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Okay, one of the critical things that I've learned is that Austria is not Germany. I've learned that Austrians have very little to be proud of (at least compared to their northern neighbour). Of all the states in the European Union, Austria has one of the highest acceptance rates for the euro while Germany has one of the lowest with the general populace wanting to revert back to the mark as a sign of national pride. So, Austrians are very unnationalistic? Wrong! Yesterday, we took a trip to the top of a mountain.¹ While we were ordering drinks at the small café/pub in the Alpinehous, one of the group members grabbed an “American-made Coca-Cola”. However, the clerk at the register took it from him and replaced it with an “Austrian-made Almdudler”. Why did this happen? As far as Austrian culture, they do that. When Dayton today ordered a coffee with a double shot of espresso, he was overridden by the barrista who said, “It tastes better with milk.”. As far as the paradoxical, Austrian nationalism whatnot, I have no explanation. In America, no one's going to care if your beverage is Austrian or Australian.

So, today was just about as unnotable as yesterday. At first, visiting cities was unique. Now, they're all the same.² Today, we visited Salzburg. Salzburg is famous for two things: Mozart and The Sound Of Music. People in Salzburg (or Austria for that matter) have never heard of The Sound Of Music, and those who have hate it. Still, there's a love-hate relationship³ with The Sound Of Music since it brings hundreds of American and Japanese tourists to Salzburg a day. So, it should come as no surprise that we visited a lot of the places featured in the film.⁴ However, Austrians are very proud of Mozart. It's also some significant anniversary of his, so the town is decorated to the hilt.

However, Salzburg just wasn't that fun. After we saw all of the sights, they set us loose like they normally do. Sure, it's great if you're a shopper and want to spend money like a high-maintenance, Manhattan socialite, but for me who inherited his father's frugality⁵, I'm content not buying expensive, European goods. I wanted to tour the Stiegl brewery in town. I had visited Coors once, but I was like… maybe seven at the time? However, no one was in the brewery touring mood. So, I was perfectly content walking up and down the tourist district of Salzburg⁶ thinking in my head of things like race relations, the depravity of humanity⁷, space travel, my finances, human relationships, Almdudler and linguistics. We ate at an Italian restaurant⁸ where the waiter spoke excellent English⁹ After that, we returned to the Schloß. The big issue is that finals are tomorrow. So, while all of us should be studying at this moment, I'm writing a journal entry.¹⁰

I know that I've hijacked my weblog in order to chronicle the details of my trip to Europe, but I have the urge to write a good ol' fashioned rant on some issue. As I was walking around Salzburg alone, I started thinking about things that I deserve. I mean, I'm a good person, so I should have some decent things that I don't have. So, I wonder if I should pursue obtaining what's missing in my life or just be content that I have what I have. I don't know the answer. I don't even know if I'm looking for an answer. I'm probably just wanting people to feel sorry for me. So, if you're reading this, please feel sorry for me: the Wolfeman doesn't have what he's entitled to…

…but you're entitled to leave a comment if you would like.

1. Which involved us going up on gondolas, throwing snowballs at each other, staging a mock wedding in a chapel at the top (I was the minister.), hiking down to the Alpinehous, going back home. It was so unnotable that I summed it up in a footnote.
2. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
3. One other thing that I've learned from this trip is that there is a difference between a love-hate relationship and a hate-love relationship. Love-hate is how I feel towards my high school. Hate-love is how we feel towards our academic dean who, despite being a cool guy (It was his anniversary today too), he's on a campaign to increase the workload of the student body as a whole. Wow, I'm really using the footnote feature tonight. I'm glad that I put it in; I wrote this software myself, you know.
4. I performed in The Sound Of Music once when I was a freshmen in high school. I was asked to list my favourite things about being in the play for the program. I wrote down “The free food and the homework catchup time. Other than that, it's not much fun.”. My comment was not printed.
5. Thank you.
6. This footnote is pointless!
7. I wrote the worst paper of my college carrier yesterday on the depravity of humanity with Dachau as a backdrop. I totally chalked the paper and my grade of 100% reflected the poor amount of work that went into it. Well, I shouldn't say that; a ton of work went into it; very little thought did.
8. <sarcasm>Since Italian restaurants are extremely hard to find in this part of the world, and we had never eaten at an Italian restaurant on the entire trip.</sarcasm>
9. <stillMoreSarcasm>Which is notable since no body in Europe speaks English (except for the possible exception of England).</stillMoreSarcasm>
10. It's required for one of my classes anyway, so this counts as homework. I just hope that I don't get docked for my excessive use of the footnotes.

So, the Schloß is pretty freakin' sweet! It's so easy to get lost in this place, and that's what I've been trying to do these past few weeks in these major German cities. In addition, the meals are also freakin' sweet. Yeah, I highly recommend it Austria. Each home is given fifty euros by the government each year to improve their flower boxes outside of their windows just so that you have something pretty to look at when you enter Austria.

Anyway, I slept in pretty late, but still made it up in time for breakfast. A few hours later, there was a church service for the guests of the Schloß. It was really the balance of the Catholic service in Würzburg and the ultra-low-Protestant service in Berlin. The members of the congregation were from all different places on the globe and brought this with them to the service. I liked that part.

