The Week in Review

Woooooo boy I’m tired.  Let’s see, since my last blog post….

Yoga: So my friend Laura and I finished sessions 2 and 3 of our 3-session yoga course.  The way it works is that we pay 20 euro for any 3 courses in one week that we want.  The first one was Hot Yoga, which was basically putting us in a Sauna and torturing us for 2 hours while we sweat our lives away.  Hot Yoga was definitely the most intense, but also the most refreshing.  After losing all that sweat and then rehydrating with fresh water and tea, it was amazing how new and vibrant my body felt!  Anyways, on Thursday night we took a pilates course, which in my opinion was the easiest for the two of us, who both play sports at our respective colleges.  Since it was a lot like the core work we have to do, I liked this session the best.  And here comes the most interesting one: Pranayama and Meditation.  OH, MY, GOD.  This was SO WEIRD.  Basically we started out with all of these breathing exercises, which quickly escalated into what I can only describe as a yoga orgy, where everyone would breathe in and out REALLY FAST and very loudly, and chant and yell as they rolled their stomachs (so awkward).  We even had to sit in the Buddha pose, cross legged with our hands in an “OK” sign on our knees, and chant, “OOOOHHHHHMMMMM” in unison.  The best part was the twenty minutes at the end, where we were all made to lie on our backs in the total darkness listening to this strange music while the instructor spoke to us in soft French.  The only thing I remember is at the end, my friend Laura tapping me frantically on the shoulder, hissing, “Ohmygod Becky I have to PEEEEE soo badly but everyone is asleep and YOU ARE SNORING for God’s sake!!!” Woops, my bad J (I would be embarrassed but sadly this is not the first time I have fallen asleep in public and started snoring loudly).

So on Saturday after Yoga I went and took advantage of all of the sales happening, by finding a nice brown leather jacket marked down to 20 euro from 70 euro.  Thank you, thank you very much.

In the evening I cooked an “authentic” Chinese meal for my host family, meaning I made shrimp and vegetable fried rice, and garlic string beans.  I think they went over very well, actually (other than the fact I made a HUGE mess in the kitchen, woops).  We all ate dinner as a family, which was pretty special because normally it’s just me and my host mom.  But it was fun!  My host parents are so funny when they are together; it’s like watching a sitcom when I eat with them.  They’re two little elderly people who squabble in rapid French, until the wife ends up smacking the husband across the head and he shrinks in his seat and mumbles the equivalent of, “yes dear…” haha classic!

At night my friend Xi and I went to the Opera to listen to this piano-opera singer duet.  So I didn’t understand a word of it, but it was so moving and absolutely beautiful.  And I didn’t fall asleep, win!

Yesterday was a much more somber excursion.  The Syracuse group traveled North deeper into the Alsace region (where we had this fantastic lunch of roasted duck, fresh vegetables, house-made apple juice, and this dessert with hot apple pie, melt-in-your-mouth meringue, fresh cold strawberry ice cream, and lots of sweet cream sauce, OMG) to visit Strutthof, one of the WWII concentration camps in Northern France.  This particular camp was a work camp rather than an extermination camp, which means that it consisted mostly of “able-bodied” men to create all sorts of supplies for the Axis Powers during the war.  Further, rather than being a camp with prisoners based on ethnicity or race (when most people think of concentration camps, they think of Jews), this camp was for the political resistance members from all over the region.

The experience was quite shocking.  We were given a tour of the camp by one of the expert professors at Syracuse, who showed us everything from the barracks to the torture and gas chambers to the ovens.  It was chilling to see this camp, surrounded by barb wire, place in the middle of this beautiful forest surrounding on such a clear and sunny day.  And it is totally grotesque to think of how hyper-logical (in a twisted sense) that these camps worked.  Really, it was an economic network for the war.  I mean, I learned how the Nazis had everything scientifically calculated and accounted for to the T.  When they burned their victims in the oven, they would use the heat energy to sustain the camp- how much more twisted can you get?  And underground there was this man-made labyrinth, which was unimaginably huge, and suspected to be either a place to hide archives or an underground factory (to prevent from being destroyed during bombing).  It was a genius yet barbaric operation, if you will.  And it was horrible and emotionally draining just being there.  I am so grateful to have went, and to have had the experience when I am old enough to actually understand and appreciate it as much as I do (to think that we read Diary of Anne Frank when I was eleven, and probably didn’t understand the magnitude).  I mean, I definitely still don’t think I will ever full comprehend the horrors of what happened; I don’t know if anyone ever will, but at the experience, at least, left a huge imprint on my mind.

On a slightly less somber-note, this is my last week in Strasbourg!  We have a few wrap-up activities planned for this week (farewell dinners, etc) before we all head our separate ways.  I will be heading to Paris immediately after this to meet up with my family; can’t wait to see them!!!!