Wittenburg

Its been a while since I've updated, but I have not been in a place with good internet to do so. We were recently this past week in Luherstadt Wittenburg. Our youth hostel was right next to the church on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses. The door is now cast in bronze with the 95 theses etched in the doors.This is the church in which Luther is buried. We went to Luher's house while we were there. Seeing his living room in its original state from when Luther and Catherine first decorated it as well as seeing Luther's brewery made Luther seem more realistic then a glorified reformer. The museum in his house had hundreds of Luther's writings and sermons as well as some of his monk robes and pastoral robes. His burial mask was also on display which was a litle weird to look at knowing that this was Luther's face at his time of death. The town of Wittenburg is really small, you could walk from on end to the other in 20 minutes. It was really nice to stay in a smaller town because you get to see the real culture of German people and not just the tourist or city culture. Almost none of the people spoke English there,so I was able to practice and learn more German. Overall, i really loved Wittenburg.

Dachau - Concentration Camp and Memorial

Tuesday we went to Dachau Germany where the first concentration camp was opened. We were all somber as we walked trough the iron gate the said "Work hard for your freedom." The Germans saw the Jews as lazy and paracites that leached all their wealth from society, so they had this saying all over the camp. All the buildings on site were built by the prisoners there. The gates opened up into a huge graveled area. Most of the bunkhouses had been leveled, but there were two left standing. the main house used by the Germans as a headquaters and punishment house was turned into a museum that told the stories accounted by the prisoners about their life and often death in the camp and even of their life after being liberated from the camp by American troops. Just outside the camp is two crematoriums. They have a room for where they would take them and have them strip so that they could sanitize their clothes, then they would led th prisoners into a waiting room and then into the gas chambers, where the unsuspecting prisoners would be killed by toxic gases. The bodies would then be dragged into the next room where they would then take them into the room with four ovens for cremation. There are two separate memorials erected on the grounds, one for all the Jews that died at the camp and the other is for all those that died or suffered there with a cross erected in the center of it. Seeing the camp in person makes you sick to think that 60,000 people died there.

Nurnberg: home at last

Hey, I'm back in Nuremburg. I arrived at about 6 today and was super excited to be back, it felt like coming home. I wanted to give a bit of an update and also go into some detail about some of the things I mentoned earlier. After leaving Rome, traveled to Tuscany and passes the little town of Pisa seeing the leaning tower of Pisa that made the tiny town so well known. When we arrived. we stayed in a town that had two levels. One was in the mountains and the other in the valley. We were staying in the one that was in the valley, but we took a gondola to the top town where we found a castle as well as a bell town. The castle was open to the public so we went inside and sat down in the center of the walls and discussed what we had seen, prayed for the trip and the things we saw and the people we encountered. We ended the time with songs of praise and then went and got some gelato. By the way, Gelato is a really creamy European ice cream that we all get every time we visit a new town. From Tuscany, we traveled to Revenna where we saw a lot of Basilicas. One of them was built by Emperor Justinian of the Byzantine Empire. The inside was covered with golden mosaic tiles from floor to ceiling, and outside Justinians basilica thre is a tomb with was built for the daughter of Theoderic but she was never buried there because she died while traveling abroad, but her cousins and brothers were buried there instead. Theoderic's daughter was a Christian so the tomb was covered in mosaics depicting the chi-ro symbol as well as events in Christ's life.