For the rest of the day, we took a hike up to some sort of waterfall that was pretty freakin' sweet too. There were numerous places where you could just stand beside the waterfall and get freakin' soaked by the freakin' myst that had been generated from the freakin' water constantly hitting the freakin' rocks. After the long hike up the mountain, we stopped in at some freakin' sweet café at the top of the mountain where Dr. Ostrander bought us all drinks. I had a freakin' sweet serving of some Almdudler. Once again, I would highly reccomend that you pick yourself up some Almdudler if you have the opportunity.

Other than the climb up the mountain, we really did nothing else today. We got back to the Schloß and wasted some time before dinner. After dinner, we watched a documentary about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Then, I locked myself in the library to work on some assignments and use the much coveted Internet.

So, yesterday was our last day in Margetshöchheim. I asked Dr. Ostrander what was on the itinerary for the day. He replied with “feed the ducks”. Since we had accumulated massive amounts of bread each day that we weren't using, the practice was to feed the ducks of the Main river the surplus bread. I seemed to enjoy it the most out of the whole group. It was interesting to see the ducks fight each other and pull feathers out of the other ducks' collections of feathers.

The day was supposed to be spent packing. I really didn't pack and just wasted the day doing… I don't remember; it must not have been really important. However, that evening, Dr. Ostrander had arranged to send us over to Veitshöchheim to eat at one of the restaurants along the riverfront. While this was all happening, it was raining. The restaurant that we were at was an outdoor restaurant, but it was on the second floor with a roof over our heads. All that I can say about the food is that it was probably the best meal that I've ever had in my life: the salad, the entrée, the drink and the dessert. After the meal, we all just sat around the tables talking to each other for longer than we actually ate. Our chef even came up and chatted with us in good English.

That night, I was really in no mood to go to bed. So, I had a few sodas to stay awake. However, while I was in the mood to pull an all-nighter and then sleep in the van/box the next day, everyone else was all too eager to get to sleep. So, I found myself packing at 2:00.

I woke up around some time in the morning. I fed the ducks one last time. Then, we all packed the vans/boxes to the ceiling full of bags. We really didn't waste any time in Margetshöchheim since we had a full day ahead of us. So, we got inside the boxes and headed for Austria.

Before we went to Austria, we made a stop in Munich. Specifically, we stopped in one of Munich's more infamous suburbs: Dachau. Dachau is pretty much famous for one reason and one reason only: the Nazi concentration camp in the city. While the Nazis had established several extermination camps in Poland later during the war, Dachau was established immediately after the Nazis came to power, and it wasn't an extermination camp; it was merely a smaller work camp. However, it was the only camp that remained open during the entire twelve-year Nazi regime. As we walked into the camp, we were greeted with the same metal gate that had greeted all of the countless victims that had come through the gates some sixty years before with the motto of the entire Nazi extermination system placed in the door: “Arbeit Macht Frei” which translates into English as “Work makes [you] free”. It was here that I took my first picture of the trip.

The first part of the camp that we visited was the museum located in the main building of the camp. Of the entire camp, this was the location that I appreciated the most. The museum offered a lesson in history of the camp in specific and the entire Holocaust in general. I took longer than the others reading the materials provided for us. After the museum, we walked took a quick walk through the barracks. After that, we went to the most infamous spot of all: the crematoriums. I had seen pictures of these all the time through my elementary school obsession of reading everything and anything related to World War II, but I had never seen the real thing. Still, my feelings were the same then and the same now: disgust. While walking through the same building, I actually stood in a gas chamber that looked as though it was being disguised as a shower room. However, at Dachau, the gas chambers were not used for mass killings. Rather, it was seldom used for a few executions of camp members that had stood out as nuisances. The infamous mass killings occurred at the camps in modern-day Poland such as Auschwitz and Treblinka.

After we exited the crematoriums, we walked into a little grove in the woods that had grown around the camp as a sort of memorial garden. We then pulled out our copies of Night by Elie Wiesel. What we were supposed to do at this point was to read a certain passage of the book that stood out to us. I choose a passage from the preface:

On the last day of the Jewish year, the child was present at the solemn ceremony of Rosh Hashanah. He heard thousands of these slaves cry with one voice: “Blessed be the name of the Eternal.” Not so long before, he too would have prostrated himself, and with such adoration, such awe, such love! But on this day he did not kneel. The human creature, outraged and humiliated beyond all that heart and spirit can conceive of, defied a divinity who was blind and deaf. “That day, I had ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, and God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone—terribly alone in a world without God and without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself to be stronger than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied for so long. I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger.”

And I, who believe that God is love, what answer could I give my young questioner, whose dark eyes still held the reflection of that angelic sadness which had appeared one day upon the face of the hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Jew, his brother, who may have resembled him—the Crucified, whose Cross had conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the Cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key to that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished? … We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Eternal is the Eternal, the last word for each one of us belongs to Him. This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.¹

We visited some of the chapels that had been set up on the camp since it had been turned into a memorial site. Dayton told us not to overthink anything while we visited the chapels like he would normally do if we were visiting an art gallery or a museum. However, the place was crowded with a bunch of people in uniforms. It turns out that they were members of a German-Austrian Catholic fraternity that had come to honour the memory of members of the fraternity who died at Dachau. Besides them, we met a Jewish pilgrim from Georgia. He helped me translate some of the German and Hebrew that was on the memorial plaques. We had a brief discussion on theology. He told us that Dachau was not an easy place to visit. I told him that it was not my idea of a good time.

