Germany Trip, last installment, Weimar

After the conference, I headed about 15 minutes east on the train to the town of Weimar. I got off the train and basically had to find somewhere to stay and find my way around the town, since I hadn't really actually planned on visiting this town. I ended up getting the last bed in the cheapest hostel in town. It was great since it was right in the centre of town and I ended up in this nice 4 bed room. I really just needed somewhere to sleep so it was perfect. I spent the day wandering around (following the walking tour in my Lonely Planet book) and exploring. Weimar has this great park right in the middle of town, so I spent some time wandering around there. Plus it is a town that seemed to be the centre of the music and intellectual scene in Germany for a while, so big names like Goethe, and Bach were there for a time. You can walk by the front of Bach's house (it is now a car park) and Goethe's house (which is now an actual museum).

My second day in Weimar I went to Buchenwald which is the concentration camp about 20 minutes north of Weimar. This time, I took myself on my own tour. It was really good. I showed up when it first opened so I was pretty much the only person there, which was kindof creepy but good because I don't like being in museums and stuff with big crowds of people. It was a beautiful day which is a little weird when you are walking around a place like this. I'm glad I went on the tour in Berlin because I knew what to look for here. And each camp sort of had things set up that the other did not so I think that with the two camps I got a pretty good feel of how these camps were set up. I'm really glad I did these tours, this is something that I've been meaning to do for a while so I'm really glad I got a chance to go this trip. There are a couple other ones I would like to see but that will have to be on another trip.

So, that was pretty much my trip. I left Weimar pretty early on the 31st to get back to Frankfurt. I hung out for a while in the airport and bought an Asterix book in German to practice. I arrived in Glasgow at 9 and decided that I really was going to try and catch the last train so had to catch a cab from Glasgow Prestwick to downtown Glasgow for 50 pounds. Then the train to Dundee for 10 pounds. I missed the last bus from Dundee to my town so had to get another cab for 25 pounds. So, that last leg of my journey cost more than my plane tickets to Germany. Crazy.

So, to recap.
Hours spent....
On airplanes: 3.5
In airports: 15
On trains: 11
number of Bratwurst consumed: 5
number of cities visited: Glasgow, Frankfurt (although both of these were pretty much just the airports and train stations), Berlin, Erfurt and Weimar