Continuing our trip: Eisleben and Wittenberg

After staying overnight in Eisleben, we set out a bit earlier the next day (Wednesday, Feb. 20th) to see if anything would be open before 10. It turned out not to be the case, but we walked to St. Anne's and back and got some pictures of the outside. The congregation had been the first to accept the Reformation. It wasn't high on our priority list, but it was something to see when everything else was closed. It wasn't open, but we saw it from the outside.

We first visited Luther's birth house, which had been turned into a museum. We were pleased; it was a well-thought out museum and had enough to interest us, especially about Luther's parents and his youth in Eisleben and the nearby Mansfeld. The nearby St. Peter and Paul church was going under some renovation, but they let us in. It looked pretty new; there was no longer a baptismal font, but a baptismal pool in the floor near the chancel. I don't think they have the baptismal font in which Luther was baptized. Then we head back to the market plaza to see if St. Andrew's Church would be open, but it was not- it's closed from Nov. until March due to the heating costs. It's where Luther preached his last sermon. Nearby is his death house, and the museum that they're building there. This museum wasn't impressive at all. They had some displays about death in general and thoughts about it, but there wasn't as much about Luther as I'd hoped. We saw a copy of his death mask, as well as other artifacts, but it was disappointing.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of these places, since they're all on my parents' camera. I tended not to take outside pictures with my iPad when it was snowy outside. You'll see them soon when I get them all posted to Facebook.

Then we made our way back to the train station and rode to Wittenberg. This was the only day in which we saw more than one city, and part of me wishes that we could've slowed down a bit here, but it was either fit the two smallest cities into one day, or cut one out of our itenerary. So we basically had an afternoon to see Wittenberg.

This wasn't so bad, but I'd forgotten that everything closes earlier in the winter. We made it to our first destination just fine: the Luther House. This was probably our best museum of the whole trip. We all enjoyed it, and it had the most artifacts and the most complete history of any city that we visited. I can't recommend this museum enough, especially to those who are going on Luther tours. Here are some of the pictures that I took while we were there.

Dad in front of the pulpit that Luther would preach from.

An interesting mural from the house about the Ten Commandments

Martin Luther wearing his "doctor's hat" (and looking quite young)

Luther and Hus communing various princes

An original room in which Luther would have worked

And, of course, a beer mug from which Luther had drunk

And finally, we saw a Luther library with every copy of the compilation of Luther's works. Can you name the various collections?

Next we tried to make it into the city church, St. Mary's, but it was already locked at 4pm! We were obviously disappointed, but our disappointment increased when we noticed that the Castle Church was also closed, but this time due to renovation! This also meant that there was scaffolding that almost covered the famous castle church door and its famous mural above the door. This is supposedly the place where Luther nailed the 95 Theses, but that history is debateable. Nonetheless, I'll post the pictures later, since they were taken with the camera. Obviously winter is not the time to travel Germany.

Finally we walked back to the Melanchthon House, hoping that it would be open, which it was. It wasn't the most spectacular museum, but they're renovating it too, getting ready for the 500th Anniversity of the Reformation. If anything, it was simplistic. They covered the basics of Melanchthon's life and works, but there wasn't a lot of historical information. His changing of the Augsburg Confession was seen as "ecumenical," so I was particularly disappointed about that.

If you want to know what he looked like.

The Unaltered Augsburg Confession (what the LCMS subscribes to)

The Altered Augsburg Confession

That's about it between Eisleben and Wittenberg. It'd be worth it for me to come back to Wittenberg at least, which I may still do. It was quite an exhausting day visiting two cities, so I welcomed our stay in Leipzig. The hotel accomodated the three of us in one room, but we had to walk quite a way to get there. My parents were troopers though, and we made it without too much trouble.

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Continuing our trip: Eisenach and Erfurt

We've been without internet for a few days now; our last two hotels didn't offer it, and we haven't really stopped at a coffee shop or Starbucks with free wifi, so you're getting this post a bit late. Nonetheless, we're all doing quite well. My parents (I hope they don't read this) are typical American tourists, but I guess I should forgive them for that, considering I'm also an American tourist, just not a typical one- I know German and how to behave in Germany (by that I mean talking not as loudly). But getting back on topic, we're all doing well. They are enjoying the German breakfasts and the food and beer in general. Everything here is healthy and hearty, in stark comparison to normal American food. My parents have to comment on everything that's different; it gets tiresome at times, but it's no problem. Maybe I should have told them these things over the phone, but I don't know, some things just don't seem worthy of mentioning over the phone.

