“Nie Wieder”

“Arbeit macht frei”

Any takers? No? It´s German. It means “Work brings freedom,” and it is spelled out in iron across the gate leading into Dachau Concentration Camp, the first concentration camp set up by Hitler in Germany, and the only camp to exsist throughout all twelve years of the dictator´s reign. Today, it is junxtaposed with other words, deeply inscribed in stone on the oposing side of the camp: NIE WIEDER – NEVER FORGET. It´s both a reminder and a command to those of us who have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of history, not be punished by them.

Dachau has come to stand for all of the suffereing caused by the Nazis from 1933-1945.  A quarter of a million people from 34 different countries suffered there – that is approximately the amount of people it would take to fill Raleigh´s RBC Center 13 times over.  People were starved, shot for no reason, forced into sucide, tortured, and worked to death because they were born a little darker, or thought a little differently than everyone else. 

I know, however, that I am not telling you anything you didn´t know before, because this is the type of thing that we are all taught in school, or watch on the Hstory Channel.  But here is what I can promise you – no amount of text or statistic can ever compare to breathing in the oxygen inside of a gas chamber and then walking across a building into a crematorium.  Today, my visit to Dachau reminded me that something as regular and simple as a pulse may be the greatest thing to be thankful for.

And somewhere, buried deep down within that thought, is redemption.  Sixty-five years ago, Dachau was one of the darkest places in the entire world.  Today, however, the sun was shining brightly across the grounds.  Yards people would have been shot for walking on are now a deep shade of Christmas-tree green, and is decorated with a variety of multi-colored flowers.  Monuments have been erected where executions once took place.  Clouds blotched the sky a perfect white, but did not begin to hide the vast blue sky that lay behind them.  Dachau – one of the most horrific places in the worlds history – is oddly very beautiful.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing of all, however, are the hearts that visit the place.  All traces of mal-intent have vanished.  Today, hundreds of people flock to Dachau to see what they have heard about.  And all of them, myself included, leave different than from when they arrived.  These people, willing to learn – willing to remember, are what beautifies the place the most.  And all of it – the people, the flowers, the sunshine, the sky – it all works together to one purpose – one goal.  To show people that as evil a place as the world can sometimes be, with the right intentions, evil can be transformed.  It can be learned from.  This is not to say that any amount of visitors or flowers can ever make up for the tragedies committed at Dachau – but it does show that good can win.

If my experience today at Dachau has taught me anything, it´s this:

                  Where beauty uncovers what tragedy´s stolen-                          

                  Where memory illuminates what ignorance hid-

                  Where brokenness reveals what our pride closed our eyes to-

                                     It´s there we find hope for tomorrow.

                                     NIE WIEDER.

 

The hills are alive with the sound of music…

Wow, so Vienna is pretty amazing.  I now understand why Captain von Trapp was so upset about leaving.  It has really blown my expectations away.  The more I blog, the more I realize how much of my trip I leave out – like I hardly talked about Roma at all, and it was astounding in every way. But this is cool because it means Ill still have lots of stories to tell when I get back.  But here are a few pictures.  A couple from Venice, there is the Sistine Chapel, and Michalangelo´s Pieta, and the two at the bottom are Sigmund Freud´s nameplate at his office, and lastly Beethoven´s grave, and he was a really great Dog (all his movies were so good) so I´m glad he got such a nice place of burial.

 

 

“The last time I saw your father we were in the library. He was very close to tracking down the Knight’s tomb. I’ve never seen him so excited. He was as giddy as a schoolboy.”

“Who, Atilla The Professor? He was never giddy, even when he was a schoolboy.” – Oh, come on! You don´t know what I´m talking about?  It´s Indiana Jones, brotha.  Remember? Dr. Jones goes to Venice with his father´s diary, trying to find his dad, whose life´s goal was to track down the cup of Christ?  Well, hopefully you do remember the brilliant scenes in which Indy searches beneath a church for clues to finding the grail, because then you will be able to appreciate that I WENT TO THAT CHURCH!

Why was I so excited about that?  I just left Venezia, one of the world´s most renown cities, and I´m excited about one measley Indiana Jones reference.  Come on, Rafferty, that´s pathetic.  Well lets talk for a moment about Venice.

