As I am writing this it is Tuesday afternoon. Since the last update, 8 of us left on a train on Friday to Munich. We enjoyed a free weekend there, visiting the Hofbrauhaus (Touristy site that is the largest beer garden in the world), Olympic Park, BMW Museum and Exposition, as well as simply wondering around town. In addition, we had a great time figuring out the subway system, which is usually great and easy to use, but gets a little tricky at night (ie going forward one stop then back one) We were able to spend much of Sunday there before heading back that evening. Before we left, we had a picnic in the English Gardens in which I was.... well overdressed in shorts and a t-shirt because of some very ´skin-deep`older German men (GROSS)
Monday was back to the grindstone of classes, before visiting the Wurzburg Residenz, which is a ''poor'' man`s Versailles (work on it started in the early 1700s), yet still very elaborate and decorative, with the largest Fresco in the world. In addition, it housed a post-World War II reconstruction museum, as 80% of Wurzburg as a whole and 92% of downtown were obliterated in a mere 20 minute bombing raid by the Allies during the war.
Tuesday we did not have class, for instead we had a 2-hour drive to Heidleberg. We enjoyed the scenery over the river there and visiting the church were the Heidleberg catechism was put together (and read some of it aloud too--pretty cool). In addition, we felt a much greater American presence as for one it is indeed very touristy and two has an American military base nearby. We hiked up to the castle, now mostly in ruins thanks to Napoleon, but very scenic and had a free afternoon. We met up for an organ concert back at the church then ate dinner at an American restaurant with a 7-Euro burger special.
Wednesday we were able to sleep in some (Lovely Indeed) as class was not until 10 before heading out to lunch at a picnic in the park by a lake. Again, Europeans seem to have much looser standards on how much clothing one should wear when sunbathing. We zip lined and swam before playing volleyball with several German college students. Nevertheless, I was able to represent the good ol`USA well as my team won!
Tomorrow we will head to Frankfurt for the Stradel art museum, with a shopping day in Wurzburg on Friday. Saturday we will leave here, stopping off at Dachau (which will be very interesting and sad I am sure) before heading to the Salzburg, Austria area for our last week over here.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Trip Update (From Our Fearless Leader Rick
This update was written 5 days ago by our trip leader Rick. Much of the devents I have already covered on here, but I will include anyways:
Dear family and friends,
It’s Thursday afternoon, on the verge of a free weekend, so I thought I would send out an update on the German Studies trip so far. I usually write an update after each week, but since this review encompasses two weeks I will apologize at the start for the length of this letter.
We arrived in Frankfurt on Monday and drove to our house in Margetshochheim, a small village along the Main River consisting mainly of old people, some of whom were sporting their “here come the Americans again” expression on their faces as we pulled into town. We were actually ahead of schedule, which meant that our house was still occupied by the previous weekend’s inhabitants. So we walked our thirteen jet-lagged students to the village across the river, Veitshochheim, in search of something to eat for lunch. Fortunately, Germans love to have “fests,” or festivals, and the residents of Veitshochheim were having a Pentecost Monday fest in the town square. Thus, the students were able to experience that staple of the German diet— the bratwurst and brot with senf (mustard)—for their first meal in the country. After walking around a nearby palace and gardens, which are everywhere in Germany, we ate an early dinner and slept off our jet lag.
On Tuesday we visited our main base for the study of European culture, Wurzburg, a bustling little city of about 150,000 people that was established around 700 a.d. (things are kind of old over here). Students quickly learned the German Studies routine: morning class, travel to a nearby city, lunch on their own, some group tour time, followed by free time to explore new places on their own. Wurzburg was followed the next day by Bamberg, home of the imposing Bamberg Cathedral. Friday featured Rothenburg, a well-preserved medieval town that has become waylaid by roving bands of camera-toting Japanese tourists.
The highlight of the first week, however (at least for some) was Thursday’s exploration day. Each student has a bicycle, and so one day each week I turn them loose to explore the surrounding villages and countryside in pursuit of RGA (Random German Adventures). The results were, as always, unpredictable. Andrew, Ben Pollard, and Nancy rode up to the little village of Erlabrunn in a quest to climb to the Falkenburg Chapel perched high above the village. Eventually, after getting lost, playing charades with a German woman to get directions, and scrambling up some steep vineyards, they made it to the chapel.