My last post ended with us sleeping in a hotel in Eisenach, where we had wifi. The next day we saw Eisenach and the Wartburg Castle. Right now our pictures are divided between their camera and my iPad, but I'll post a completed album later with all of their photos. Eisenach is known as the place where Luther went to school as a child, and where Bach was born and baptized. We started near the Luther statue in Eisenach.

We then made our way into the main plaza with St. George's Church, where Martin Luther preached and Bach was baptized. The church is very colorful, and it was very beautiful inside. The thing that struck us was its multi leveled balconies.

The baptismal font of Bach

I also took a photo of myself in front of the St. George's well.

From there we went on to the Luther House, where Luther had stayed as a child. It was a small museum, but really highlighted two other things: the family who had taken in Luther, and this house as a parsonage to the nearby St. George's. There really wasn't much here, but it was nice to see. I'd recommend it when going through Eisenach, mostly because there's not much else here on Luther, until you get to the Wartburg.

Since we had only seen about half of the Bach Museum the previous day, we then finished it off after seeing the Bach House; both aren't very far away from each other. I didn't get any picture of the inside, but you can probably see some from mom's camera. I did get some of us in front of the Bach monument.

The Wartburg was next, with its English tour at 1:30; we took a bus half-way up and walked the rest. It was a bit strenuous for my parents, who aren't used to walking hills in the plains of Texas, but we made it up without too much of a difficulty. There was a little bit of time before the tour, so we walked around a bit and saw what we could of the castle. Many of these pictures you can see on my previous post about the Wartburg Castle.

The English tour was great for me, since the last time I was here my German wasn't the best, and I couldn't understand the tour guide very well. This time, however, we were joined by an Italian couple, and our tour guide spoke pretty good English. I also took more photos this time, since I was under the impression earlier that I had to pay for taking pictures. The "queen's room" really impressed me, as it was decorated with scenes from St. Elizabeth's life.

I also took better pictures of the main hall that still has concerts. It was wonderful to see an explanation to the flag that was hanging; it was a precursor to the current German flag. It has maroon and black in the background with golden oak leaves (correct me if I'm wrong- I think it's oak).

All in all, we enjoyed visiting the Wartburg Castle. The Luther cell was neat to see, as were the paintings and history of the castle. Even though I'd already been here, nonetheless it was worth it to come through here again.
If you've noticed, the days have been very cloudy; we haven't seen the sun yet. I'll let you know when we see it. Here's another view, with the weather noticeably cloudy and wet. This photo is from the same window of a previous picture I'd taken from the same window, seen below.

From there we took the bus back down to the bus station, which was across from the train station. Then we headed to Erfurt. This night was probably the most confusing; we did a lot of walking with our luggage. The first hotel we went to was supposed to be the cheapest, but they didn't have any rooms for three people, so they gave us the price for two rooms. After walking to two or three different hotels, we discovered that we had to settle for two rooms. It was expensive, but they wouldn't let me sleep in my sleeping bag in my parents' room. We went out to eat at the "Feuerkugel," which was a very delicious restaurant. We had the regional beer, and enjoyed sitting and resting. Returning to our rooms, we had a good night's sleep.

Breakfast the next day was very delicious, as usual, and we checked out of the hotel about 9:30. We stored our baggage in the Bahnhof lockers, then walked around the city. We had the option of going to Weimar this day- it was only 15 mins away- but we decided against it. The only reason was the Weimar altar piece. But I'm sure you can look it up on the internet and see it for yourself.

On our way to the Augustinian cloister, I planned for our route to go over the famous Krämerbrücke. It crosses the river that flows through Erfurt, and it looked plenty high enough for floods. There were shops on the bridge, which I'm sure has lasted quite a long time. It was snowing out, and I was reticent to take out my iPad, so we got some photos with mom's camera. You can see it in the full album, which I'll post later.
The Augustinian cloister was great to see. We had a tour of it in German, but I listened to what I could understand and related the most important facts to my parents. Unfortunately part of the complex had been bombed in WWII, which resulted in 267 deaths; they had been using a nearby house as a bomb shelter. Later though new buildings have been erected, and it serves as a recuperation house for shell-shocked soldiers. Not much of the rest of the cloister is original from the 16th Century. There had been a fire which took most of the cloister, but not the adjoining church. That's really where my pictures from the tour start. It had been built for the monks of the Augustinian Order, and since it was a monastery church, it was very plain. The only adornments were the windows in the very front, drawing your sight there. Unfortunately they were renovating the windows (for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation), so only paper copies hung in their place.

