Wow! Today has been incredible. There were so many moving and beautiful things in today that I just can't even process all of them at once. Today started really early. We had to get up about 5am to get over to the institute by 6:45am. We packed all of our stuff and I just hoped I didn't forget anything (don't worry, I forgot stuff). We loaded up the busses and took off!
Our first stop was Mauthausen, a little town with a concentration camp/memorial in it. It was very moving. I was pretty nervous on going because I heard that so many people had such a hard time with concentration camps. It was really hard to see and know about how many innocent people died there (about 80,000 at this specific camp), but there was a sense of peace and reverence that I felt. I had the overwhelming feeling of how much Heavenly Father loved every single one of those people, his children. How sad it made him to see them suffer so greatly, but I think that most of them (if not all) are a lot happy now.
There were a few specific stories that were told around the camp that stood out to me. The first one consisted of about 500 people. They were all put into a certain part of the camp that was known as "The Death Block" because people died so quickly and readily there. They knew they were going to die soon. So they all came up with a plan to escape. They did it in the middle of the night, took out some guards, shorted out the electric fences with wet clothes and ran. Out of the 500 of them, only 11 survived. Eleven.
The next story was about three men that escaped from the camp. They too knew that they weren't going to live long in the camp so they might as well try to escape. They escaped with two bikes. If you do the math, that's not quite enough bikes. But those three men road those two bikes from Mauthausen to Poland. They all survived the journey.
It also blew my mind learning about some of the guards stories. One particular guard, after the end of WWII, he ripped out all the evidence in his journal about the camp and got rid of it. It wasn't until the 70s that he got caught and was sentenced to prison. It came out that he had murdered 51 specific named people, but he was responsible for over 1,500 gassings in the gas chamber. Absolutely horrible. I just don't understand.
It was really moving to see all the memorials, graves, flowers, and plaques for the people that lost their lives there. The camp was hard to see but we all had a sense of reverence about us after we left. Life is a precious gift, and we all could use a reminder.
After Mauthausen, we headed to Hallstatt. Hallstatt is a little village that was built on the side of a mountain by a lake. It hasn't expanded because there is literally no room to expand. It is a mining village with the oldest salt mines in the world, over 7000 years old. (which we will be going in tomorrow.)
We had to go through SO MANY tunnels through mountains to get to Hallstatt. It was a little scary on a huge tour bus but our bus driver was a champion and made it through. There was one point were he had to turn a very tight turn and the stop sign was less than an inch away from our bus, but he seemed to make it work. Haha! Champion.
The beauty of Hallstatt totally overtook all of us, we were all blown away. It's so hard to describe, it's definitely a village that everybody needs to see in your lifetime because I've never been to any place like it. The quaint little houses, the huge, steep, green, mountains, the clear lake, the old churches, just everything. It is so beautiful. Even our hotel view is absolutely beautiful.
When we had checked into our hotel, Lizzy, Delanie, Brock and I hurried out to explore Hallstatt. We started walking down the road and Brock noticed that they had boats shaped like Swans that you could rent for half an hour to an hour for just a few Euros... We had to do it. There were pedals in the swan for the two people in the front seat (Brock and I) and Lizzy and Delanie got to enjoy the view from the back. It was so fun! I'm sure my quads are going to be stiff tomorrow, but it was completely worth it to get a view on Hallstatt from the lake. So beautiful.
After that, we explored more. The cute buildings, shops and stores were so fun to look at and through. It was starting to be later in the day so all the churches and museums were closing but we still enjoyed looking around. We stopped to eat at one of the restaurants right next to the lake. It was expensive but it was so yummy! Below is a picture of our food (Deer, Fish, Schnitzel, and ... unknown. We still don't know what Lizzy's was.)
We walked up and down Hallstatt, visiting church sites, climbing SO MANY stairs (once again, my quads though) and taking in the views. There were multiple times that all four of us were staring into the lake and mountains in silence. We would do it for 15 minutes or so then go to the next sight. But there was definitely a lot of feeling of awe between us. This place is so incredible.
I'm back at the hotel now, and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. I'm excited to explore Hallstatt even more, and to be back down a mine. (yay for claustrophobia! Ha! Just kidding, I'm sure it'll be fine).
I'm loving this!!
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