Afterward, they ate lunch at a little Italian restaurant in a town called Zellingen, where no one spoke English except a waitress who boasted of having spent two weeks in Las Vegas. As it turned out, this was the same restaurant that Brandon, Sam, and Stephanie Owen had visited an hour earlier in the course of their travels—biking to Zellingen, across the river to Retzbach, climbing up to a chapel in the vineyards above Retzbach, and returning home by way of Thungersheim, a little wine village nearby.
Thungersheim was also the destination of a third group—Ben Lusby, Ben Dowe, Sherry, and William—who rode down a bike path featuring lovely gardens and ponds but also featuring that common German sign, “Verboten” (forbidden). Finally concluding that they were on private property, they wandered into Thungersheim but failed to find any place to eat. They eventually made it back home to Margetshochheim where they hungrily devoured a very late lunch at a Turkish doner kebab.
Meanwhile, Meghan, Stephanie King, and Bryce had the most interesting adventure by playing their own personal game of Escape from Germans. After biking a half-hour into Wurzburg, they decided that visiting the university would be the best place to speak with some Germans. So they asked a disheveled German guy for directions to the university. This helpful man not only personally escorted them to the university, but he would not leave them once they were there. Finally, when his attention was diverted, they hopped on their bikes and dashed off for home.
Unfortunately, while biking back through Wurzburg, Meghan fell off her bike and skinned her knees and forehead. A helpful bystander, in typically bossy German fashion, insisted that she go to the city hospital for treatment for her cuts. Since by now it was late in the day, Meghan and Stephanie concluded that Bryce should be the one to call me and inform me that they would be late for dinner, though he should try to do so without divulging that they were calling me from a hospital.
Of course, I gradually learned that, in ascending order of importance, a) they would be late for dinner, b) Meghan had a bike accident, c) she had cuts on her knees and forehead, and d) she was in the hospital. I hopped in the van to drive to Wurzburg to pick her up, but when I arrived there she and Stephanie were already walking out of the hospital. As it turned out, they waited for about two hours for some bandages and ointment for her cuts (which, thankfully, did turn out to be minor). After still not receiving any help and being told that they could not leave until they pay (pay for what, we’re not sure), they walked out the doors, loaded the bikes into my van, and we drove away. Escape From Wurzburg was a success.
Our first weekend featured more time in Wurzburg on Saturday, followed by a drive up the river to the neighboring village of Himmelstadt for its “Weinfest.” Our region of Germany is filled with little villages that are way off the tourism maps, each of which has an annual festival, and these are some of the best tastes of local culture available to our students. Upon our arrival, I was chagrined to discover that the event was “absesagt,” that is, postponed, due to bad weather. On the way home, desperate to provide an RGA to our students, Gary and I maneuvered our vans up some winding paths in the vineyards almost to the base of the Falkenburg Chapel that Ben, Andrew, and Nancy had spent hours trudging up the hillside to two days earlier. A short scramble through woods and thorn-bushes brought us to the chapel and a wonderful view of the surrounding river valley. Ben and Andrew, in protest over our unfair use of machine power, remained in the van with most of the other girls.
Sunday morning featured a visit to St. Johannes church for a Lutheran worship service. It was a beautiful old church that, like much of Wurzburg, was rebuilt after the war. Of course, this being Germany, our presence at the service practically doubled the number of worshippers in attendance and halved their median age. The service itself, however, was worshipful and beautiful, but also fairly inaccessible to the students because it was in German.
After church we took the students to a local German restaurant where the breakfast special for the day featured “Heffeweizen.” Intrigued, Sam asked me what that word meant. I was tempted to let him order it and find out, but I relented and translated it for him, thus preventing him from ordering a half-liter of German wheat beer for breakfast.
Monday was Reformation Day: After viewing the film Luther the night before, we traveled to Eisenach for a tour of Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German while hiding out from Emperor Charles V. We had a great tour of the castle and time to wander through the accompanying museum. Not wanting to overdo it on the history and culture, we followed that with a visit to one of my favorite cultural sites in Germany—a thrift store featuring German army surplus clothes, used bike jerseys, and lots more. We topped that off with a visit to McDonalds for good predictable American snacks.
