This is my own picture, taken at a beautiful castle outside of Prague!! I have been so busy, I have so much to tell everyone!!

I'll start with today:

Today we travelled an hour out of Prague on a train that was very nice and cost two dollars to a little town that I can't even say let alone write :P It was such a nice journey, I just stared out the window at all these beautiful houses by the river with all their gorgeous flowers and lush grass and thought to myself, I want to stay here forever! I want a little house by the river with flowers in the window and a big green backyard just by Prague. Wouldn't that be lovely?! Our first stop was an natural underground cave. It was amazing!! We got to see all these stagmites and staglites, human and animal bones and the remnants of what used to be a fradulent money workshop from way back when! Definetely an interesting experience!! I am loading the photos on to facebook right now so have a look at them =)

After that we went to another little unwritable town which has the most famous castle in all of the Czech Republic, and was home to King Charles the Fourth, who charles bridge, charles square, and charles uni are all named after =) It was stunning! Just stunning =) Thats what today's picture is of. We had a guided tour which cost 8 dollars (unbelievable!) They had a lot of original 15th century furnitre and artifacts, blew me away! There was even a man playing an old musical instrument looking like a cross between a guitar and a eukelale. Set the seen rather nicely! I took a lot of pictures of the outside, we weren't allowed to take them inside, which are also going up on facebook!

Afterward we enjoyed a stroll through all the local shops. I bought a little compact mirror with jewels on it for three dollars, a poster of prague for 7.50 and a pair of little earrings for 10. I only bought them because they were in the shape of little love hearts, pink and shiny, but apparently I managed to get an absolute bargain because they are swarovski crystal. Don't know what that means but I like them!! I'm pretty exhausted and haven't done any work this weekend, but I'm glad I got out of the dorm room and did some sight seeing (even if it wasn't in prague!)

Aside from today's trip not much is news! I am going to write about my trip to Terezin though, and try not to cry..

WARNING: CONTAINS UPSETTING INFORMATION

A few days ago I went to Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp a little out of prague. It was one of the most moving expereinces I have ever had in my life, and even writing now makes my eyes well up. When we got to the site the first thing we saw was a large cemetery with a giant crucifix and a giant star of david. These graves represent the thosands and thousands of people who died at terezin, and it was a very confronting thing to see straight up. We had a guided tour of the camp, which was good because then we understood the significance of everything. After we got our tickets were were herded into a large outdoor area, which we were told was where all the new prisoners would line up to be registered. We walked in to the very rooms these people did, touched the very desk a nazi signed them in from and proceded into the actual camp. The first palce we went was to one ofthe holding rooms. At first sight you think well this isn't so bad it had the original three storey bunk beds, a table, a snk and a toilet. Then we were told that they had no blankets, no pillows, no sunlight. 200 people were in this tiny room. Less than 30cm allocated for each. I burst into tears and didnt stop crying from then on..

After this room, we were taken into a much smaller room, so small you had to crouch to make it through the door. This room had no beds, nothing. Just empty. Here was the room for Jewish men. They put 70 men in this tiny little room, and they woud be made to stand for 14 hours a day, facing the wall, not talking. The room had no toilet, the 70 men just had to use one corner of the room continually. At night they would have to sleep on top of one another, and many would die during the night, meaning on many days you would wake up and have a dead body on top of you or below you.The basically stood there all day waiting to die. Standing there as seh was telling this, youcould just feel this overwhelming presence, I don't know how else to describe it. Here I was my feet exactly where they had stood.

Next we walked through solitary confinement. It was just terrible. These were literally death rooms. You just waited to die. No one lasted more than four years. These rooms were generally for the 'elite' high profile priosners of sorts that they wanted to humiliate and kill.

After that iw was on to a room where the deloused everyone and everyone showered. Even though these were not gas chambers, she explained how they worked and how the poeple woud die. Tears were streaming down my face uncontrollably the whole time.

The next place was an underground tunnel network the nazi's used to escape. It was a terrible suffocating feeling being in these tunnels. I just wanted to get out to the other side. Once I did, I wanted to just go and run back through the tunnel and out of that place. We were now standing at a firing range, where the nazis would stand on cement crosses and shoot people. There was also a gallow which was just horrific.

Following this we went and watched a movie about the camp. it included a propaganda movie from when he shipped 50000 of the 60000 people off to be killed at auswitz and kept ten thousand to 'star' in a movie designed to make the camp look like a happy little village made for the jews. In between clips from this they shoiwed paintings from the surviviors and rattled off deployments of people " AC 1000 people 3 survivors, AQ 1000 people no survivors" etc. 15000 children were held in terezin. 263 survived.

I don't want to write any more because its upsetting me a lot. I just don't understand how people could be so inhumane. It was difficult experience, but very thought provoking too.

I think that's all for now!

Love you all very much! Loving life!!

xoxox Jessie