Hello everyone,
Once again, I have so much to write about. Our Rotary Adventure weekend, a trip to a Roman museum, a visit to Wuppertal, birthday parties, and of course, five days in beautiful Berlin! I know it's been a while since Kirchentag, but I'm still reeling from the experience. It's hard to imagine that I managed to see so many things, and that I was lucky enough to experience it with such a lovely group of people. So, Kirchentag. This is a national celebration that takes place in a different city every year. It alternates between Catholic and Lutheran Kirchentag, so this year was Lutheran and the next will be Catholic (I'd be very curious to compare the two). As this year's Kirchentag was the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and hosted by Berlin (with closing mass held in Wittenberg, Luther's hometown), it was huge. Despite that, I was able to get up close to the stage at a Max Giesinger (a huge pop star and head of the charts here in Germany) concert and not-so-close but also not super far away from a really cool conversation between Barack Obama and Angela Merkel - and that was just the first day and a half! Both of those events, as well as most of the other big concerts, were held on a stage set up in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which was pretty magical. Included with our Kirchentag passes, we got a flexipass for public transportation, enabling us to get to stations and workshops all over Berlin. That, coupled with an ideal lodging location in a youth hostel close to the center of the action, made it possible to fit in a lot of events. Here is a list of activities, workshops, and talks that I attended: Music:
Politics:
Theatrical performances:
Miscellaneous:
As I mentioned, the group was great, and I enjoyed hanging out with the youth group girls and also spending time exploring Berlin and Kirchentag with Manfred, who was interested in seeing a lot of the same things as I was. I slept almost all five hours on the drive home Sunday, and upon arrival, went straight to bed. Just a few days later, I took the opportunity of a school holiday to travel to Wuppertal with a friend from school and ride the Schwebebahn, a hanging metro line that looks like a fair ride but serves as the public transport for the town. That had been on my Germany bucket list for a long time, so it was really neat to do, even if we didn't see any elephants (the Schwebebahn is known for a failed publicity stunt at the beginning of it's life, when the city put a baby circus elephant named Tuffi in for a ride to prove its safety - Tuffi didn't take kindly to this, decided to bail, and fell in the river, luckily surviving (and inspiring the name of the locally produced "Tuffi" milk products) ). I also attended Marta's birthday party where I got to meet some of her school friends (which was really nice), and went to a birthday party for two of my best friends from Rotaract. Then, I went to school for a bit - just to shake things up - before my Rotary adventure weekend from this past Friday to Sunday. This was just my thing - tenting, gorging on cake, rafting (i.e. an epic pirate ship battle, where my boat naturally decimated the others), making new friends (the German outbounds attended this time, and it was very interesting to meet them and hear all about where they're headed), and of course talking non-stop. It was kind of weird at the end, because many of the group are heading home in the next two weeks so we had to say our final good-byes then. I'm so happy I get to stay longer! After the weekend was officially over, I headed to a neighbouring town and met my host family at a Roman museum/archeological park in Xanten, the site of an important Roman trade city at the far reaches of the Roman empire in Germania. As well as the various replications of Roman buildings and a very well-organized and interesting museum, there were live exhibits, where toga-clad actors explained various aspects of daily Roman life. We got to chat with a master baker, learn about flour-processing and baking techniques of the ancient romans, and taste freshly baked bread made using the methods described at the "bakery". A little while later, we had the opportunity to learn about painting techniques and the composition of paint used in Roman art by an artist who creates very impressive paintings using these ancient ingredients and techniques. Unfortunately, we were too late to participate in the workshop, but at least we managed to avoid the crowds. For lunch, we dined on traditional Roman food (or at least in Marta's and my case, while the rest opted for "modern" food or coffee) in a Roman guesthouse. We didn't eat lying down - which was probably good as Justus ate ice cream and I had soup. Then, we headed home and I crashed. Again. Gee, all this fun is just exhausting! I take my German exam on Monday next week, and am dutifully studying (or at least planning to). Wish me luck :) Viele Grüße, Sylvia
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