On Monday evening, Sam, Bryce, Gary, Lonnie and me decided to give Himmelstadt another try, with much better results. The little town square was full of Germans eating, drinking, laughing, singing, and dancing to live German folk music. What’s more, our arrival coincided with the official crowning of the Himmelstadt Wine Princess, which was followed by a goofy dance that seemed like the German equivalent of the Hokey Pokey. Our evening culminated when Bryce boldly sauntered over to the Wine Princess and asked to have his picture taken with her, which she of course agreed to. Thus ended what was probably the first-ever visit by Americans to the Himmelstadt Weinfest.
On Tuesday we had class and visited a local chapel for the afternoon, then after dinner we had one of my best RGA’s yet. Our landlord, Michael Zimmermann, owns some cherry trees in the surrounding hills that his grandfather planted eighty years ago. These huge old trees are now sagging with cherries, and so after dinner we loaded up the vans and drove up into the hills to pick cherries. Most of us soon tired of picking cherries and resorted to playing Frisbee in the orchard. Ben Dowe, however, climbed up to the top branches to continue filling his basket while we threw apples at him.
After the cherry-picking, I took a group of students in our van up some old tractor-paths that I had discovered on my bike that lead up to some huge modern windmills at the top of some one thousand-foot high hills that surround the valley. We timed our visit to coincide with one of the biggest thunderstorms I have ever experienced in Germany, and thus got some stunning pictures of rainbows, surreal cloud formations, and lightning flashes over the surrounding landscape.
On the way down we ended up on a tractor-path that dead-ended into wet grass. I maintained a fake smile and a careless laugh as I gingerly backed the van up and felt the wheels spinning wildly on the wet grass as the rain increased in intensity. I could just picture eight American college students attempting to push a van up a remote hillside in Franconia, Germany.
Wednesday featured a visit to Nurnberg, my favorite city in Germany, which boasts a wealth of cultural and historical treasures but which unfortunately the Nazis appropriated for their purposes in the 1930s. The day included cathedrals, castles, museums, the requisite shopping time, and a visit for some of us to the Nurnberg Starbucks. We topped off the day with dinner at the usual place: an Italian pizzeria with generous portions where all of the leftovers made their way down the table to the plates of Sam, William, and Ben Lusby.
Today is Corpus Christi holiday in Bavaria, so we visited a big ceremony in Wurzburg Cathedral then had class and lunch at the house. Now the students are studying for tomorrow’s class and preparing for their free weekends that begin tomorrow afternoon. Gary, Andrew, and Ben Pollard will travel to Prague; Ben Dowe is accompanying Sherry and Nancy to Basel, and the rest of the students are taking a train to Munich—a fun, clean, safe city just a few hours away. Lonnie and I will take a belated anniversary trip to Strasbourg, France, since we both forgot our actual anniversary two Saturdays ago.
As far as the group goes, everyone seems to be getting along well. Bryce has been placed on a quota of one pun per day so as not to drive us crazy. Having three Bens in the group was a challenge initially, but was easily solved by distinguishing between Ben the Quiet, Ben the Tall, and Ben the Cynical (readers who know our Bens will easily assign the labels correctly).
The five girls have laid claim to the house’s top floor, which is now known as the Treehouse, from which they occasionally welcome visits from others. Lonnie’s cooking has been great, and she has somehow managed to supply Stephanie King with her beloved chicken every few days.
We look forward to a good free weekend and more adventures in the weeks to come.
Auf wiedersehen,
Rick
Dear family and friends,
It’s Thursday afternoon, on the verge of a free weekend, so I thought I would send out an update on the German Studies trip so far. I usually write an update after each week, but since this review encompasses two weeks I will apologize at the start for the length of this letter.