Then, we left Dachau. Our destination was Schloß Mittersill in the Austrian Alps. Schloß Mittersill is a castle that was converted into some sort of Christian theological academy/retreat in Austria. The fact that it was established in Austria is significant since Austria was neutral during the Cold War. Therefore, students could come from Eastern Europe to study theology in Austria. For us, Schloß Mittersill is our home for the next week. I'm thrilled about the fact that the place has a full laundry service (€8.00/load, but Dr. Ostrander is paying for it), wireless Internet (€0.50/15 minutes which is quite expensive so I won't be on 24/7), a cafeteria (which had absolutely delicious food) and a “café” (which we later found out wasn't a café at all but a pub). It's pretty freakin' sweet to be put up in a freakin' castle. On my way back to my room, I actually got lost! There's a church service tomorrow, so I need to sleep.

1. Elie Wiesel, Night, trans. Stella Rodway (New York: Bantam, 1960), x-xi.

So, in Würzburg, we finally visited the rest of the Residenz. It was pretty cool to see the rest of the palace. While we were there in the Residenz, there was some construction still occurring in the Residenz. The reason for this is that the Residenz is still being reconstructed from bomb damage in World War II. During the last few weeks of World War II, the city of Würzburg was heavily damaged due to a bombing by the Royal Air Force. While some claim that Würzburg was a military target, the consensus (at least here in Germany) is that the bombing of Würzburg was an act of revenge for the bombing of British cities five years earlier. After we visited the Residenz, we visited a war museum in Würzburg. There was a model of the city after the city had been bombed along with a list of all the people that were killed during the bombing.

We climbed the top of a hill where we visited a church on the way to our vans, but before we got into the vans, we stopped at a playground overlooking the city. We kicked out the local children so that our all-American crew could play on the equipment. They got a good laugh out of watching us throw frisbees at each other while travelling on the ziplines. We came back to the house. The only other eventful event that I can remember that happened that night was that Dayton, Jon and I got out the poker chips and played some Texas Hold-'em in the parlour.

The next day, we visited Heidelberg. Heidelberg is notable for being the birthplace of the Reformed branch of Protestantism. In addition, there is a wealth of history in Heidelberg. When we got to an Internet café in Heidelberg, I downloaded some information about the Thirty Years War to my memory key so that I could consume the knowledge later. The castle in Heidelberg was a nice place to visit. All all the places that I've visited so far in Germany, Heidelberg is probably the one that I've become most interested in. The Protestant elector of Heidelberg was invited to become the king of Bohemia which had a Catholic king with a Protestant populace. Somehow, the Catholic ruler of Bavaria started a war over the issue which I assume led to the Thirty Years War.

We had dinner in a nice Italian restaurant near the city square and then headed back to Margetshöchheim. However, along the way, we ran into an intense traffic jam on the Autobann. By the time that we finally got back to Margetshöchheim, everyone else just went to bed since they were so tired. I stayed up to get a small snack. I made the comment that Dr. Ostrander would probably come over to our house sometime later since all the snacks were in our house and none in theirs. About fifteen seconds later, Dr. Ostrander walked through the door. So, we had some toasted kaiser rolls with butter and jam. With nothing left to do, I went to bed.

Today, the goal was to head to Frankfurt. I slept in since the Art in Western Culture class was meeting. People had told me that I should visit the class sometime since Dayton is a good teacher. It turned out that a parade was going through town giving away free items. When they came across a group of Americans, they brought out some free gifts for the group while the band played “When The Saints Come Marching In”. Needless to say, I should have gone.

Lunch was leftover spaghetti which still tasted delicious. After that, we headed to Frankfurt to visit some museum.

So, Dr. Ostrander decided that after that long free weekend, we would all be tired. So, rather than to take a long van ride, he decided for Monday that we would take a short van ride to a village only about half an hour away. It was actually quite relaxing as we went out into the wine country of the Main river valley. It was a great expanse of vineyards. We visited a nice little church on the top of a big hill. We then made a stop in at Wal-Mart here in Germany. It had its differences, but besides the alcohol aisle, it was pretty much the same. Afterwards, we came back and had leftovers. The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. I think that I took a nap. I can't remember.

Today, I woke up and wrote a paper for Evangelical Theology really early. We had a class with a quiz, and I think that I did really well on it. We're going to Würzburg in a few minutes, so the likelihood of visiting a proper Internet café is absolute. So, I decided to write a journal entry on my laptop before I went explaining about how uneventful yesterday was.

I didn't bother to change out of my clothes before bed again. This meant that by the time that I had woken up, I had been wearing the same clothes for three days straight. John had told us that Sunday was his sleep-in day since his church met on Saturday nights instead. We all found ourselves awake and bored, so we decided, with only two hours left until our train pulled out of Zoo Station, to go take pictures of the city. So, we all purchased some transportation passes and went to Brandenburg Gate and took a few photographs. It seemed odd to me that we took all of the trouble to get down to the gate only to take pictures of it.

With that, we headed back to John's apartment. On a side note, on the way back, I saw a robotic, East-German soldier with a silverish paint that looked very realistic. When you moved, it's eyes used some sort of tracking device to follow you. Occasionally, in a robotic manner, it would raise its hand and salute. It wasn't until later that I figured out that it was a mime. Back to the story, we got back to John's apartment and found him practising on his djambais. We thanked him for his hospitality, picked up our bags and set off for Zoo Station.