Here is where Luther made his vows to the Augustinian Order; I believe they used this very place for the English "Luther" movie that came out a little while ago. He would've prostrated himself here on the grave of the monk who founded this monastery, facing the altar.

Among the stained glass in this church (below is just an example in the museum) is something that looks eerily like the Luther Rose, and indeed, this is mostly likely where Luther got the inspiration for his own seal. He no doubt added the black cross in the red heart and the golden band, but you can see the blue sky behind the lower rose. It was interesting to see this though.

The library was quite extensive; it grew very large after the Reformation when it was turned into a school. I believe it was spared from the first fire which tore through the cloisters, and the books were then again spared destruction during WWII by being moved to a safe location. The old library was destroyed by the same bombs that killed the afore-mentioned citizens.

The "Luther cell" isn't original, but they doctored it up to how it may have looked.

Next, we visited the beautiful Erfurt Cathedral and St. Seviri Church, both Roman Catholic. The Cathedral is where Luther was ordained, but I don't think the St. Seviri Church has much significance. Both were quite a view from the plaza. The Cathedral is to the left.

It was quite dark inside.

Evidently Pope Benedikt XVI (or should we call him Ratzinger again?) visited this cathedral in 2011.

Finally, the doors were quite a sight. I enjoyed seeing the 12 apostles flanking the entrance.

The St. Seviri Church wasn't much, and not worth putting pictures here. There's a few that will come out in the full album.

We drank some Glühwein (spiced wine) in a shop near these churches, then headed back through Erfurt. We tried seeing the "Preaching Church" (Predigerkirche) and the "Merchants' Church" (Kaufmannskirche), but both were locked. I think we got to the Predigerkirche too late in the afternoon, but that was a normal occurance. Those two churches weren't of great importance- the Predigerkirche had Johannes Bach (uncle to JS Bach) and Pachelbel as their organists, and Luther preached a sermon in the Kaufmannskirche.
Later that evening we took a train to Eisleben, a very small city, and stayed in a quaint hotel, the Altar Simpel. It was a pub in the ground level, and a hotel in the upper 3-4 floors. They had good service, and it was pretty cheap. We ate a good dinner in a nearby restaurant.

That's about it from Eisenach and Erfurt. In the next blog post, I'll cover Eisleben and Wittenberg, which we saw in one day

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My parents are visiting Germany!

Well, the time has come that many have been waiting for. My parents flew into Frankfurt on Friday morning, and I picked them up at the airport at 9am. They claimed that they weren't tired, but they sure enjoyed their hour long nap before lunch. I took a quick picture of them standing in front of the LThH sign.

 

 

We ate lunch with the students in the cafeteria, and then they took another short nap and/or rested. Then we walked around Oberursel; I showed them what a typical German town looks like, with its "Old City" and "New City." I acquainted them with the pedestrian-only parts of German cities, and the various shops on both sides. We then at at the Oberurseler Brauhaus, and we all had very German food and beer. I had schnitzel, potatoes, and salad; my dad had very tender pork, cooked red cabbage (very popular here), and boiled potato ball (I'm not sure how to describe it); and my mom also had sauerkraut and a fried ham-hock (which is the Brauhaus's speciality, and also way too much for her to eat- she gladly shared, and took some back with us). The beer was good; I had a boch and my dad a pilsner. Mom has a Riesling (white) wine with her food. After walking back to campus, we just relaxed, drank some more beer, and talked.

I let them sleep in on Saturday morning, and we had a brunch at about 11am. I had bought some delicious German bread, and we ate them with meat, cheese, jam, and Nutella- not all together though. Then we toured Frankfurt and did a lot of walking. Pictures will come up later, once I can get them off their camera. We saw the Römer (the old part of the city), the small church in the area, and the large St. Bartholomew's Cathedral. It was so cloudy that we decided against walking up to the observation platform on the top of the tower; we could barely see the top of some of the skyscrapers in Frankfurt.