First things first, VENICE IS THE WORST CITY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD TO GO TO…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if you are single.

Seriously, though.  If you have never been, eveything you have always imagined it to be… that is exactly how it is.  At least for the most part.  I heard a lot of people say it was dirty, and the water was gross, but this is not true.  It may not be crystal blue, but it is certainly a lot nicer than Falls Lake.  I would show you pictures, but I dont have access to a USB port in this Viennese internet cafe that I am in.  So, sorry.  They are coming as fast I can get them up. 

But Venice really is almost everything you have ever imagined that it was.  So I won´t bore you much with what you already know.  It´s uber-romantic.  Everyone there is either deeply in love or trying to peddle off fake prada and coach bags to the couples in love, or occasionally you might find an American backpacker who is lost somewhere in the dense, complicated, labyrinth they call Venice.

That is one thing you dont expect about Venice.  You will spend at least 94.637% of your time their lost, but it is surely the best city in the world to be lost in.  There are no street names, and there are yellow signs on the building walls trying to guide people to the city´s most famous areas.  So one might view high up on a wall:

                                                                        Per S. Marco ———>

                                                 <———-Per S. Marco

It is very interesting.  But you are in Venice, so who really cares.  Oh, and trying to utilize a map in Venice is as futile as an effort as running an Apollo mission to the moon using a compass and two-way walkie talkies.  Not happnin´bro.

Ok, but seriously.  Venice will meet your every expectation if youve never gone and you decide to go.  I know that the sky is the same everywhere, but there is some about a Venetian sky that really draws people back.  It´s an amazing place.  But ok, I have to go.  I joined the Vienna Boy´s Choir, and we have an event in just a few minutes.  I have the lead solo on Edelweiss, and I need to work on my best Captain von Trapp impersonation. 

I´ll try and holler at ya´ll (ps everyone here makes fun of yall quite a bit – but ill have the austrians saying it in no time – its gonna hit europe like the plauge) a little later today.

PEACE OUT

Rafferty

                                                                      

                                          

 

Sorry for the delay in posting, but you probably wont hear from me unitl sometime tomorrow.  Venice is amazing, but expensive.  Talk to you all tomorrow.

 

Rafferty

When in Rome don’t do as the Roman’s do…

Because if you do, then you will miss out on some of the most incredible, jaw-dropping, astounding (I just used three adjectives that all mean pretty much the same thing – probably not needed) things that you have ever witnessed. This is a great place to be a tourist. And can I also just say – wow, and I thought I ate a lot of pizza at home!

Anyway, I don’t really want to go into all of the things I have done and seen here already. I will tell you that the Roman Forum and the Colosseum are infinitely greater to behold in person. But standing there, looking over the edge of the wall in the Colosseum, it took every once of energy for me to not jump into the middle, pull a sword of my shirt, hurl it at a group of tourists screaming, ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!!!! But I didn’t. I simply stood incredulous, witnessing Roma’s greatest attraction, almost as old as Jesus. That is outrageous. Also, I’d like to let everyone know that I got really lost last night, and I didnt have a map, and I didn’t know where my hostel was, but I got so lost that I actually got to see the Pope. Thats pretty rad, wouldn’t you say. One hour off the train, and Ive spent one hundred percent of my time in Rome lost, and I already ran into Benedict XVI. Freakin’ awesome.

Anyways, here are a few pictures from my trip until now that I havent put up yet….

And the ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED thing was from Gladiator. Some of you don’t know this movie. Sinful.

Oh, and one more thing. I want to go ahead and publicly admit that although its kind of nice to away from most of you goonies, I have the greatest mother in the entire world, and I miss her very, very much….

All Roads lead to Roma….

This is it.  I’m very excited.  Probably the most powerful city of all time is only a few hours away, and to me, walking where Julius Caesar walked is about the coolest thing imaginable.  So I have little left to say.  Now, I can only hope for good weather.  Here are some pictures from Florence, and perhaps a few more from my trip…

ok, maybe not.  The computer I am on in running windows 98.  but hey, whats a decade between friends…

check back in a few hours for more pics…

What the Something Was…

So… after my four day, four city tour of Switzerland, the most expensive city in the world, I have safely arrived in Florence, the city of eternal rain.  Hopefully, it will clear up sometime soon.  But Ill let you know more about Florence later, I wanted to take a second to talk about my overall experience in Switzerland, not merely the sweet canyoning experience in Interlaken.