Although Berlin's superefficient transportation system is amazing, it's easy to know which train you're supposed to get on and off. It's hard to actually find the track where that train boards. After a while, we very much so delayed in getting to Zoo Station. It was clear that without doubt, we would miss our train. However, Jim made the observation that when we were coming into Berlin, the train stopped at the current station that we were at while going to Zoo Station. Therefore, the train should stop at the same station if it was coming from Zoo Station (which it was). We then quickly found the regional tracks at the station and found that the train to Wittenberg did indeed stop there. To our disappointment, that same train also stopped at Alexanderplatz — right down the street from John's apartment. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we had just gotten off and on our train at Alexanderplatz instead of Zoo Station. However, this would have meant that I would have missed out of the opportunity to visit a train station that had a song written about it by a major rock band. If you're curious as to why a band would write a song about Zoo Station, keep in mind that the the name of the subway line underneath the station is underground two or “U2”.

So, we took the train back to Wittenberg. Where I was disappointed in German punctuality when our train arrived twenty minutes late in Berlin, my faith in German punctuality was restored when our train arrived in Wittenberg at 14:40 exactly. Dr. Castleman and Dayton were waiting for us on the train platform. They were excited to see us but more excited about the fact that they were going to take the four of us around Wittenberg to see the sights (like we had wanted them too), but we insisted that we eat first since we got no lunch (we were in a hurry) and one of us hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours. So, the Castlemans directed us to a bratwurst stand in the middle of the town square. I had a bratwurst and a Coke, but I was still hungry, so I exchanged the two euro deposit on the Coke glass and got another bratwurst. Another observation about Germany (Dr. Jones, this is one of those cultural observations. So, pay attention.) is that there is a love affair with recycling. Apparently, you're supposed to throw your garbage into one of four trash receptacles: biomaterial, plastics, something else and everything else.

We first went to a church in Wittenberg I don't remember the names of the churches, but there are two important churches in Wittenberg There is the church that Luther preached and performed all of his important work and the church where he nailed on the door his grievances against the church. We first visited the church where Luther preached. Dayton (being the art professor) pointed out that the altar piece didn't include halos around the figures in the painting because while Luther himself believed that altarpieces were wonderful works of art and advocated their use, Lutherans don't believe in using paintings that glorify or venerate saints or other people. With not much else of note in this church (like we hadn't seen enough), we walked across town to the church in Germany that mattered if there was only one church in Germany that mattered. As we were walking, Dr. Castleman told us the story of how they twice walked right by the very doorway where Luther nailed the grievances before they realised it. Then, they pointed to the doorway, and it was right there in front of me. The door was made of bronze since the original door was long gone, but the doorway was there, and above the doorway was a Latin transcription (which I was mostly able to read) describing what had happened there on 1617 October 31. We then walked into the cathedral and saw where Martin Luther was buried. After that, we loaded into a box and headed back to Margetshöchheim.

The ride was long. I tried to pass the time by pulling all of the keys off of my laptop and cleaning all of the hair fibres and crumbs that had manifested themselves under the keyboard. That is something that I have learned never to do in a moving car as a piece and a key ended up missing. After we arrived in Margetshöchheim, I took a little extra time to look for the missing pieces. After I found them, I took a walk around the corner to meat everyone else for Turkish food. I love Turkish food. I would highly recommend that you go out right now and find some Turkish food. It is quite delicious. Anyway, we took our food and ate it while sitting beside the Main. Several ducks came up to us and just stood at our feet like they believed that they were entitled to some of our food. We partially accommodated them since they were really cool looking ducks.

The rest of the evening was basically just spend sitting around. Dr. Ostrander will be going to the train station in Würzburg to pick up the group that went to Prague at 4:00 which is in a few hours.

So, we all slept in pretty late. I crashed on John's futon with David. I didn't bother getting undressed; I just slept in my clothes. We got up and wasted no time around the house. We first went and got groceries. We came back and had hamburgers for breakfast. After that, we set out around Berlin with John's two transportation passes and climbing on buses and trams and trains. We went down to the central part of town with no apparent itinerary in mind. Although we saw a part of the Berlin Wall yesterday, today, we went down and saw more of the wall. We headed down to Checkpoint Charlie. It was basically a tollbooth set up in the middle of the street with a Soviet soldier with a Soviet flag posing for pictures (which I thought was great). Along the sides of the streets were street vendors selling tons and tons of communist memorabilia. If it weren't for the fact that we were walking a little too fast, I probably would have purchased one of those flippin' sweet hats. We then went to a museum dedicated to the wall and the Nazi war trials. After that, John left us to go to his church's worship practice. So, we were left to explore the city on our own. We took our transportation passes and set about to head over to Tiergarten. Once there, we decided to have a bit of lunch. We took the advise of an advertisement that we saw in the station and headed to the nearest restaurant that only happened to be twenty metres down the street from where we were, Burger King. There's really nothing much notable about Burger King. We walked around in the Tiergarten itself. The Tiergarten is essentially the Central Park of Berlin. The part that we happened to walk through was an English garden. After enjoying the sights for a bit, we decided to head back to John's apartment on the other side of town, but we still had plenty of time left before we needed to be back. So, we hopped onto random train after random train with no apparent destination in mind. It wasn't a waste however; we got to learn how the train system in Berlin worked. Berlin is a great city; one can live in Berlin and not need a car. It's amazing how great public transportation works in cities like this.

