Vitamin D

There are very few things that can top just sitting in the sun.

Feeling its warmth

and its radiance.

I think today I'll just have a seat under the sun.

Sometimes it's nice to just simply relax.

Jewish Memorials

*A note in advance: This is a heavy post. It weighs heavily on the emotions and contains subject matter from a very hard and sad time in European history. Read at your discretion.

I have had a chance to visit two Jewish memorials: one in Berlin and another in Budapest. The Holocaust is something that is rarely talked about in Europe, yet they don't ignore the fact that it happened. Memorials stand everywhere throughout Europe in memory of the innocent victims of this tragedy. 

The first memorial I went to was in Berlin. It has a name but no description, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The name of the architect that created it, Peter Eisenman. He gives no insight into what it means. He leaves that up to us.

This monument takes up an entire block in Berlin and is simply just large blocks of concrete arranged in rows and columns. Visitors are welcome to walk through and choose any path they would like. As I started my journey in, I could easily see where I was going and could make decisions as to what path I wanted to take. As I progressed deeper into the monument, the concrete blocks grew taller and taller.

They were easily twice as tall as me and before I knew it, I couldn't see much and it got much darker. Not only that, my two friends that I was with decided to take different paths and were not seen again until we exited the monument. Essentially, I could see in front of me and I could here the voices of others echoing through the corridors. 

For me, this was a representation of the Jews being taken to the gas chambers or other modes of execution. They were quickly separated from loved ones knowing their fate that awaited. It was shocking to experience even such a minuscule  part of that.

There is a museum that is at one end of the monument that tells the stories of some of the victims. Some survivors. Some taken by the events. The most difficult room to enter had several letters to family members or pages from journals/diaries describing the events. Their feelings they expressed we so tangible and real. Fear. Distress. Sadness. Hopelessness. Despair. Terror. 

The second memorial I went to was by accident. It is placed right along the Danube in Budapest and we just happened to stumble upon it. The memorial is titled Shoes on the Danube Promenade. 

This is one of the sites where the Jews from Budapest were taken, shot and then dumped into the river. This was the work of the Arrow Cross Militiamen. Shoes were first removed before execution because they were valuable possessions. The saddest part of this monument was seeing the different kinds of shoes from male to female and toddler to adult. The only criteria for execution was to have some kind of association with the Jewish faith.

The most important thing that these memorials do for me is to serve as a voice of warning. Nothing like this should ever happen. It's hard enough to think to myself "how could something as horrid as this even happen?" This is why we can not take anything for granted and we should always fight for the things in this world that are good and uplifting. The fact is, something like this could happen again. It is a disgusting and revolting thought but I believe that there is enough good in this world that would never allow this kind of evil to happen again. 

Goodnight, Budapest

I took some advice from a friend to see the city of Budapest at night. The only problem is that the night was far too short. It was beyond beautiful. I was completely captivated by these amazing scenes.

Fisherman's Bastian

Parliament

Chain Bridge and Imperial Palace/Buda Castle

Imperial Palace

 Chain Bridge

It was totally worth going here just to see this. Fortunately, I was there for two days and got to see a lot of other things during the day. Unfortunately, I only had one night, but was so happy to be able to capture these. If you have ever thought about going to Budapest, stop thinking and just go. You'll never regret it. Ever. 

An interesting thing about my experience in Budapest. As the train was arriving, we drove through a residential area, which I could have sworn was straight from Russia. The buildings, streets, cars, everything reminded me of Samara, Russia (Don't tell the Hungarians I said this. Apparently, they don't like Russians very much). It was nice to see that and have the flood of memories come back to me from my mission. I went into mission mode and just wanted to speak Russian with everyone. Interestingly, I ran into a few Russian speakers. One restaurant we went to was serving Russian food! Pirogi (Пироги)! They were delicious. And their hot chocolate is to die for. Not Russian, but absolutely amazing. Life changing, in fact. Also, randomly, a girl in our hostel spoke Russian. She is from St. Petersburg, but lived in Holland for 14 years and is now going to school in England. 

Chain Bridge and Parliament from Buda Castle

It amazes me that Budapest is only a few hours away by train from Vienna, yet their culture is completely different and the language isn't closely related. This week, I'm headed to Prague, which is also a new language and culture. Amazing how that works here in Europe. I really like it.

The Friendly Faces at Audi

What time is it? 

Why can't I get any sleep? 

What is keeping me up?

Oh wait! That's right.

We're headed to Ingolstadt in the morning...

When does our train leave?

obviously not soon enough...

Can we just leave now?

Maybe I'll just go ahead and they can catch up.

Is it time yet?

. : . : .

It's 6am! I'm awake. Let's go!

We have a 6:50 train to catch...

to Ingolstadt

We board our train.

Ticket...check.

Camera...check.

Excitement...

double check! Maybe a little too much.

Commence the longest forty minutes in history...

. : . : . : .

Finally, arrival...

in Ingolstadt

What's that off in the distance?

*double take

*triple take

That's what I thought.

My eyes do not deceive me.

Trains full of Audis...

Somebody get me on that train.

We take a bus...

and arrive in a new, yet somehow familiar place.

I exit the bus and walk... wait... race to what I see.

My feet aren't even hitting the ground. 

I'm effortlessly floating, gliding.

I am greeted and welcomed by these beautiful faces. 

Friends I have been longing to see.

I am home.

Elder Christofferson

How lucky is this? I come to Vienna for a semester and an Apostle comes over to talk specifically to the Viennese church members. Elder D. Todd Christofferson came to visit this last week and it was a really neat experience. First of all, I didn't have to fight through crowds to see him, talk to him and shake his hand. He quickly was able to make to rounds and see every person in the building that desired to do so and shook everyone's hand. 

