"because nobody wants to put their you-ho in a cold tube"

The title to this blog was what I thought after the veterinarian at the stud stallion center in celle showed us how the artificial vagina was warmed with warm water to make things a little more comfortable during an artificial insemination semen collection. It was my first time to watch this event live and in person. She actually asked one of us to volunteer to do it and Sierra got elected. All of this happened at the end of our wonderful tour of the training facilities and stables. I was really impressed on how this was a government owned operation and how orderly and advanced everything was. I dont know much about horses, coming from the city, so i was eager to experience, first-hand, things ive only heard about from other people. one of my friend's little brother competes nationally in dressage (ie, olympic try-outs and what-not) and he trained a few summers in germany and had two horses from germany so i kept comparing andy in my mind to the young boys who worked at the facility.

then we had a lovely little tour of celle, which is a very charming town with tons of history! i was so surprised to see buildings built as late as the 1600s that were still occupied by shops and in good condition today. it was really amazing. plus our tour guide was a very cute little lady. btw, to everyone reading this blog: celle is a beautiful city and you must visit it. that was what our tour guide asked us to share with everyone.

we headed to bergen belsen memorial afterwards. it was a very sobering experience. it was hard for me to imagine how many terrible things had been committed to humans in the short 5 years it was a concentration camp.the thing that made the biggest impression on me was the british footage from shortly after the camp was liberated. there was real footage of the mass burial of all the bodies from the camp and yea....my mind still cant come to terms with all the feelings running through my soul and body. the mass graves were also such a sight to see. there were multiple mounds were i saw plaques of 1500 bodies buried. it was...something that words just cant explain.

then we headed back to TiHo to have our welcome bbq with all of us and our hosts. the food was wonderful and we all got to have great conversations (at least, in my opinion).
tomorrow we have lots of lectures and then the tiho sportfest to go to. gotta get some rest now!