We eventually made our way back to John's house. Once there, we relaxed for a bit. I made a call to my parents to let them know how I was since I haven't been able to post any updates yet. It happened to slip my mind that today was their anniversary which wasn't really hard since I haven't the slightest clue when their anniversary is (well, I know now). Other than that, I just did some catch up homework for American Government. When it came time, we got on the tram and headed down the street to John's church. John's church is… unconventional. Rock Berlin is a church that occupies the top floor of a building. My first impression of the church was that it was a yuppie, Starbuckesque coffee shop. Where churches have pews, Rock Berlin has softseat chairs and couches. It turns out that Rock Berlin is a “free church”. I had read earlier in my German polity book that there is a nine percent tax levelled on all people in Germany that is used to fund one of the official churches of Germany: Catholic, Lutheran or Jewish. However, there are some churches in Germany that don't receive funding from the government. These are free churches. Most of the members of the congregation, I later found out, had filed papers to be exempt from paying the church tax.

Church began at precisely 18:07 (like I said, unconventional). The worship service had songs in both English and German. The sermon was given by an American pastor with a German translation. The pastor got a little theologically heretical when he said that the 1989 World Series were the best ever when any red-blooded American knows that it was the 2004 World Series. After church, dinner was served to the congregation. I couldn't help but think how similar this was to the first-century church by the way that it conducted itself. We had some conversations with several of the church members. I had a nice conversation with a German man over the issue of baseball hats, linguistics and the English language dominating the world. Concerning baseball hats, we were talking about how the preacher incorporated baseball into his sermon and how the Germans in the congregation found it hilarious. I asked if Germans really knew what baseball was all about. I have seen several people all around Germany equipped with New York Yankees hats; on the train into Berlin, I even saw a guy in a Yankees jersey. He explained to me that most Germans don't even know who the Yankees are and that they think that they're wearing plain, New-York hats. Commenting on his good English, I asked him what the general consensus was about having English spoken practically universally in Germany. He stated that when business deals internationally, there needs to be a common language. It didn't matter to him at all that English was that language. He tried to explain to me that this one guy in Poland had an idea once to create an international language called Esperanto. My response was simply “Mi parolas Esperanton.”. He then asked me how many languages that I knew. I thought about it and gave him my answer: English, Esperanto, Spanish, French, Latin and now German. He told me that my linguistic abilities were not what he expected from an American. He then asked me if I was sure that I was an American. After giving it some thought, I eventually responded with “No”.

Normally, after church, the convention is to show a film. However, John thought it best to take us back to his place instead of watching Bend It Like Beckham all in German. However, before we went back, we went to the church's recreation room where we played a game of foosball and two games of 301. Melody and I took some of the stuff back to John's apartment while John, Jim and David went and helped on of the members of John's congregation move some equipment. The guy offered them all money for the trouble, but they refused monetary compensation. So, the member gave John two bottles of Chilean wine in return. Normally, I would leave out such a small detail, but, my future roommate being from Chile, I had to mention it. For the rest of the night, we relaxed and watched a movie while I did some more homework. I took a break from homework to write in my journal about my day. However, while I was writing, I kept noticing a problem in my typing. Apparently, my instinct is to hit the y key with my left hand when I think that it's actually proper to hit it with the right. So, every time that I've been making a mistake with hitting the key with the wrong hand, I've been having to go back and correct myself. Yeah, I'm sure that you wanted to know that.

So, Munich… is three hours away. Due to the long drive time, we forgot about having class that morning and left for Munich at 7:00. During the long ride in the boxes, I decided to read my theological books for class the next day. Otherwise, the rides there and back were an opportunity to engage in philosophical conversations concerning the difference between dating and courting (which I believe that there is no difference), dumb stories of what we did when we were younger (which included shoplifting yo-yos, gluing books to a desk, hitting a dog and hitting a cat) and playing with a corkscrew (“It's a small world after all!”).

We eventually got to Munich. The highlight of the trip was the art museum that we visited. We went around the art museum looking at priceless paintings from Europe's history while listening to audio commentaries provided by headsets given to us by the museum. Despite the goodness of the museum, there's not much to write about it. So, after the museum, we went around looking for a place to eat. A group of about six of us found an Italian restaurant where we ate. Then, Jim and I started roaming around the city looking for an Internet café. We looked around the city for nearly two hours and were unsuccessful in our efforts. Eventually, we gave up, found a café and ordered some beverages. Then, we went to our rendezvous with the rest of the group. When we explained our unsuccess, Dr. Castleman told us that of course we weren't going to find an Internet café in Munich. Apparently, it's a backwards town. It complicated things again because it's been some time since I've last had access to the Internet.

So, we visited a couple of churches, listened to an organ concert and then loaded up into our boxes. About an hour outside of Munich, we stopped at a Burger King and had dinner. The awesome part of Burger King in Germany is the mayonnaise stuff that you put on your fries that's actually quite delicious. After the three hour trip, most of the other people were too tired to do anything. So, they all went to bed. I decided to follow their example and sleep myself.

Today, I woke up and had a little breakfast before heading over to class with Dr. Castleman. Our class was over the issues of the Trinity and Christ's nature. Ordinarily, if I hadn't have hijacked my weblog to turn it into a travelling journal, I probably would be writing something about the issue like the kind of entries that I used to write, but now, my weblog has gone from a forum my rants to an explanation of how my day was. O well!

