The week we went back to school, I was a bit sad, because the week's holiday was over. However, when I arrived I was very happy to talk to my classmates in Spain, and find out what they had done during their holidays. Besides, this week we were going to spend a lot of time together, because, during the whole week we had several presentations to 9th grade classes. The presentation was about the Spanish lifestyle. In it, we talked about traditional cultures of La Rioja, how we spend our free time, typical music etc., basically our daily life in Spain. All the classes had a very great behaviour during the presentations and some of them were even interested in how we came to Germany, the scholarship etc. I think it was great to show them a little part of how Spain is, since I believe that cultural exchange is very important. 

On Thursday we finished the presentations, and after that Carmen, Nacho and I left the school together and went to Nacho's house. There his host-mother took the three of us and Nacho's host-brother to Dachau. Nacho's host-brother likes history very much, and he offered to take us to the concentration camp of Dachau, and explain us some of the history of the place, so that's what we did. To be honest, it's a place we didn't go there to have fun, but we thought that even so, how it's part of history, it was important for us to get to know it. The place was a bit depressing, I don't know how to explain it well, but the fact of knowing everything that had happened there makes the atmosphere of the place much more sad and dull. Mathias explained to us what the life of the Jews was like, what they did or could not do, what they ate, how they controlled the place etc. The truth is that being there hits different, I repeat, I can't describe the feeling, but it is a topic that is very normalised. I have heard many people talk about it, but without giving it the necessary importance, and that is something I only understood when I was there, when I saw the field where they had to stand for hours without moving no matter if it was raining, snowing or 35 degrees, the fence with the metal spikes that prevented them from escaping, the tiny beds where sometimes they had to sleep more than one person in them, the bathrooms in terrible conditions they had to use, etc.  But the worst were the gas chambers and the incinerators, it was a feeling that is not very nice to describe. 

In the end it was a good experience, it wasn't pretty or fun, but I think it was very interesting, and it's important to know this part of history, so I'm glad I went.