From Long Island to Strasbourg: Friday's Excursion

Last Friday, my sturdy abroad group had our first excursion to a World War II memorial and the Château de Haut Koenigsbourg. We started the day at the Le Mémorial de l'Alsace-Moselle, a memorial that was set up in a way that brings visitors through a day in the life of a person from Alsace during World War II. As we were brought back in time, we felt how the people of Alsace had been forced to continuously change nationalities from French to German and German to French. The rooms in the memorial/museum allowed us to feel the fear of the Alsatian people through dark lighting, loud gun shots, and replicas of their trains and living quarters. I think this especially helped me understand the stories being told, seeing as the entire tour was in French. Although it was difficult at some points to follow, I was able to understand the gist of it.

German propaganda

View from the memorial

After the memorial, we got back on the bus and went to the Château de Haut Koenigsbourg. After a lot of joking about how we felt like we were in Beauty and the Beast, we got a tour of the castle. The inside was incredible in that there were so many intricate details in the architecture and facts to learn about the uses for each room.

We had a lot of fun in the room with all the swords and armor:

Jen picks out which sword to use on her next victim

From left to right: Lucas, Connor, Lucas

And even more fun with the cannons:

Lucas

Hilary

Me channeling Vanna White?

One of my favorites parts of the excursion was the view we got from the top of the castle:

For dinner and a little exploring, we headed to Kayersburg. The town, which, as you can probably tell by the name, was very German. A few friends and I walked around and learned about wine while we were France's wine country.