After class, it was officially our free weekend. For our free weekend, we have the chance to technically visit any place in the world but practically visit any place in Europe. Dr. Ostrander is staying behind in Margetshöchheim and going to be bicycling around Bavaria while we're gone. Dr. Castleman and her son are going to Wittenberg. Since they were going to Wittenberg, they offered to take us to Wittenberg where the four of us could catch a train to Berlin. The rest of the group decided to spare no cost and head to Prague. So, we loaded up into one of the boxes with the Castlemans and headed to Wittenberg. The ride was filled with complications as we encountered intense traffic along the Autobahn. We barely made it to the train station in Wittenberg before our train left. However, we still made our train.

Our train pulled into Zoo Station twenty minutes late (so much for German punctuality). We were greeted by a JBU alumnus named John. John is over in Germany as an employee of an American construction firm building a new embassy here in Berlin. He has generously agreed to put us up in his apartment for the weekend. He guided us through the transportation system of Berlin to his home while stopping for Chinese food along the way. After dinner, we decided to head down to Alexander-platz since that's apparently the place to be here in Berlin. We passed underneath the Brandenburg Gate and saw where the new embassy was being constructed. We then headed over to the Sony Center to view the massiveness that a world class city provides. Although the city was awesome to see up close and walk around, unless we were willing to spend money, there was really nothing to do. So we headed back to John's apartment. So, we're sat around and watched BBC for a while and then started some CSI on DVD while I pulled out my laptop and updated my journal.

So, after days of intense travel, the powers that be decided to let us take it easy for once; instead of travelling, they gave us the day to stay close to home and work on our village projects instead. It was decided to have class later in the morning, but it was the class that I didn't have to go to, so I got to sleep in for an insane period of time.

I basically woke up, go ready and then went right to work. We crossed the river to Veitshöchheim. We were all hungry, so we decided to go to the Italian restaurant to eat because I had heard that it was the cheapest. Apparently, the restaurant was well-known to our group because we found all of our professors eating lunch at the same establishment. I had some freaking huge pizza that came with a metric tonne of garlic and onions on it. We then wandered around Veitshöchheim looking for some useful piece of information that we could utilise. Mostly, we just took pictures. We walked around in the rococo gardens of the palace that was in Veitshöchheim. Then, we visited the Bücherei. The Bücherei in Veitshöchheim is generally useful to us for one purpose: you can use the Internet there. So, I checked my e-mail and the other normal web sites that I would visit. However, I couldn't send any of my assignments or update my weblog because there was no USB port to plug in the memory key.

I went back to Margetshöchheim and studied for the hours until dinner was prepared. After eating, I generally half-studied and half-chatted in the parlour with my comrades until the late evening. Everyone went to bed early because the ride to Munich the next day would take a while, and we were leaving at 7:00.

Again, the day started out like all other days. I woke up for class this morning. I started out with breakfast. Since Dr. Castleman was in the parlour with all of us, she decided to teach our theology class right there on the breakfast table. The interesting topics were the crowing of Charlemagne and the Great Schism. After class, we loaded onto the boxes to head to Eisenach. Eisenach is a town about two hours north of Würzburg which is about an hour longer than our normal trips. However, the ride was well worth it. For one, the terrain that we traversed was very beautiful. However, the difference between beautiful and boring is monotony. So, we placed a CD into the player of a rather hilarious comedian very reminiscent of Jerry Seinfeld.

Once we finally got to Eisenach, we had some lunch. Bakeries are very abundant in Germany, but I was not in the mood to have a meagre, pastry lunch. So, after I ate a small sandwich and a delicious dessert, I wandered throughout Eisenach in search of my favourite food in the entire world excluding ramen noodles: bratwurst. Fortunately, I found a street vendor that was selling them for €1.50. One great aspect of Germany is that every bratwurst is always better than the last one. With that said, I could eat bratwurst forever over here.

Eisenach is famous for two people: Johann Sebastian Bach and Martin Luther. The town is famous for Bach because it was his home town. The town is famous for Luther because he once resided in the Wartburg Castle while he worked on his translation of the New Testament into German. Our next destination was this castle. Wartburg Castle was different from the other castles that we had visited. In the words of my professor, it's not the Cinderella castle. The castle is spread out along a narrow mountain. If Luther was referring to a specific fortress when he composed “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, he was most likely referring to Wartburg.

Our tour of the castle was interesting. Although each castle and cathedral is different, those differences mean less and less when you have to describe them every single time in your weblog. Needless to say, Eisenach was majestic. After our tour, we climbed the tallest tower of the fortress. I looked out over the landscape of Germany as I was up in the tower. I was amazed at what I saw. I saw kilometres and kilometres of the most beautiful landscape that I have ever seen. If someone from Microsoft had seen it, they would have stolen the picture for their evil purposes and used the picture as the default background of their next version of Windows. I was surprised that in a highly industrial country, there still existed places of such beauty.

We then went back to town to tour the town's church. It was another church. Where the castle was unique and distinctive, the church was unique and distinctive, but the castle was more so. Since the ride into Eisenach took two hours, we only had twenty minutes to entertain ourselves in Eisenach. With so little free time, I decided to waste it and go find the boxes. We then loaded in and headed back to Margetshöchheim. The ride back was long. We finally arrived back in Margetshöchheim around 19:00. We finally had a our late dinner. Although Eisenach was really far, on Thursday, we're visiting Munich which is exceptionally far. However, tomorrow, we have a free day. Well, the day's not really free. There is still class (but not for me since I'm not in Arts and Western Culture), and we have to visit our outlying villages in for our village project, but we're not headed anywhere other than the suburbs of Würzburg. So, I spent the evening working on assignments for American Government and journalling in hopes that, one day, I might be able to find an Internet café that will accept a USB device so that I can update all of my friends back home of what's happening, but that probably won't happen until Friday when we're all in Munich.

