Class Trip to TV Land.

No need for the DDR (or GDR, or East Germany, whatever you'd like to call it) Museum, friends. I went to a live action DDR Museum this week! With 16 third graders, two parents, and one heck of a rainstorm. And I'm alive to tell the tale. 

Back in the DDR (aka "The Former Times"), parents worked. All the time. So kids needed somewhere to go when schools and kindergartens were closed. Bring on the summer camps! But not just any summer camp. A good old political propaganda summer camp. Yep, most of the people I know went to these wonderful places as children- a month in the middle of nowhere, doing regular summer campy things- drinking overly sugary juice, arts and crafts, campfires, and then not-so-regular things like wearing little neckerchiefs and learning about the strengths of communism. 

These days, these camps are open to schools, churches, and regular folks as summer camps and class trip destinations. Of course, the political activities have been eliminated from the agenda. Otherwise, all remains unchanged. And this is where it gets, to borrow a word from Fiona, creepy.

As we bumped down the road to the Ferienpark, I was mentally calculating how far away from (anything) hospitals and pharmacies we were.  Good thing I brought the school nurse as a chaperone. But we were really, really, far from civilization. Deep in the heart of the mountains of Thuringia (sounds lovely, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's basically the same as saying, "deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains"), we found our home for three days. And it looked oddly familiar to me. 

(If you're not a LOST watcher, stop now. Here's the gist. The camp looked like a place on a popular TV show. A lot. And the experience was a lot like the one the characters are having. And also, quite like my time at Camp Evergreen). 

We had clearly entered the Dharma Barracks. Yellow, sixties-style, prefab cottages, clustered around grassy areas with picnic tables and playgrounds. Weird, deserted feeling (only one other very small group of children there this week. And no one speaking English. Well, just me. It wasn't Latin, but still...) and the clear sense that this place had had its heyday long ago. Random Volkswagen buses popping up as if from nowhere. An extremely large, extremely fun campfire with singing (here's where it gets Evergreeney) but with children waving fire sticks (like the torches that seem to crop up anytime anyone on the island needs them).  And yes, I was uncomfortable with the torch waving and open flame. But I was prepared- and I knew what stick bread was, thanks to Fiona's kindergarten party in November. All sorts of random paths through the woods to even more clusters of prefab huts. A giant but empty cafeteria where I truly expected to see Hurley serving us the food. (Except the food was bratwurst and potato salad, not peanut butter and jelly). No cranky scientists, but clearly wild animals in the woods. And this pervasive feeling that I was alone-but-not in this weird wilderness. 

Check out the photos. Can you tell which pictures are from Dharma and which are the Ferienpark?  Of course you CAN, if you look closely, but seriously- can't you see why I feel like I time-traveled?