Megaphone Christians

Yelling from the street corners

Fiberboard signs front and back

"The apocalypse is coming now, repent ye sinners"

Masses averting their eyes

They mutter,

"He's crazy"

Sitting down at a table

Asking formalities

"Hi, I’m from Indiana, How ‘bout you?"

Continued small talk

"So do you believe in Jesus Christ?"

Angry storm off

Confusion

"Hey man how're you doing?"

Different walks of life

Something is different

Discontented questions on faith

Answers

"But why did you ask me"

"You were different"

The Death of the Motherly Innkeeper

It has recently been called to my mind the fact that the old image of the homely Hotel owners is no longer a common one. Too often we are lured into the large chain hotels by promises of low prices, standardized services, and free airport shuttles. Yet, being in Greece and staying in a small Hotel with a family that runs it, I was refreshed to have someone that actually accommodated us for our individual needs. A mosquito bit me on the eyelid the first nap that I took in Greece. By the next morning my eye was completely swelled shut so that I could barely open it. Most hotel receptionists would comment on it and say that it was a bummer that this happened. But not this lady. She asked if I had any medicine for it, and, when I replied in the negative, offered to DRIVE me to the local pharmacy. Since I have been living in Germany, where pharmaceutical laws are strict and pharmacies carry few over the counter remedies, I asked if they would actually have something I could buy. Her reply, with a chuckle, was “of course, this is Greece.” She then proceeded to drive me, in her personal car, to the pharmacy, translate everything I needed for me, and get me the medicine I needed. Within the day my eye was open again and in 48 hours all that remained was an itch from the bite itself. This is but one example of her kindness. She told us where to get good desserts, did research on an island tour that we were interested in doing (99 euro, thanks but no thanks), let us check out the night before we left and even gave us breakfast trays the night before so that we didn’t have to miss out on breakfast even though we were leaving before breakfast was served. Why cant all hotels be like the Studios Diolokos in Loutraki, Greece? With a family that works there and actually gets to know the quirks of their guests. That do things that they are not required to do. That become a home to a group of 5 college students traveling for a week. I lament the fact that she is of a dying breed. One must go to a B&B to find this kind of personal attention. But, this hotel was quite cheap. We ended up paying just over 14 euro a night, much less than even a buggy, loud, hostel would cost. And for that price we got amazingly fast internet for free, free breakfast, a concierge service that was amazing, and personalized care. It was amazing. The simple joy of our hotel made my time in Greece so much better and truly enhanced the entire week. So I ask, why cannot all hotels return to this archetype? I know that I will make an effort to stay at smaller hotels over hostels from now on. A free towel is a bonus as well. We bought our hostess chocolate cake on our last night because we found out she liked chocolate. And then we left. It was a wholly inadequate gesture, but I think she got the message. That no matter how much money you pay, no matter how many stars your hotel has, personal care outweighs all of this. 

Amsterdam-it

Well as many of you know I’ve had an eventful past two weeks! Last week we were traveling around as a group following the path of Luther. We also got to see Dresden and Berlin. Berlin was awesome but we didn’t get to see as much as I wish we could have. We then went to Wittenberg, Eisenach, Erfurt, and Heidelberg. They were all fairly interesting cities, but we were pumped to get on our travel week. I was off to Amsterdam with the two other guys and one girl. Then began our saga of failure. And oh man was it full of failures.

            First of all we got to the hostel in Heidelberg and asked if they had the tickets that I had mailed to them in advance so I could pick them up there. Well when we got there we asked if they had the tickets, and they told us that they received them all right. But that they sent them back. So...we went to the train station and found out that returned tickets are automatically canceled. So we had to buy new tickets, for a price 36 euros more than our previous price. Bummer.  Well the next morning we got on a train to Mannheim, then found out that our connecting train was cancelled due to a fire on the track. Whatever that means. So we had to take a train to Frankfurt and then made our way to Köln (or Cologne for all you English folks). Finally we got to Köln and walked outside to see the Cathedral that is directly outside the train station. 