I woke up again today just like any other day. I got to sleep in because the class that morning was for the Arts and Western Culture students. Our goal this day was to visit the city of Nürnberg. Mrs. Ostrander left us to go back to America this morning, but we were finally joined by Dr. Castleman and her son, Dayton, who was to be the new teacher of the Arts and Western Culture class. It seems now that our trips out to other cities are becoming a routine: we have lunch, visit the town's cathedral, maybe visit a museum, then utilise our free time to roam around the city either shopping or ordering a drink from a café while studying. Nürnberg was pretty much the case. We visited a cathedral, visited a castle and had our free time. I roamed around the city in search of an Internet café. I checked all of the places where someone would normally look for an Internet café. However, I could not find a café. Apparently, I turned down the wrong street. The street that I turned down happened to be the red-light district of this town as the building that I happened to be to my left happened to be a brothel. There were women hanging out of the windows enticing me to enter into the building to utilise their services. I responded with the traditional “Ich kann nicht gut Deutsch sprechen.” I sped up as I traversed to the end of the street.

I eventually found my desired Internet café. Unfortunately, I was unable to access the assignments and journal entries that I had stored on my jump drive. So, I spent seventeen minutes checking my e-mail and finances. I left the café and found the rest of the group at the rendezvous point half an hour early. We then visited the second church that day. After that, we visited a third church on the way to the train station where we had parked.

We returned to the compound. It was my turn to help prepare dinner. We ended up eating a delicious meal of spaghetti. However, this evening, it was Jonathan's birthday. So, some of the girls in our group presented him with some gifts that most of the people in the group had contributed. After dinner, we headed over to a restaurant across the street to get some beverages and to utilise some apparatuses. It was an absolute awesome time just enjoying the conversation of my travelling companions. We then headed back to the compound where we gathered in the parlour to converse among ourselves some more while we all studied or journalled.

So, we visited the great Marionburg Fortress. Apparently, the single, greatest defence that the defenders had against their attackers was the fact that the attackers had to run uphill only to be greeted by a multitude of staircases once they were actually inside the castle. The Marionburg Fortress was built by the prince-bishop as a defence against his discontent subjects. The prince-bishop was a unique office that in American society would be completely foreign. According to our tour guide, the bishop naturally also made the best political leader in mediæval times; the bishop was well-educated (a necessary trait for a leader), celibate (allowing greater concentration to affairs of state rather than affairs of family), and connected with leaders of other states (necessary for diplomacy).

After the quick tour of the Marionburg Fortress, I made an effort to try to get lost in Würzburg again. However, I wasn't able to get lost when I didn't know the city; now that I knew how to get around, it wasn't easy to get lost. I had a lunch of a bratwurst and a Coke while I watched a band performing Tom Jones' songs in the market square. Eventually, I ended up in the Internet café to update my journal which hadn't been done in a few days. Since we had lots of free time, I took the time to read the weblogs of my dear friends and to research information about the euro. Later in the day, when I returned to our compound, I went over all of the information about the euro that I had downloaded immersing myself in the artistic symbolism, checksums, minting locations and national designs… like I would normally do. One of the luxuries that I miss is the ability to get on a computer and read the wonderful resources that the Internet has to offer.

Anyway, I left the Internet Café and proceeded downtown to visit a glass top coffee shop where (surprise, surprise) I found Jonathan. I ordered a cappuccino completely in German and sat with Jonathan as we talked for a bit. I then headed over to some church whose name that I can't remember. After looking inside, I met up with the rest of the group. We then headed over to the train station in order to purchase tickets for our free weekend trips. While all of the other people in the group decided to head to Prague at a price of seventy-three euros, I decided to head to Berlin with three others at a cost of only seventeen (with free room and board provided by some very generous JBU alumni). With the tickets in hand, we headed back to the compound. Saturday evening was uneventful until later in the evening. Eventually, the whole bunch of us ended up in one of the bedrooms having a truly meaningful, thought-provoking discussion. While that was happening, I played a guitar that someone had brought.

The next day, we headed into central Würzburg to attend mass at the cathedral that we had toured just earlier in the week. It was truly a majestic experience to attend such a formal ceremony in a titanic cathedral. It would have been a ton more interesting if I could have understood a word that was being said. As it was, I couldn't. Despite my love of foreign languages, being deaf in one ear can kill your ability to understand such.

After the mass, we went out to find lunch at a nearby café. We watched the runners in the marathon that was occurring in Würzburg that day that had earlier hindered our attempts to reach the cathedral. The highlight of the day was most definitely our lunch. Although there was nothing too unusual about our food, the best part was our freakishly incredible waitress. Although we neglected to get her name, all that I can say was that for those forty-five minutes, I was in love with a second-generation, Turkish waitress that spoke five different languages. Jonathan asked her if it would be rude if he could ask her to speak Turkish or Arabic for him. Not only did she think it not rude, she thought it pleasant that others took interest in her languages. Despite the great service that we got from our waitress, I regret that I neglected to obtain her name. Since we had none, we decided to christen her Goddess.

