My Plan for Germany

Dear Friends and Family,

As most of you probably know by now, I will be going to Germany during the next school year to study at a seminary there, Lutherisch Theologisch Hochschule (LThH), in Oberursel, Germany, near Frankfurt. Hopefully I can fill you in on some of the details in this letter. While I will try to mail letters and postcards back to family, friends, and congregations, you can also keep up with me in my blog, woelmer.blogspot.com. I plan on updating it regularly with posts and pictures.

First of all, my German speaking is getting better in advance of my departure. I have been using Rosetta Stone to learn German, which has proved very helpful. Not only do I go through the normal lessons, but I also have free tutoring sessions whenever my schedule allows. With this, I get to talk with a native speaker about twice a week for about an hour at a time. Sometimes it's one-on-one, but sometimes it's more of a class setting with one to three other learners. It has gone very well so far, and I'm always eager to put what I learn in the lessons into practice with the tutor.

My German comprehension will get even better, since I will study at the Goerte Institut in Berlin, Germany for a month. It starts September 2nd, and I'll stay with Benjamin and Sonja Müller while I'm there. He studied at CTS last year, and I got to know them quite well. I bought my flight to Berlin two months ago through Polish Airlines, and I will leave August 26th in the evening and arrive midday on the 27th. So when my class is finished five weeks later, I will take a train to Oberursel and hang out there until classes start October 15th.

Obviously classes will be in German, and I hope my comprehension will have progressed enough to catch much of the lectures. No doubt I'll need to work on my theological vocabulary, but I'm sure I'll get accustomed to it soon enough.

There is a three week break for Christmas, during which I will return Berlin for a little bit of time. I haven't decided yet where I will go after that; perhaps I can visit England or some German cities during this time. Classes start back up in January and finish mid-February.

Then, I will have a two month break between semester to travel. Some German students at LThH write their major papers during this time, but that won't be expected of me, since I'm not taking many classes for credit. During this time I'll do my Europe traveling. I want to visit Paris, Rome, and Venice at least, and maybe also Vienna and Prague. I'm accepting suggestion for other destinations. Greece is a bit far away, but I may decide to fly there instead of taking the train. We'll see. I hope to travel with other German students, so I'll change my schedule to fit theirs.

The second semester starts mid-April and goes until the second week in July. I will return home soon thereafter, and start my vicarage whenever I need to start it. My vicarage will be assigned next year in early May.

And so you don't worry, I won't leave out Germany in my travels! I plan to make weekend trip to other German cities, since Frankfurt is centrally located, and Friday classes are light. I have a long list of areas to visit, which you can view on my blog. I am accepting suggestions on where to visit, so please stop by the blog and include your thoughts regarding various German cities or areas. I can tell you right now that I will be visiting the major Luther and Bach sites, as well as cities where my ancestors came from (Reichwalde, Klitten, Auernheim, Dettingen).

So if you have any questions, please visit my blog and ask them. You can email me through that.

In Christ,

Joshua Woelmer

 

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Where should I go?

So I'm getting together a list of cities that I want to visit during my time to Germany.  Some will be weekend trips, while some will be during my two month semester break in the spring. What do you suggest and why?

The non-German cities that I want to explore during my semester break are Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, and maybe Prague. I hope to spend a week and a half or so at the first two, and less than a week each at the others.

I'll be staying in Berlin for 5 weeks and Frankfurt for the school year, so I'm not going to include those on my German cities list. So other than those, here are the German cities that I want to visit: 

Dresden (Frauenkirche)

Augsburg

Auernheim (where the Woelmers came from)

Reichwalde (where the Kokels came from)

Klitten (the church were Johann Kilian preached)