Wait, we're going how far? I signed up for this?

So on with the whirlwind European tour! For our last day in Amsterdam, we decided to do a bicycle tour of the area around Amsterdam. It was a whole lot of fun. We rode along one of the rivers that supplies the canals of Amsterdam until we had cleared the city lines, and once outside did a couple things. First off, we visited a cheese and clog (wooden shoe) factory. These showed the ways that both the cheese and shoes we traditionally made. It also gave us a brief history and purpose of the wooden shoes beyond just being souvenirs that foreigners buy in the Netherlands. After that, we biked through some of the Amsterdam parks and along the houseboat neighborhood. These are a collection of old shipping boats that have been renovated to become residences for the people of the city. A few have been drastically changed from their original form, with one even resembling a classic American diner from the 1950’s! Oh by the way, the bike ride was 35 km…oops. Sometimes I wish I was in better shape.

The next day, we trained to Hannover to start our second week of the program. This occurs all in Hannover, and we are staying with some of the German vet students here. Our first day of the program, we traveled to Celle State Stallion Testing Center. This is a government led facility that only tests nearly 50 horses a year, then keeps at most 6 per year. These stallions are then kept to help create a breeding program for top-notch horses in the state of Lower Saxony. Mainly created for development of efficient agriculture and war horses, these facilities are still fantastic and are symbol of training and development.

Next we visited the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. This is most famously where Anne Frank passed away, but is also a tribute to the memorial of the thousands upon thousands of lives lost during the Holocaust and WWII. With accounts of survivors and information on those who were not as fortunate, it shone light on one of the darkest times of the history. Besides monuments to the Jews lost in the Holocaust, there were also monuments to the many Polish and Italian soldiers also kept at Bergen-Belsen, a work camp. For all the pictures and stories told, nothing really compares to visiting one of those horrendous places.

We finished up the day with a BBQ out with our host students and the professors. With the delicious food and generous hospitality, this looks like it is going to be a great stay!