We arrived in Frankfurt on Monday and drove to our house in Margetshochheim, a small village along the Main River consisting mainly of old people, some of whom were sporting their “here come the Americans again” expression on their faces as we pulled into town. We were actually ahead of schedule, which meant that our house was still occupied by the previous weekend’s inhabitants. So we walked our thirteen jet-lagged students to the village across the river, Veitshochheim, in search of something to eat for lunch. Fortunately, Germans love to have “fests,” or festivals, and the residents of Veitshochheim were having a Pentecost Monday fest in the town square. Thus, the students were able to experience that staple of the German diet— the bratwurst and brot with senf (mustard)—for their first meal in the country. After walking around a nearby palace and gardens, which are everywhere in Germany, we ate an early dinner and slept off our jet lag.
On Tuesday we visited our main base for the study of European culture, Wurzburg, a bustling little city of about 150,000 people that was established around 700 a.d. (things are kind of old over here). Students quickly learned the German Studies routine: morning class, travel to a nearby city, lunch on their own, some group tour time, followed by free time to explore new places on their own. Wurzburg was followed the next day by Bamberg, home of the imposing Bamberg Cathedral. Friday featured Rothenburg, a well-preserved medieval town that has become waylaid by roving bands of camera-toting Japanese tourists.
The highlight of the first week, however (at least for some) was Thursday’s exploration day. Each student has a bicycle, and so one day each week I turn them loose to explore the surrounding villages and countryside in pursuit of RGA (Random German Adventures). The results were, as always, unpredictable. Andrew, Ben Pollard, and Nancy rode up to the little village of Erlabrunn in a quest to climb to the Falkenburg Chapel perched high above the village. Eventually, after getting lost, playing charades with a German woman to get directions, and scrambling up some steep vineyards, they made it to the chapel.
Afterward, they ate lunch at a little Italian restaurant in a town called Zellingen, where no one spoke English except a waitress who boasted of having spent two weeks in Las Vegas. As it turned out, this was the same restaurant that Brandon, Sam, and Stephanie Owen had visited an hour earlier in the course of their travels—biking to Zellingen, across the river to Retzbach, climbing up to a chapel in the vineyards above Retzbach, and returning home by way of Thungersheim, a little wine village nearby.
Thungersheim was also the destination of a third group—Ben Lusby, Ben Dowe, Sherry, and William—who rode down a bike path featuring lovely gardens and ponds but also featuring that common German sign, “Verboten” (forbidden). Finally concluding that they were on private property, they wandered into Thungersheim but failed to find any place to eat. They eventually made it back home to Margetshochheim where they hungrily devoured a very late lunch at a Turkish doner kebab.
Meanwhile, Meghan, Stephanie King, and Bryce had the most interesting adventure by playing their own personal game of Escape from Germans. After biking a half-hour into Wurzburg, they decided that visiting the university would be the best place to speak with some Germans. So they asked a disheveled German guy for directions to the university. This helpful man not only personally escorted them to the university, but he would not leave them once they were there. Finally, when his attention was diverted, they hopped on their bikes and dashed off for home.
Unfortunately, while biking back through Wurzburg, Meghan fell off her bike and skinned her knees and forehead. A helpful bystander, in typically bossy German fashion, insisted that she go to the city hospital for treatment for her cuts. Since by now it was late in the day, Meghan and Stephanie concluded that Bryce should be the one to call me and inform me that they would be late for dinner, though he should try to do so without divulging that they were calling me from a hospital.
Of course, I gradually learned that, in ascending order of importance, a) they would be late for dinner, b) Meghan had a bike accident, c) she had cuts on her knees and forehead, and d) she was in the hospital. I hopped in the van to drive to Wurzburg to pick her up, but when I arrived there she and Stephanie were already walking out of the hospital. As it turned out, they waited for about two hours for some bandages and ointment for her cuts (which, thankfully, did turn out to be minor). After still not receiving any help and being told that they could not leave until they pay (pay for what, we’re not sure), they walked out the doors, loaded the bikes into my van, and we drove away. Escape From Wurzburg was a success.