Its world-famous and all, but I still like the Dom St. Peter here in Regensburg better. Well…that little walk was unfortunate. We checked our tickets and found out that the train we thought was leaving at 3:42 actually left at 2:41…and our train had arrived at 2:38, so we may not have gotten the train in the first place. So we missed our second train of the day. We found a train heading to Amsterdam Centraal at 5:30 and thus waited in Köln for a few hours and ate some Burger King 1 euro hamburgers. The train ride there was just fine. We got into Amsterdam around 10 and liked the city on our first impression. We had some walking directions to our hostel and started following them. Sadly they were horrible directions and we ended up walking through the middle of the Coffeeshop district and Red Light Areas. It was a fast and harsh introduction to the world of Amsterdam. We promptly got lost and walked around Amsterdam for about an hour and a half. We asked directions from these two middle-aged men who were speaking English. One of the guys, who lived there, hadn’t ever heard of our street address. Then almost a block down the road the guy chased us down and showed us a different road name, but it was the right one. He pointed off in a direction and said that was where our hostel was. We started walking that way, but since the canals in Amsterdam are circular, we basically got way thrown off. We were debating where to go and this guy randomly walked up. His name was Thierry Baudet and he said that he would take us to our hostel because he was a writer who needed inspiration, so why not help some random tourists. It turns out that this guy is a writer for a magazine that is distributed to the top 10,000 politicians and policy makers of the Netherlands Government. He writes conservative economic columns that focus on the abolishment of the EU. It was extremely interesting to me as I need to write a paper later this semester on the views of Europeans and the EU. Very cool. He was a very nice dude and told us that he had been voted the “vainest man in Amsterdam” the day before by a local paper. Quite funny. We googled him later and he was the second option after Thierry Henry, the world famous soccer player. Yeah…apparently he’s a big deal. So we were escorted to our hostel by a local celebrity.

Getting to the hostel was only the tip of the adventure of fail. We got to the reception desk, gave them my name and our reservation number. They then proceeded to tell us that we had booked a hostel for the next two nights…but not Saturday night. This happened because we booked the hostel far in advance and the train tickets last week…not a good thing for future reference. We also found out that we couldn’t find a bed in the entire city because of the Amsterdam Marathon that was happening the next day. Apparently it’s a big deal. So we were told that we could sleep in the Centraal and be vagabonds. We resigned ourselves to sleeping in the train station, assuming it would be cool with the authorities and that it was open 24 hours. That was not the case on either point. We found a place to sit, were moved along by the floor cleaner. He pointed us to another area of the station that was thankfully warmer. We saw other sleeping there and thought that this was the acceptable area to sleep. WRONGO. The security people came through at 1:45am and told us the train station was closing, we asked for help and she said that Burger King upstairs was open until 4am and they might let us chill in there if we buy something. We went up there, but their dining room was closed. So instead we bought a coffee and sat on the platform out front. It was freezing and we were all packing on the layers. We stayed on that platform until 5am. It was ridiculous. I stood up for 95% of the time to stay warm and none of us got much sleep. I had a cool God moment at like 4am, which was cool. In the morning we went to Starbucks in the train station and sat out front for 2 more hours. The security people came around every 10 or so minutes and woke up anyone who was sleeping. It was really quite annoying and odd that they would care this much about people sleeping in the train station. We left the train station in favor of a two-story burger king that had free internet, free bathrooms, and was warm. We stayed there for a few hours and then felt that we had to leave after they kept shooting us dirty looks. We walked over to the area of where our hostel was and found a park. Naps in the sun in the park was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We checked into our hostel at 1:30pm and we slept. It was glorious. That night we walked around and chilled. It was good. 

The next day we decided that we wanted to go to Paris a day early and leave on Tuesday. The problem with that plan was that Paris decided to go all French on us and the Transportation workers in the country went on strike. Its still going on and Paris is currently the scene of riots. All over the changing of retirement benefits at age 62 instead of 60. So we booked tickets to come back to Germany. They cost far too much, but we were over it. We got our ICE train back to Köln and found out that the train we were on went all the way to Mannheim via Frankfurt. We decided to take naps, and, if we missed Köln, then we got closer to our destination. We were woken up by people who had reserved our seats and thus started a 12 hour trip back to Regensburg. We bought regional tickets for the four regions that we were going to be going through. Then we started out journey. We caught a train to Koblenz, then we went to Frankfurt. Our train was delayed then for 15 minutes which made us miss our connection. We waited an hour for the next train and were on our way. We made it uneventfully to Nürnberg where we again were late for our train to Regensburg. Then we waited an hour for the next train. When that train came the sign said that it was a train going to Neumarkt (random city in Bavaria) at the same time that it was going to Regensburg. We didn’t get on it, assuming that since our train was below the other one on the sign ours was waiting to come right after the other one. Sadly when this train pulled away we saw Regensburg Hbf on the back sign…meaning that the train was going to split at Neumarkt. So after some chagrined words we found another train going to Regensburg in half an hour. Finally we made the train and got back to Regensburg at 10:50pm. Thus ends the saga of the Amsterdam-it trip. It was a character building trip for sure and we gained a greater appreciation for Bavaria and Germany in general. It’s a beautiful and great place! 