Rome, Blogna, Revenna, Geneva

SO...a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. I flew into Rome, Italy on Saturday and stayed at the Medici hotel three nights. In which time, I visited the Pantheon, saw more fountains then I could imagine, went to a couple of Catecombs, swam in the Mediteranean, explored the Roman ruins at Ostica, saw the Colosseum, visited the Roman Forum and where Caesar gave his famous speech at the death of Julius Caesar and went inside the prison there that held both Paul and Peter, climbed the Spanish steps, explored the Vatican and St Peters Cathedral holding many fine works of art including several by Rafael and Michaelangelo, and enjoyed a few gelatos with good friends. I was absolutley overwelming so see so much art and history. My favorite was the Colosseum, it gave me chills to realize that I was standing and walking where people of the most powerful country stood so many years ago. The movie Galdiator was running through my head. I walked and saw what Paul and Peter once did and went down into the main prison where they were held. The Vatican had piles of famous pieces of art and statues that some were stored in rooms because they did not have enough room to put them all. My favorite thing to see in the Vatican was the painting of the Last Judgement and where Adam and God are touching fingers. To see things that I grew up studying as a kid was so thrilling and overwelming. I also loved Ostica because you were allowed to explore the Roman ruins as you pleased to. We found an underground tunnel system that was loads of fun to explore. We discovered beautiful mosaics and frescos, saw the amplitheater and stood on its stage, as well as found steam rooms for baths and public restrooms. It was all so great. I even got to go down into ancient Catecombs from the 1st century AD. It was crazy to see rows and rows of shelves that held the bodies of martyered Christians and to see the names and Chrtian sybols eteched in the walls as well as beautiful frescos in the underground chapels. After visiting Rome, we took a bus to Blogna and Revenna where we explored the town and went to some old bacilicas of the Christian Chruch from the Byzantine Empire and an Arian church which was set up by the king of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric, at the time. From there we have continued taking the bus back to Germany. I am now in Switzerland, and it is just gorgeous here. The Alps are amazingly beautiful, words could not describe nor pictures justify. We drove throught the Alps for 6 hours today. We went through tunnels that stretched for ten miles. We are currently staying at a hotel in Geneva and will be seeing Calvin's church tomorrow as it is his 500th Birthday. I'll keep you updated.

Fun, Food, and Fair

The other night we went to a folk fest in a nearby town in Germany. People were dressed up in their traditional German dress: the guys in their hats, white shirts, and suspenders, and the girls in their flower dresses. Of course, there were about four different beer gardens there, and everyone was drunk and singing and dancing to drinking songs. It was a lot of fun. There were candy nuts, and pretzels three times the size of you head, buttered mushrooms, and crepes. The rides were the typical ferris wheel and bumper cars as well as this ball that you sit it and then get pull back and catapulted into the sky like a slingshot. there is a camera in the ball so that it videotapes your fae as you ride the ride. It was hilarious to see the look on the peoples' faces as they went flying in the air and came speedy back down to earth. I munched on a pretezel and nuts as I watched the German bands play and the people dance on the tables with their pint size steins and sing there songs. It was definitely a great German cultural experience.

Germany for the Summer

I am so excited to be studying in Germany for the summer. a group of us from Moody flew into Munich on a nine hour flight with a four hour lay over in London in between on Sunday May 31st. We took a bus from Munich to Nuremberg, where we will be staying in a castle that was once used by the Holy Roman Emperors. During the two hour bus trip, we saw a lot of the countryside of Germany and some of the forests that surround the town. Everything is just so beautiful and yet quaint. The houses all look Tudor style and are either white, cream, or a light shade of brown with orange tiled roofs. They are all connected and built on the hillsides surrounding a ornate church some large others small. We two guides throughout the time we are here who are here to help us with learning the culture and the language as well as giving us opportunities to see new places in Germany. We started classes on Monday (I have Hermeneutics) which last all week from 9 to 5. Afterwards, we go out in groups and explore the town. the castle walls surround Nuremberg three miles out from the center. the youth hostel we are staying in is actually the castle stables with the castle behind us. There are some drawings on the walls that date to the 1400s and most of the original architecture of the building is original. I never thought I would be doing homework in a castle. The people of Germany are really friendly and our guides are already teaching us how to communicate with the locals to help us get by with the basic needs. The coolest thing about Nuremberg is that they have farmer's market in the square Monday through Friday with fresh produce, the best gingerbread ever, and other trinkets and goodies. There are also two towering beautiful churches here. There is St. Sebaldus which is the Lutheran headquarters for Germany and St. Lorenzo which is a gorgeous Gothic cathedral. Well I'll keep you updated.