We returned with enough time to rest for about an hour, and then we spent the evening at Pastor Wenz's house. My dad and he had studied together at Fort Wayne; Pastor Wenz had been an exchange student to Fort Wayne, which makes it funny, because I am an exchange student to Oberursel and study here with his son Michael. It was an enjoyable evening, and my parents learned a lot about Germany and the SELK that I wouldn't be able to tell them.

The next day (Sunday, today) we went to church at St. John's in Oberursel, where Pastor Wenz is a pastor, and my parents got to experience a German church service. The liturgy is fairly similar, and all of the hymns were recognizable. It being the first Sunday in Advent, we sang "Ein Feste Burg"- the appointed hymn for this Sunday in the One-Year Lectionary Series.

Then after that we ate lunch and traveled to Eisenach. We found our hotel rooms, left our bags there, and then toured the city a bit, taking pictures in front of the Luther statue. We started to go through the Bach museum, but didn't have enough time to finish it before it closed; our tickets are still good for tomorrow, so we'll finish it up then. We also have the Luther house and museum to visit, as well as three churches. The English tour at the Wartburg is at 1:30, so we'll make it up there for that.

From Eisenach we go to Erfurt, and then Eisleben and Wittenberg. I'll try to update this blog as often as possible, and hopefully include more pictures in the future. Until then, Tschüss!

 

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Visiting the Stotzs in Hamburg

One fact that most of you probably didn't know is that not only did I have good friends also studying in Germany (see my post about Herford), but I also have (close) relatives living here. Richard Stotz is my dad's cousin (so that would make him my cousin once removed, I think); he came here about twenty years ago on a three year international business partnership through his work, met a young woman (Leila) in his second year there, got married, and settled down in Hamburg. They have three children: Philipp, Oliver, and Anne. I had met Oliver when he came to Michigan to study for a semester, but while he wasn't home this weekend, it was nevertheless good to see the family.

 

I also welcomed a guide around the city; some of my best city trips have been with people who know where to go and what to see, as well as the history of the city. In the case of Hamburg, it was also helpful to know where not to go. But I get ahead of myself.

 

I left Oberursel after my morning class on Friday and got into Hamburg about 3:30. My mind was pretty clear during the trip, or at least clearer than before, so I wrote two blog posts for you, one of which has already been posted. That evening Richard took me around Ahrensburg where they live; the small castle had been built by the Danes who had held the land at that time. They also built the city church, which one could tell by the architecture that it wasn't built by Germans. Otherwise the town was a cute, small, typical German "Dorf."

 

The next day we began with seeing the city where Richard works: Lübeck. When he told me that on Friday, my brain started nagging me and wouldn't let me rest until I looked up the reason that I had heard of the city. There's a word that my generation uses to describe what I felt: "facepalm." It's the city that Bach as a growing organist and composer visited to hear Buxtehude! So I was in fact pretty lucky that Richard took me there, because I probably wouldn't have made the trip to Lübeck on my own.

 

Lübeck has three main attractions: the Marienkirche, the City Hall, and the old city gate (Hostentor). We first walked through the city hall area ("Platz") where the Church also is. Here are pictures of all three.

 

 

 

 

I'm not exactly sure how old the church is, but its main attraction is the tomb of Buxtehude. The church itself had been bombed during WWII, so much of what you see has been rebuilt, trying to keep with the old style.

 

 

 

 

What especially caught our attention was an astronomical clock. It gave the day of the week, the phases of the moon, and the day of Easter. Each day had its own saint that would be celebrated. If you want to figure it out, I took this picture on January 19th, 2013.

 

Also, at noon little figurines would mechanically come out, bow before Jesus, and exit. I got a nice little picture of it. Even if you don't understand German, you can probably figure out what the lady in the background is saying. It's not too hard. "Japanerin" means a Japanese woman, etc.

 

Another interesting part of the church are the church bells, which fell when the church burned during WWII. The British bombed Lübeck primarily in return for the bombing of one of their cities. There's a cross of nails that has been given as a peace symbol from the English city.

 

 

 

We also visited the cathedral of Lübeck, which was smaller than the Marienkirche (much to the bishop's chagrin). Inside there was a very large crucifix over the entrance, with various people standing around, including the bishop. This church got partially burned, but didn't suffer major damage.

And, if you want to figure out who everyone is, I took a picture from a nearby book.