Dresden-Burned but not Broken

            Dresden is one of the prettiest places that I have seen so far on my trips. This is striking for two particular reasons. First of all it was almost fully destroyed in February 1945 when the Allies firebombed the city, causing fires of more than 1000 degrees centigrade and destroying the cultural architecture that made Dresden famous. The second thing that makes it surprising that this burned out city has been reborn is the fact that it was under the rule of the communist GDR for 40 or so years. The communists are not famous for their love of beautiful architecture, the exact opposite is actually true. Thus the city, rebuilt in most of its former glory, still shines today. We were able to attend a symphony playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 along with other selections in the Frauenkirche (the Mother Church). This was an amazing experience as it allowed us to see the church in all of its rebuilt glory (it burned with the city and was recently rebuilt with funds from the state of Germany as well as 4 other former-allied nations who raised money for it). We were also able to enjoy some amazing classical music, though I may have drowsed off for a few minutes. The next morning we went on a tour of the city of Dresden and saw the Frauenkirche in the daylight. It is an interesting building as it is constructed with a mix of old stones and new. Thus the church has the appearance of a fired building. Some of the stones and one corner of the church are soot black while others are a nice sandstone. We continued down the Procession of Dukes, a street with a giant mosaic almost 100 yards long made of porcelain that the city is famous for making. In this mosaic are the dukes of the city and some religious expressions. After seeing this we entered the Hofkirche. This cathedral was built by August the Strong in a response to the building of the original Frauenkirche. He converted to Catholicism during his reign for financial and political reasons and thus felt that he should have a church to match the Protestant one. However, the people of the city, who were mostly protestant, did not recognize it and thus its bells were not allowed to ring until the city was conquered by Napoleon. We then ventured into the museum of the Zwinger. This museum holds four separate exhibits: Mathematics and Physics, Famous Artwork, one of Medieval Armoury, and finally porcelain from China, Japan, and Dresden. The Art section was extravagant and classified by the time period and the origin of the painter. In the exhibit I saw a Rafael and several Rembrandts as well as a special exhibit on Vermeer. The art section behind me I headed to the Armour! I love medieval armour and weapon design and thus was entranced by the lavish engraving and ornamentation on these pieces. They were very selection-focused on swords, armour, and early guns. Although I am not personally interested too much in early firearms, these examples were exquisitely designed and would have been amazing to see in their heyday. In all it was an amazing exhibit and has only been surpassed in my eyes by the MET in New York City. I toured the porcelain section as well and was amazed by the detail achieved in some of the pieces. Though it was not my favorite part of the museum, I did enjoy a piece titled Affe mit Snuftabakdose. This translates into “Monkey with snuffbox” and depicted a monkey taking snuff and holding a little box in its other hand. This was a comical piece to me and I was humoured by the creation of such a fantastical situation. This fairly ended our tour of Dresden, and, though I am heading to Berlin tomorrow, I find it hard to believe that I will enjoy it more. 

Barca, Paris, Roma!

Hello Everone!

I am sorry that I have been a horribly unfaithful writer these three weeks. I have no real excuse other than I was doing things that were more fun than writing to all of you :P The past three weeks have been good. The first class we had was very good in that it challenged some of our beliefs and was a good way to learn the basics of philosophy. It was a lot of work however, and we were all glad to be done with it. During the two weeks itself I was able to join a gym with two other members of my group and get back into the routine of being healthy. We were also able to get a lot of sightseeing done including going to the town of Weimar in former East Germany. It was a great experience and we were able to see a lot of cool political Graffiti that can be found in the Graffiti album on my Facebook. It was very interesting to me to see the vast differences between the colorful towns of Bavaria and the drab architecture of the East German Apartments. We were also able to interview a lady that grew up under the DDR’s rule. It was very interesting to hear her views. One of the things that stood out the most to us was the fact that the system Worked. They were being lied to of course, but they had what they needed.