Our first weekend featured more time in Wurzburg on Saturday, followed by a drive up the river to the neighboring village of Himmelstadt for its “Weinfest.” Our region of Germany is filled with little villages that are way off the tourism maps, each of which has an annual festival, and these are some of the best tastes of local culture available to our students. Upon our arrival, I was chagrined to discover that the event was “absesagt,” that is, postponed, due to bad weather. On the way home, desperate to provide an RGA to our students, Gary and I maneuvered our vans up some winding paths in the vineyards almost to the base of the Falkenburg Chapel that Ben, Andrew, and Nancy had spent hours trudging up the hillside to two days earlier. A short scramble through woods and thorn-bushes brought us to the chapel and a wonderful view of the surrounding river valley. Ben and Andrew, in protest over our unfair use of machine power, remained in the van with most of the other girls.
Sunday morning featured a visit to St. Johannes church for a Lutheran worship service. It was a beautiful old church that, like much of Wurzburg, was rebuilt after the war. Of course, this being Germany, our presence at the service practically doubled the number of worshippers in attendance and halved their median age. The service itself, however, was worshipful and beautiful, but also fairly inaccessible to the students because it was in German.
After church we took the students to a local German restaurant where the breakfast special for the day featured “Heffeweizen.” Intrigued, Sam asked me what that word meant. I was tempted to let him order it and find out, but I relented and translated it for him, thus preventing him from ordering a half-liter of German wheat beer for breakfast.
Monday was Reformation Day: After viewing the film Luther the night before, we traveled to Eisenach for a tour of Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German while hiding out from Emperor Charles V. We had a great tour of the castle and time to wander through the accompanying museum. Not wanting to overdo it on the history and culture, we followed that with a visit to one of my favorite cultural sites in Germany—a thrift store featuring German army surplus clothes, used bike jerseys, and lots more. We topped that off with a visit to McDonalds for good predictable American snacks.
On Monday evening, Sam, Bryce, Gary, Lonnie and me decided to give Himmelstadt another try, with much better results. The little town square was full of Germans eating, drinking, laughing, singing, and dancing to live German folk music. What’s more, our arrival coincided with the official crowning of the Himmelstadt Wine Princess, which was followed by a goofy dance that seemed like the German equivalent of the Hokey Pokey. Our evening culminated when Bryce boldly sauntered over to the Wine Princess and asked to have his picture taken with her, which she of course agreed to. Thus ended what was probably the first-ever visit by Americans to the Himmelstadt Weinfest.
On Tuesday we had class and visited a local chapel for the afternoon, then after dinner we had one of my best RGA’s yet. Our landlord, Michael Zimmermann, owns some cherry trees in the surrounding hills that his grandfather planted eighty years ago. These huge old trees are now sagging with cherries, and so after dinner we loaded up the vans and drove up into the hills to pick cherries. Most of us soon tired of picking cherries and resorted to playing Frisbee in the orchard. Ben Dowe, however, climbed up to the top branches to continue filling his basket while we threw apples at him.
After the cherry-picking, I took a group of students in our van up some old tractor-paths that I had discovered on my bike that lead up to some huge modern windmills at the top of some one thousand-foot high hills that surround the valley. We timed our visit to coincide with one of the biggest thunderstorms I have ever experienced in Germany, and thus got some stunning pictures of rainbows, surreal cloud formations, and lightning flashes over the surrounding landscape.
On the way down we ended up on a tractor-path that dead-ended into wet grass. I maintained a fake smile and a careless laugh as I gingerly backed the van up and felt the wheels spinning wildly on the wet grass as the rain increased in intensity. I could just picture eight American college students attempting to push a van up a remote hillside in Franconia, Germany.
Wednesday featured a visit to Nurnberg, my favorite city in Germany, which boasts a wealth of cultural and historical treasures but which unfortunately the Nazis appropriated for their purposes in the 1930s. The day included cathedrals, castles, museums, the requisite shopping time, and a visit for some of us to the Nurnberg Starbucks. We topped off the day with dinner at the usual place: an Italian pizzeria with generous portions where all of the leftovers made their way down the table to the plates of Sam, William, and Ben Lusby.
Today is Corpus Christi holiday in Bavaria, so we visited a big ceremony in Wurzburg Cathedral then had class and lunch at the house. Now the students are studying for tomorrow’s class and preparing for their free weekends that begin tomorrow afternoon. Gary, Andrew, and Ben Pollard will travel to Prague; Ben Dowe is accompanying Sherry and Nancy to Basel, and the rest of the students are taking a train to Munich—a fun, clean, safe city just a few hours away. Lonnie and I will take a belated anniversary trip to Strasbourg, France, since we both forgot our actual anniversary two Saturdays ago.