 

Also in this church was a large clock (no doubt to make sure the preacher didn't exceed his allotted time). Above the clock where five women symbolizing the five senses. I'll let you figure out who is which. In the middle is death holding a lantern, and I can't remember the person to his left.

 

Finally, there was the "Reproaching Jesus of the Unthankful World"- or at least I think that's what he's called. Let me see if I can figure out this German script. "I am the light, man does not see me. I am the way, you don't walk. The truth, you don't believe me. The life, man doesn't desire me. I am rich, man doesn't pray to me. I am noble, man doesn't serve me. The most beautiful, man doesn't love me. I am merciful, man doesn't trust me. I am almighty, man doesn't fear me. I am a teacher, man doesn't follow me. You will be condemned, blame me not." At least, I think that's what it says. Add a comment if you think it can be improved. It's pretty strong law, but it's a good reminder of our sinful condition and our desire to flee from God and his mercy. And yet we are brought back to faith by the preaching of the Gospel, and we recognize Jesus correctly.

 

So, after that we went to Hamburg and toured the city. The first church we stopped by was St. Katherine's, but I was quite disappointed in it. It was white-washed and very dull. It really doesn't deserve pictures on this blog. Afterwards we walked a bit through the main shopping stretch of Hamburg, which has...many kinds of shopping. At this point I was very thankful that I was visiting Hamburg when it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit, with a blustery cold wind. Because while it was obviously cold for those of us bundled up, it also was also too cold for the scantily clad "Ladies of the night." If you're still in doubt, yes, I'm talking about prostitutes who normally are around this area. Prostitution is legal in Hamburg (no doubt due to its shipping industry), but it's also heavily regulated and usually kept to a small area. The red light district was just an alley not too far from where we were walking. The only thing I partook of in my visit to this area was currywurst from a popular stand. It was quite delicious, but probably not worth visiting in the summer due to the company.

After that, we went to something called the Hamburg Dungeons. It's basically a horror house (no, Tom, not a whore house), and it was themed around the city of Hamburg. It's based on a "Dungeons" in London, the original one. It was very well done and very enjoyable. It ended with our hanging, or at least, we were put into a "demon drop" rollercoaster. They took our picture- you can tell that I was expecting it.

 

Then we returned to his house, where we had something small to eat before a group of people came over. There were to adults first who came over, and it was good to talk with them in German and tell about my studies. We ate pita bread with hummus, and had some drinks. Richard was surprised that I, a theology student, would drink vodka mixed with Coca-cola, but indeed, I assured him that God allowed us to enjoy all the fruits of this earth, but not to indulge too heavily, which I didn't. Later that evening some youth came over, so it was interesting to see the styles of high schooler here. Their hair was the weirdest- the sides and back are close-cut, but the top is so long that it hung down over their eyes. Oh well. They stayed up a long time, but I went to bed pretty early, because Richard and I went to the fish market really early in the morning.

Normally the fish market is quite full during the summers, but the cold also kept the crowds and vendors away. Richard was pretty disappointed, and he apologized for the small crowds, but I didn't mind. After that we went to St. Michaelis- the largest church in Hamburg. It was very beautiful on the inside, and reminded me of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Everything was curved, and it felt like one was on the inside of a ship. The pulpit was the most impressive.

 

 

 

We had a bit of time before the service was supposed to start, so we went below and saw the tombs- I didn't expect to see Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's tomb, but we did! It was quite by accident that decided to go down there, not knowing what we'd find, but you can be sure that we're glad that we went down there. Just to let you know, C.P.E. Bach is the son of J.S. Bach.

 

Other notable musicians at this church were Telemann and Brahms, who had been baptized here.

 

The service and sermon weren't very good; it was a typical State Church service. Nonetheless, the organ playing was very well done, and I thoroughly enjoyed the music. There was a short Bach concert afterwards; maybe fifteen minutes long. And obviously I had to get my picture taken with Luther.

 

Finally, we went up to the tower and had a nice view of the city. In the picture below, you can see the industrial part of Frankfurt- centered around the docks that load and unload cargo ships. In the next photo is a picture of the Flackturm, an ugly, huge building that had anti-aircraft guns on it. It was built not to come down, and indeed, the German government has decided that it's too expensive to blow up, so they've turned it into a party hall for the youth. Maybe they'll find a way to tear down the house...

 

 

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