First, a brief overview of the cities.

Bern was by far the nicest city I have visited on my trip.  As it turned out, Switzerland just keeps its cities in perfect conditions.  It is difficult to find any trash at all, and if you do, it is gauranteed it was thrown down within the last couple of hours.  I experienced my first Swiss chocolate in Bern, an experience that Christine, as well as the other ultra-chocolate-consumers of the world should be VERY jealous of.  I also got to see a huge fountain of an Ogre (like a giant, not like Shrek) eating babies.  Yeah… the Swiss are pretty weird.

Interlaken was awesome… quiet, small, with lots of adventurers (see previous post for my canyoning experience).

Lucern proved to be an awesome day trip, allowing me to see Chapel Bridge (Europe’s oldest wooden bridge – 14th century), the famous watertower that was also used as a prison and torture chamber, and perhaps my favorite stop was the Lion Monument, aka, the Dyin’ Lion of Lucern.  If you aren’t up to date on your French History, before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were captured and beheaded, they escaped from a castle, almost making it out of the country.  When they left in secret, however, the king left hundreds of Swiss gaurds to defend the castle, all of whom were massacred by the Parisian mob trying to kill the king.  The lion was carved out of stone to commemorate those Swiss gaurds.  Pretty cool, eh? (Speaking of “eh” I’m pretty sure that Canadians are trying to take over the world via breeding.  THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!!) (And hey, it seems to ahve worked for the Irish). 

Also, I took the world’s steepest cogwheel train up to the top of Mt. Pilatus, and had the greatest cup of hot chocolate in the world (thanks to the recommendation of my roomate, Colt (I bet the Delts would love that hot chocolate, too, right Heimbecker?)).

I finished my trip in Zurich, another beautiful, wellkept banking city, busy with people, yet full of history.  The rivers there are beautiful, and you always know what time it is because there are 19,762 or so in the city.  Ok, I made that number up, but they are everywhere, and they do have the clock with the largest face in Europe.

The one constant throughout everywhere I traveled in Switzerland was the Alps.  As soon as I approached them on the train from Barcelona, I knew they were doing something inside me.  What the something was, though, I wasn’t entirely sure of.  With a few days to reflect though, I think that my experience in the Alps is a pretty good reflection of my overall experience traveling solo.  “Let me ’splain… no… dere is too much… let me sum up…” Here is the bottom line: I am very, very small.

In view of the alps, it is easy for one to realize how small we really are, especially when coupled with the idea of traveling through some of the world’s largest countries, all having their own, unique cultures.  It reminds me of a sermon Mike preached a while back, noting that noone goes out to the beach, stares out at the horizon, and the waves stoping at their feet, and think, “I’M SO BIG!” Sometimes, a different view of God’s emaculate creation can begin to put our lives into a grander perspective. 

And that is the crazy thing about it all.  Realizing the smallness of life does not mean it has less meaning; rather, it enables us to realize that we were designed to fit into much greater story than our own.  You and I are only two of more than six billion people in the world.  All we can hope to do is dive, without reserve, into the bigger story, and see what affect we might be able to have on its plot.  It becomes more and more clear to me that the glory of God is all around us, regardless of our geography.  The Alps don’t speak any higher of God’s glory than does Wrightsville Beach.  The Alps sometimes just make it a little more obvious.  And that is the coolest part.  If all things have an equal opportunity to reflect God’s glory, whether it be a beach in North Carolina or a Canyon in Lucerne, it means that the most incredible sunset over the Alps reveals God’s glory no greater than we can. 

 

From Florence,

Rafferty

 

Rocks Don’t Bend: Canyoning in Interlaken, Switzerland

So it has been quite a while since my last post, and for that I apologize. I’ll try not to let it happen again, it’s just that computers run about a dollar for four or five minutes. Switzerland, however, makes up for its outrageous prices with incredibly beautiful landscapes and overly friendly locals. Right now, I am writing from Zurich, but before this I spent time in Bern, Luzern, and Interlaken. Within the next day or so, or maybe in just a bit, I will try and write a post detailing the beauty of some of these places, and attempt to elucidate the things that I have been learning so far. But for now… let’s talk about Interlaken.