As far as the group goes, everyone seems to be getting along well. Bryce has been placed on a quota of one pun per day so as not to drive us crazy. Having three Bens in the group was a challenge initially, but was easily solved by distinguishing between Ben the Quiet, Ben the Tall, and Ben the Cynical (readers who know our Bens will easily assign the labels correctly).
The five girls have laid claim to the house’s top floor, which is now known as the Treehouse, from which they occasionally welcome visits from others. Lonnie’s cooking has been great, and she has somehow managed to supply Stephanie King with her beloved chicken every few days.
We look forward to a good free weekend and more adventures in the weeks to come.
Auf wiedersehen,
Rick
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Uber Busy, But Loving It
Between coursework and travel I have stayed quite busy.
Thursday of last we were sent on exploration trips to get in some adventure in myself and 2 girls had just that in Wurzburg. My bike pedal fill off going across a foot bridge, found somebody who took us to 2 shops before getting it screwed back on. He not only wanted to give us directions to the University, he said he would go with us, which got freakier by the minute. We eventually got there and quietly left him for fear of our safety, before one of the girls, Megan did a bicycle face plant, scraping her face and breaking her glasses. A biking paramedic was quickly on the scene (I mean very quickly) and strongly urged that she go to a hospital. A motorcyclist who also watched this showed us the way stopping at each corner. We got there and no one was around, and I was asked to call Rick, our trip leader (after being coached on what to say and not to say, despite my desire to be upfront). I met Rick over at the train station, and as it turned out Stephanie and Megan (who was banged up) simply left the hospital without treatment--their socialized medicine was too slow. As they said later the guy told her ´´I have your billing information and I need to be payed. If you leave, maybe you do get billed, maybe not.`` The day was interesting to say the least.
Last week I also enjoyed time in Bamburg(Wednesday, yes I am getting jumpy)--with a nice Cathedral and a very interesting Diocesan Museum. (Can we say 1000-year old relics including pontifical stockings and hair).
Friday we visited Rotenburg, that over time due to lack of development and preservation has preserved a Medieval feel. One of the more interesting experiences I have had on the trip thus far was at the Medieval crime museum. Everything from thumb and finger screws, to a rack, a witch catcher and shame masks. Interesting and sombering indeed.
I had a bit of free time in Wurzburg on Saturday before attending a Lutheran church and resting on Sunday.
Yesterday (Monday) we had no class as we left early to drive up to Eisenach and Wartburg Castle. Thuringia is a very pretty area, I must say. It was great to visit a place where such great strides in Western Christianity had been made there, via Martin Luther. In addition, the Thuringian Forest that we drove through is the setting for Hansel and Gretel, as well as there area where the brothers Grimm lived. After we got back, a few of us went up the river to a local festival wth some VERY German music and were possibly the first Americans there.
Today we made a short trip 30 minutes away to a Catholic church up on a hill in the middle of the vineyards, which proved to be very scenic. I am excited for tomorrow as we will be heading over to Nurumberg, which has quite a lot to see I hear. This weekend, which I have free I will be going with several others to Munic. For now, Tchuss!
B-Ryce
Thursday of last we were sent on exploration trips to get in some adventure in myself and 2 girls had just that in Wurzburg. My bike pedal fill off going across a foot bridge, found somebody who took us to 2 shops before getting it screwed back on. He not only wanted to give us directions to the University, he said he would go with us, which got freakier by the minute. We eventually got there and quietly left him for fear of our safety, before one of the girls, Megan did a bicycle face plant, scraping her face and breaking her glasses. A biking paramedic was quickly on the scene (I mean very quickly) and strongly urged that she go to a hospital. A motorcyclist who also watched this showed us the way stopping at each corner. We got there and no one was around, and I was asked to call Rick, our trip leader (after being coached on what to say and not to say, despite my desire to be upfront). I met Rick over at the train station, and as it turned out Stephanie and Megan (who was banged up) simply left the hospital without treatment--their socialized medicine was too slow. As they said later the guy told her ´´I have your billing information and I need to be payed. If you leave, maybe you do get billed, maybe not.`` The day was interesting to say the least.