            The past week has been…..Crazy. We flew out of Memmigan, Germany to Girona, Spain. Girona is a town up the coast from Barcelona and we thought it would be a Podunk town with nothing to offer. Boy were we wrong! It turned out to be a town with a rich history, of which we still know little, including a huge cathedral. We ended up doing Barcelona in only 6 hours and then taking the train back to Girona so we could see more of it! Barca was cool in the sense that much of what we were seeing, such as the Sagrada Familia and the Gaudi houses, are world famous. But other than that, I was not that big a fan of the town.

            We awoke at four to catch our 6 o’clock flight to Paris Monday. Our flight was delayed for an hour on the tarmac and then we were winged off to Paris. We bought metro passes at the advisement of an Indian Student who was on the shuttle bus and were thankful for them. Paris is definitely a metro city, in both senses of the word! It is a large city with the sightseeing things spread out so that a metro pass speeds things up a great amount. Additionally the metros are convenient and prevalent. As to the other meaning of the word, Paris is a well dressed city. We felt woefully underdressed in our jeans and sweatshirts. So bring nice clothes if you ever plan to travel there and be taken seriously and not just as a tourist.  While there we saw all the typical things, my favorite being the Arc De Triomphe. We saw this monument no less than 6 times as it was next to a useful metro stop and in the middle of the shopping avenue of the Champs d’Elysees. Our hostel in Paris was a lot of fun and we met a guy named Diego from Brazil who tagged along with us for the last two days in Paris. This dose of testosterone was a nice change from the two girls I was with all week. We left Paris in the evening on Wednesday and arrived in Rome at about midnight.

            Checking into our hostel, The Yellow, was a pleasant experience. It was smooth and the staff was knowleadgeable. That night I was able to catch a cab to my friend Lyndsay Angell’s apartment at around 2am. This was an adventure as I first had to have the cab called, show the driver the address on my iPod, and then fork out 16 euros for the ten minute ride. I didn’t know her apt number and her phone number didn’t work on my phone so I found some English speaking girls and asked them where to go. They showed me the building, and, after talking with the security guard (through a student who could translate into Italian, for I speak no Italian whatsoever and still don’t) I found out that I couldn’t contact Lyndsay in any way and that I could not go into the building because visiting hours were over. So I had the security guard call me a cab to go home. Luckily, right as he was on the phone, Lynds came down to look for me! It was perfect timing and we were able to walk around for about two hours and catch up. I took another cab ride that ran me 15 euros (making rome the most expensive city by far) and hit the sack. Thursday we walked around Rome and saw the Coliseum at sunset, which was by far the most beautiful thing in Rome. That night we met some chill people in the Hostel and walked around to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps to see them at night. It was a beautiful sight and an awesome time to be with people from around the world, including a German! The next day we did the whole Vatican thing and were able to see a lot of famous architecture as well as the tombs of Pope John Paul II and Saint Peter…..yep….that’s right…THE Peter. Like the one from the Bible. Cool Stuff. We went out to Ciampino to our hotel for the night…snuck me in as we only booked for two people in order to save thirty euro, ate in the hotel restaurant, saw some crazy italians do karaoke in the restaurant. (as a sidenote, these italians were in their late teens or early twenties and could sing well). We caught our flight out this morning and were blessed with on time travels back to Regensburg. Tomorrow we plan to go to Oktoberfest for its closing day and experience that landmark event (it’s the bicentennial this year!). For now I wish you all a good night and happy travels!

Peace

Homework,Reichstadten, and Der Dom St. Peter

Hello all of my two followers and random readers. Its wednesday night here and we are about to go out into Regensburg to do some reading at some random coffee shop that we shall stumble upon. Today we spent the day in the former Imperial Town (Reichstadt) of Rothenburg. It was a good trip and it was really cool to see the walled cities of old restored. We also got to walk through a torture museum they have set up there. Something cooler though is that we found out that Regensburg was also a Reichstadt. Thus it became one of the most prosperous cities in the region due to the perk of not having to pay taxes to the Empire. This led a lot of wealthy people to settle in Regensburg and thus a lot of churches were built.