Interlaken is one of the adventure sport capitals of the world, so any visit without doing something extreem is a wasted visit. It would be comparable to visting Vegas without having your toss at Roulette or your pull on the slots. This is problamatic for me, however, as the thought of riding the Scooby Doo rollar coaster makes me want to curl up in a fetal position and cry. But at the same time, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I didn’t travel half way around the world to completely wus out when the opportunity came to let my adrenaline run free.

For the last couple of years rivers have made me nervous due to pretty scary situation with me and my little brother. So I figured that now was as good a time as any to get back into the river, this time with no raft, only a wetsuit, a life jacket, and a six foot seven, 260 pound Swiss guide named Sebastian. They call it Canyoning. Its where about a dozen kids with no real amount of sense follow a couple guides into a canyon, and follw the canyon down the river. It involves repelling down rock faces, sliding over white water rapids, jumping off thirty foot waterfalls, and praying that there arn’t any flash floods. (I learned on the way out that 21 people died Canyoning in the same river ten years ago because of heavy rains). So you can imagine my level of comfort as we watched the gray clouds roll in toward us and began to hear the pings of rain drops off our shiny yellow helmets.

Three hours after the first jump, however, we all found our way back to the vans, surviving with only one Florida fellow’s dislocated shoulder. It was absolutely one of the most things I have ever done. There’s something about a Guide pointing to a place in whitewater twenty five feet below you, telling you not jump too short (as the waterfall will suck you under) or too far left (as there is big rock below, and rocks don’t bend). Oh, and did I mention you had to land on your back beacuse the water is only about four feet deep….

Awake is the New Sleep, So Wake Up…

BBBBBAAARRRRCCCEEEELLLLLLOONNAAAAAAA!!!!

Just image me yelling that in a very terrible, rather sterotypical spanish accent and you´ll get the full effect.  Well, I hope everything is going well back in las Estados Unidos.  Things are absolutely awesome here.  Barcelona is a really cool place to hang, and it has given me a chance to brush up on my spanish.  The architecture in the city is incredible.  Everywhere you walk there is a really strange, yet awesome looking building.  I´m a little down that I don´t know more about Spanish history, because I feel like that would allow me to appreciate the city a little bit more.

I was able, though, to stop by the Museo de Picasso, which was really incredible.  The museum has most of his work, and organized it chronologically.  It was really beautiful.  I stole one of the small ones from the wall, but I don´t think anyone will notice.  It´ll look great in my bathroom at home (matches the color). 

Here is the thin about.  People take naps after work, and don´t eat dinner until 10:00.  Then they go to bars, and then clubs.  And nobody leaves until at least 4:00.  I did my best to experience their culture (minus the nap) and it was insane.  Pretty much all day was crazy.  I didn´t take the metro as much as I should have, and ended up walkin all over the place.  When I walked through Parc Guell some Dutch girls ran over to me and asked to have their picture taken with me.  I think they thought I was Ricky Martin.  It happens from time to time.

Parc Guell, by the way, was really cool.  It was designed by the city´s most famous architecht, Antoni Gaudi.  As Cribbs put it, it looks like it was designed by the American Theodor Geisel, more popularly known as Dr. Seuss (who, by the way was an active political cartoonist during World War II – you should check out if stuff if you never have).

Another funny thin thing that happened to me: I met up with a bunch of girls, and they asked me to go to a tapas bar with them.  Tapas bars are just bars that serve several different little appetizer type things.  It was loud when they asked me though, so I mistook “Tapas Bar” for a similar sounding place.  If only the look on my face had been immortalized with a picture.  I bet it was hilarious.  I was confused.  I just said, “Ummm… thanks, but I´m not really in to that.”  “Tapas?,” they responded.  The funny look dissolved.  I forced a laugh, “Ha, I´m just kidding, I love tapas.  Who in their right mind doesn´t love tapas!  What are we waiting on, lets go…”

Quite an experience.

I will miss Barcelona, but Mt Pilatus and a cup of hot chocolate are calling my name.  So to Switzerland I go…

Hope to hear from you all soon,

Raff

 

Spain in more than 94% Catholic.  That´s more than even Ireland… I thought the sign was cool…

O-LE O-LE O-LE O-LE, OOOLE, OOOLE…