Last week I also enjoyed time in Bamburg(Wednesday, yes I am getting jumpy)--with a nice Cathedral and a very interesting Diocesan Museum. (Can we say 1000-year old relics including pontifical stockings and hair).
Friday we visited Rotenburg, that over time due to lack of development and preservation has preserved a Medieval feel. One of the more interesting experiences I have had on the trip thus far was at the Medieval crime museum. Everything from thumb and finger screws, to a rack, a witch catcher and shame masks. Interesting and sombering indeed.
I had a bit of free time in Wurzburg on Saturday before attending a Lutheran church and resting on Sunday.
Yesterday (Monday) we had no class as we left early to drive up to Eisenach and Wartburg Castle. Thuringia is a very pretty area, I must say. It was great to visit a place where such great strides in Western Christianity had been made there, via Martin Luther. In addition, the Thuringian Forest that we drove through is the setting for Hansel and Gretel, as well as there area where the brothers Grimm lived. After we got back, a few of us went up the river to a local festival wth some VERY German music and were possibly the first Americans there.
Today we made a short trip 30 minutes away to a Catholic church up on a hill in the middle of the vineyards, which proved to be very scenic. I am excited for tomorrow as we will be heading over to Nurumberg, which has quite a lot to see I hear. This weekend, which I have free I will be going with several others to Munic. For now, Tchuss!
B-Ryce
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Greetings From Deutschland
Things have been interesting, as they always are with international travel. First,I apologize for grammatical mistakes because European keyboards are slightly different. Also, because our flight over left in the afternoon, when I was used to being awake, I got absolutely no sleep on the plane.
By the time we had obtained 2 vans and left the airport it was 9 AM local time and we hit the ground running per say. Monday was also interesting as it was a national religous holiday (Pentecost Monday). We walked around and got lunch before touring a palace and palace gardens. Things were very ornate and elaborate with incredible statues--the very sort of thing one would expect to find in Europe.
After having some free time (I needed to do some reading and thus did not get sleep) I found out however that a nice shower and movement can keep one awake though.
We had dinner at a restaurant with 28 cm pizzas for 5 Euros each (really good too). We had some free time afterwards and then finally around 10 went to bed, after being awake myself for 31 straight hours.
This morning we slept in and then went into Wuzbrug and toured the Mariennberg fortress before being given 2 hours for lunch and free time. After, we went into an old catholic church originally bult around 1100 (Wurzburg Dom) that had been bombed, along with 80% of Wurzburg during WWII. The interesting thing was that it had been rebuilt artistically and architectually as to move forward in time from the OT and the minorrah to the return of Christ, from simple to baroque from the 1600s.
Gruss Gott (God`s Grace as they say in this predominantly Catholic area of Southern Germany)
Bryce
By the time we had obtained 2 vans and left the airport it was 9 AM local time and we hit the ground running per say. Monday was also interesting as it was a national religous holiday (Pentecost Monday). We walked around and got lunch before touring a palace and palace gardens. Things were very ornate and elaborate with incredible statues--the very sort of thing one would expect to find in Europe.
After having some free time (I needed to do some reading and thus did not get sleep) I found out however that a nice shower and movement can keep one awake though.
We had dinner at a restaurant with 28 cm pizzas for 5 Euros each (really good too). We had some free time afterwards and then finally around 10 went to bed, after being awake myself for 31 straight hours.
This morning we slept in and then went into Wuzbrug and toured the Mariennberg fortress before being given 2 hours for lunch and free time. After, we went into an old catholic church originally bult around 1100 (Wurzburg Dom) that had been bombed, along with 80% of Wurzburg during WWII. The interesting thing was that it had been rebuilt artistically and architectually as to move forward in time from the OT and the minorrah to the return of Christ, from simple to baroque from the 1600s.
Gruss Gott (God`s Grace as they say in this predominantly Catholic area of Southern Germany)
Bryce
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