ten years old and now at 81 years old he could not make sense of any of it. As he speaks he pauses because the pain of his experience is still there and I feel it too. However, he is not a sad man but rather a man who fully appreciates all that is good in life. He wants children today to know that if they have food and clothes they have everything! He wants kids to know that killing is not a game and would like them to not play video games in which they kill people. 

In Germany I saw castles, cruised on the Rhine river, stayed in a hotel in a 700 year old tower. I am currently staying in a small hotel in a village near Reutte Austria. The Austrian alps surround this tiny town.  The hills are alive la la la... I admire the pristine towns and beautiful green landscape in both Germany and Austria but meeting and listening to Herr Jung and to locals in other locations is the most enriching part of my travels thus far.

There has been much attention paid to WWII on this part of the trip but now I look forward to art and food in Italy.
Auf Wiedersehen!