As a young adult, I had the opportunity to see him twice. He was at the young adult Family Home Evening where he gave a lovely message about prayer and the importance of consistently doing the small and simple things. Here were a couple of things that particularly stuck out in my mind as I was listening to him.

:: The best kind of prayer is the kind that is led by the Spirit.

:: Mention specific blessings and not just a generic thanks for them all.

It's hard sometimes for me to have my prayers led by the spirit, especially after a long day when my prayers are inevitably led by how tired I am, which then leads to a generic thanking of the many blessings that I received that day. So, basically, Elder Christofferson really nailed my praying patterns and I'm trying to fix that before he finds anything else to get me on. 

Who could not love this man? Seriously.

The next day, we also had a fireside with all of the members in Vienna at which he spoke. He told us about what President Monson asked him to do during his visit. He says that President Monson is very brief and only has a few things that he wants to get across. All the rest is up to his judgment and how the Spirit directs him. 

The first is the importance of marriage. He said that "the women take a risk marrying the men." Well, I guess that no young ladies have been willing to take the risk with me. Maybe someday.

Another is the importance of family. He really stressed doing the small things such as reading the scriptures and praying together. He promised that if we tried to do these with our families, we would create a bond that will sustain us through the hardest time that are sure to come our way. He mentioned Family Home Evening as a great tool to teach and instruct children, as well as a time to simply just spend time with each other. He quoted that "sometimes it's just a family fight that begins and ends with prayer." I thought that was pretty amusing. I'm blessed to have never had that kind of experience with family home evening at my house (Thanks mom and dad!).

He then addressed "What is our message?". This is a tricky question to be asked by people. He came up with the very simple answer of  "Come and see." The best way to learn about anything is to experience it first hand. 

The last thing that President Monson asked him to talk about is the importance of the Holy Ghost. If we are worthy of the Holy Ghost and are sensitive to his promptings, we will always find ourselves on the right path. He mentioned preparing ourselves each Sunday to partake of the sacrament. By preparing ourselves, we are setting ourselves up to receive help and inspiration from the Holy Ghost. Preparation is key to any spiritual guidance and revelation.

Panoramic Vision

There were so many beautiful scenes on our excursion to Germany. I tried to capture them all and was somewhat successful, I think. 

This is Salzburg.

Salzburg was a beautiful city. It was large, but was very quiet. I was expecting to see a lot more people because this is an important city for the composer Mozart and it's where the "hills are alive." I'm excited to come back here near the end of my stay with our entire group. 

View from Neuschwanstein Castle.

This was one of my favorite places. It was away from everything else. A place in it's own secret corner of the world. Surrounded with great mountains and valleys. This is definitely a change of pace from where we were going in the next few days.

This is Frankfurt.

Huge city. Fast paced. Large, sky scraping buildings that were literally touching the clouds that day. There was so much to see and definitely not enough time to do it all. 

This is Berlin.

I was able to walk on the outside of the dome of the Berlinerdom and have a 360 degree view of all of Berlin. It was a fabulous day and my favorite of the big cities we visited. I can't exactly put my finger on why I liked it so much (probably because of the Berlin Philharmonic concert), but it just felt really good to be there. It was clean, bright and beautiful.

Spring Break

This year marked the first time I have had a Spring Break in 9 years. I still can't figure out why BYU doesn't give us a Spring Break because it is the greatest thing ever. Here's just a little glimpse into what I did for Spring Break in Germany.

--Also, you can expect my blog to shift focuses from Vienna to Germany for the next little while. I did so much and it will take a lot of posts to cover.--

The first place in which we (Paige, Teancum and I) arrived was Salzburg. Technically, still in Austria, but not Vienna. We spent the evening there exploring a beautiful castle at the top of a hill. It was a perfect way to spend our Sunday evening and a great beginning to my Spring Break. 

View from the castle

The castle

In the morning, we made our journey to München (Munich). We explored the Deutches Museum, which was massively huge and spent the remainder of the evening wandering, exploring and finding whatever München had to offer.

View from top of Deutches Museum

Church at sunset

The next morning, we got up early and caught a train to Neuschwanstein Castle. There was another amazing castle in addition to the main attraction. The Neuschwanstein Castle is famous because it was used as a model for what we know as the Disney Castle. It was an amazing site to behold. The other castle was Hohenschwangau Castle.

Hohenschwangau Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

We spend nearly the entire day up at those castles. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and it was really nice to see gigantic mountains in the background.

The next day, we headed to Ingolstadt. I was so excited. If you want to know how excited I was, just ask Paige or Teancum. I may have been a little too excited for this part of the trip. We went to Ingolstadt to see the Audi Factory and Museum. I love cars, especially Audis. The museum and tour of the production factory completely made my day. You'll definitely see a post about this.

At the Audi campus

The glorious museum

Our trip then took us to Frankfurt. This place was enormous, compared to where we had been. We went to the Frankfurt Temple and had a lovely time there with other members of the Church. We saw some amazing old church buildings, an airport protest and the city climbing into the clouds.

Must be in Europe. Graffiti. 

Clouds touching the tops of buildings

To top off the trip, we made our way to Berlin. All I can say is heaven on earth. I loved this city the most. It even beats out Ingolstadt, and that is a tough thing to do. This city had the X-factor for me. That was the Berlin Philharmonic. I saw them perform. It was beyond amazing.

Part of Berlin from atop a church

Beautiful night scene