Ketchup

What did the mommy tomato say to the baby tomato when he fell behind? …Ketchup! So since I haven’t posted in a while, I thought I’d play a little “ketchup” here. Like catch up, get it? I make myself laugh sometimes. So anyway. On a more serious note. Two weeks ago we left on a week-and-a-half-long adventure to Luther- and Bach-land for our Luther and Bach course. See, this is why studying abroad is amazing. Because “class” consists of traveling and seeing the stuff you read about in real life. It’s kinda awesome.

Anyway, our first stop was Leipzig for the weekend. While there, we took a tour of the Stadtmitte (I’m gonna keep using this word in my posts. It’s literally “city middle,” and it means the old part of the city that’s now a pedestrian zone, usually with an old church or two, cobblestone streets and sidewalks, and lots and lots of outside restaurants and shops and pidgeons). So on this tour of Leipzig’s Stadtmitte, we got to see the churches that Bach worked at, and Goethe’s favorite restaurant, which hosted a legendary barrel ride by Faust (the person, before Goethe wrote about it), among other things. While in Leipzig, we also visited the Bach museum. The highlight of this part, however, was hearing the Thomanerchor (the young boy’s choir for the St. Thomas Church, where Bach did a lot of his stuff) sing the Bach cantata that we studied in class the week before. Pretty cool stuff.

Our next stop was Wittenberg, the famous Luther city. This was my favorite part of the trip, since I’m such a big Luther geek. But he’s awesome. Anyway, we took a tour of this city too. We got to see the Luther museum in the Luther house, which had THE LUTHER BIBLE. Like, THE ORIGINAL ONE THAT HE TRANSLATED. It was amazing. And then of course we got to see the church where he nailed the 95 theses to the door. Even though the door burned down in a fire, it was still the same place, still super cool. And we even got to see the church where he did his pastor work. The church is now considered the Mother of the Reformation. So yeah, Wittenberg was amazing. Especially for a Lutheran/Luther geek like me.

The next day we stopped in Erfurt and took a tour of the city. (Yes, again. They did get a little old..) This one wasn’t too interesting. Although we did get to see the monastery where Luther spent some time. There were also some beautiful churches. And our guide pointed out where the Pope had stood only two weeks previously, which was kinda cool. But then the next day was cooler, in Eisenach. Yeah, we never stayed long in one place.. But anyway, Eisenach had Bach’s childhood home and a bunch of instruments of the time. And a great music room where you could sit and listen to Bach’s compositions for hours. This town also has Wartburg castle, which we visited in the afternoon. This is the castle where Luther spent ten months when he was hiding from the authorities who wanted to kill him. So we got to see his room where he translated the Bible. Which was also really cool.

But then we had a few days off until we had to be back in Reutlingen. So a few of us decided to head to southern Bavaria to see the Alps. They were incredible. And it was just beautiful. So I’m gonna attach a few pics.. It really was absolutely beautiful. And the town we were in, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, hosted the Winter Olympics not too long ago, so the ski jump and ice rink are still operating. We wanted to go skating in the olympic skating rink, but ran out of time.. Because we were on the highest peak in Germany!!! In a snowstorm 🙂 Which was actually a little sad, because apparently the view is absolutely incredible. But we could only see maybe 100 feet away. If that. But still, we were in a snowstorm. And then got to play on a glacier. Not bad for a day’s work.

On the way home on Saturday, we went to Neuschwanstein, the famous Cinderella castle. I had been here before, but was still amazed at how cool the inside and outside was. Surrounded by mountains and with a brilliant blue lake, but the inside had a grotto. (Literally, he had a cave installed in the castle. We called it his Batcave. Although Batman probably had a better car.) It’s hard to choose which one was better.

So we got back Saturday night to Reutlingen. And the next day we had Oktoberfest! Well, technically the Cannstatter Volksfest, since it’s not the one in Munich. But the one in Stuttgart is the second-biggest one, and apparently a lot less touristy. So, more authentic. And it was. Authentic, and amazing. Guys wearing lederhosen and those German dresses on girls. Complete with huge glasses of beer. One Mass = one liter of beer. And being part of the Reutlingen University group, we got two free Mass, and dinner. Pretty sweet deal. Germans are so uptight most of the time, that this is their one excuse to go crazy. And go crazy they do. Carnival rides (even roller coasters), massive beer tents (which aren’t tents really, but more like gigantic wooden structures they construct just for this event), cool market shops, and lots and lots of German sausages.

So that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to for the past two weeks. That and “normal” class. Been pretty busy. Obviously. So I’ll write more soon!