I am thoroughly enjoying my time here and we are all kind of itching to get into a routine that lets us plan out our lives around classes and homework rather than fixating on it as we have been this week. I am finding myself oddly ok with the notion that i will not see america again for many months and i wish that this trip could continue on another semester.

Here is where i wax poetic:

There is a large cathedral here called Dom St. Peter  (Dom=Cathedral auf Deutsch). It is quite the impressive piece of architecture and is featured on the cover of the book Germany: Unraveling an Enigma. It survived the bombing of WWII with the rest of Regensburg due to the actions of three important town figures that accepted a deal from the americans to hand over the Nazis and be spared. They were executed for their actions but they were eventually successful. The reason i tell you all this is because when i enter the Cathedral itself i am overwhelmed with a sense of power. These were built as monuments to God. The almighty God. I find myself wishing i was Catholic and able to take part in the mass that is held there every sunday. Wishing that i had been steeped in this power all of my life. It literally takes me many seconds to realize that God dwells everywhere, not just in this edifice. The simple existence of this place, devoted to the worship of God, astounds me. I guess we just do not have this sort of thing in indiana, but i love it. I love the sombre atmosphere inside the church, love the darkness that seems to be omnipresent, love the stained glass windows that are so ornate they can have Ph. D.s written about a single scene. When i first entered there i found myself in the area devoted to prayer, not sightseeing. I was accompanied by a few older germans and we individually prayed what we felt we should. I havent a clue what those germans were saying in their prayers. I hadnt a clue what prayer to offer up to God in that place. I said the Lords prayer in german, a remnant from my memorization for German class. yet it seemed oddly appropriate. An old prayer for an old building and an old God. Im not about to convert to Catholicism, and i do not necessarily like the fact that the cathedrals also had their political purposes and the altars is coated in white gold/silver. But the simple size of that place draws me to it, draws me to heavier things, to the metaphysical realm of which we have little knowledge and much desire. It makes me want to know more, to want more, to be more.

IM HERE...and....its AWESOME

Hello my good friends who are still in the US! I made it to Germany safely ensconced between an ancient French lady and a Germany business man aboard our Airbus 830. The flight was fairly uneventful except for the realization at the airport that German baggage claim is a long ordeal. It simply takes forever for bags to come out! We were able to go into Munich for the afternoon after landing and walked around Marienplatz (the center square of the city) and then went to the famous Hofbrauhaus for dinner. We also found out before going to this famous Beer brewery that we were under Corban’s covenant for the semester and thus no drinking will be permitted. So we endured the jibes of the German fellows that we were sitting next to at the Hofbrauhaus and sipped our water bravely, for no one orders water at the Hofbrauhaus. Afterwards we came to Regensburg and got settled in to our rooms and had a little talk about what Sunday was to bring us.  As we are all extremely jet-lagged I feel no remorse in telling you all that it is only 10:10 here and yet I am exhausted. Still cant sleep well on planes, pity, cause the French lady next to me awoke for meals only!

Good afternoon all of you. It is evening here and we are about to go explore Regensburg on our own. Today we went to a military church so its in English and it was good. Went and got Italian food for lunch and the waiter made fun of the girls in the group that didn’t speak any German and thus didn’t know what he was saying most of the time. There are very subtle differences between US and German culture that we are learning and there are many obvious differences that of course we all know right away. Tomorrow we have orientation and a formal walking tour of Regensburg so that we know where to go and suchlike. There seems to be really good ethnic food here so that is a major bonus! I miss you all dearly, some of you more than others honestly, hehe, but it is good to be here, my group is really solid (a big praise as this was one of my huge worries for the trip) and finally, the food here is quite different. I feel like they eat the heavy food for all three meals and honestly I currently just want a salad. Also its kind of annoying that they charge for water, its tap water and you have to ask for it specifically or they bring you mineral water. And when i say charge i mean it, its no 50 cent fee, its a good 1,50EU for only .2L. Beer is cheaper most times. But we are covenant, its annoying. Thus I am thirsty. I love you all, thanks for reading, Peace.