After lunch, we all headed back to the compound to relax for the rest of the day. I took some time to call my mother and wish her a happy Mother's Day. It must have been murder on my mobile phone bill, but she's worth it. Dr. Ostrander took several of the group out to watch a local soccer game, but I stayed behind to do some homework. In reality, I ended up taking a nap until dinner. After dinner, we watched a movie on the life of Martin Luther. Under normal circumstances, the movie would have inspired me to research about the history surrounding Martin Luther. However, not having the Internet at my fingertips once again has disappointed me. Besides study the history of Europe, being in Europe has made me want to play hours and hours of WoW. However, yet again, there's no network connection. Sure, I'll be able to when I get home, but playing a resource-intensive game on a computer in the middle of the summer is not the best use of my computer. Hopefully, next January, I'll have a new machine.

So, that wonderful Bücherei had wonderful Internet access at €0.03/minute. The bad part was that the library didn't allow USB devices to be connected to the computers. That meant that there was no way for me to upload my entry onto the wonderful Internet to share with you all. However, I was able to access my e-mail so that I could read all of the wonderful letters that you sent me. In otherwords, I deleted the notifications from the university's spam filter. It turned out that others from the study trip had also found their way over to the Bücherei with the intent to use the Internet. So, we all hung around the Bücherei until we all had our fill of the Internet. Then, we hit the streets of Veitshöchheim.

Veitshöchheim is a much cooler town than Margetshöchheim, but it's actually pretty typical. The town is just a stone's throw (a long stone's throw) across the Main river. There are plenty of cafés along the riverfront, and there are cigarette machines all around the streets. There's really no where that you can go without being greeted by the distinctive scent of cigarette smoke. Apparently, Europeans have it in their mind to take life easy: eat great food, enjoy cigarettes, have alcohol with every meal. However, they also exercise a lot more than Americans do. Plus, their work ethic is one of not doing it. They have a thirty-five hour work week. There's always people on the banks of the river just relaxing and admiring the view.

While the others were headed back to our home, my group went back to the synagogue in Veitshöchheim to visit the museum that was there. The lady in charge of the museum was very helpful in explaining some of the specifics of the synagogue. When we explained the situation, it might of sounded like we were college students who had come all the way from America just to do a report on Veitshöchheim because she waved the fee for all of us to visit the museum. This was a near complete synagogue — near complete as in there was no Torah, but all other necessary components were present in the synagogue. The reason why this synagogue survived the Kristalnacht was that the city had purchased the synagogue shortly before and converted it into a fire station. It remained such until several Hebrew (or possibly Yiddish) manuscripts were discovered in the attic of the firehouse. The firehouse was then converted into a museum which is what it remains to this day.

After we left the synagogue, we decided to call it a day and return to the house for dinner. Dinner was good. Afterwards, we all went over to the Ostranders' house to watch some whacked movie about castles. After that, we played some nertz in the parlour. I don't really like nertz but I went along with it anyway. After that, everyone else was too tired to stay up, so they all went to bed. I, however, stayed awake to do some American Government homework.

The next day was entirely devoted to visiting the tourist town of Rothenburg. Dr. Ostrander told us to be prepared early so that we could beat all of the Japanese tourists up to the castle. He wasn't lying. Everything in this town was translated into both English and Japanese (and often, French as well). We went inside of the castle and went to the top where we got a good view of the city of Rothenburg. Afterwards, we visited the torture museum. The best word to describe the museum would be… interesting. Of course, how could a museum devoted to the display of torture instruments and shame masks not be interesting. Our other destinations in Rothenburg consisted of a beautiful, Protestant cathedral and the castle gardens. For lunch, I had the pleasure of having Turkish food from a local Donner. Upon learning that we were Americans, the gentlemen running the shop turned his television on and turned it to the music video channel assuming that, as Americans, American pop culture would please us. Although we all appreciated the gesture, my idea of good music does not consist of either James Blunt or The Gorillaz. As far as the food, I found out that I like Turkish food. Turkish food is the Mexican food of Germany. For that matter, Turks in general are to Germany what Mexicans are to the United States. A lot of the same issues concerning immigration that are dealt with in America are being dealt with in Germany as well. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book on German government. In my analysis of the German situation, I learned that except for the United States, Germany is the top destination for immigrants. That gave me a wonderful idea about what to write for my first paper in American Government.

For the rest of the afternoon, I found an American family and chatted with them for a short time and eventually found others of my group. We all ate dinner at an Italian restaurant in Rothenburg and headed back to Margetshöchheim where I had an intensive argument with myself about whether I didn't agree with Turkish food or if Turkish food didn't agree with me. Tired, I read my assigned readings for Evangelical Theology and went to bed.

The next morning, I managed to do the quiz on the assigned readings. After a short class, we all got on the vans to head into Würzburg to visit the Marionburg fortress. I took my laptop along in order to find some time to update my journal before I found an Internet café which I know happen to exist in Würzburg. Apparently, Rothenburg wasn't advanced enough to have such luxuries.

So, yesterday, I visited the city of Bamberg. Supposedly, Bamberg is famous because it has the highest brewery per capita ratio of any other city in the world. We visited the cathedral in Bamberg which was pretty freakin' sweet. What I was impressed with was the fact that I could actually read the Latin inscriptions that existed all around the cathedral. It kind of disappointed me that there are no big cathedrals like that in the United States. O well, live here is not like life there.

After we visited the cathedral, we were set loose on the streets. I found an Internet café and uploaded my usual update. After that, I just walked around the streets for a few hours. Since shopping doesn't interest me, it's usually just time to kill until we're all ready to go back. However, I try to make the most of my time on the streets by trying to learn as much of the language that I can.

Besides dinner, most of my time back at the house was spent in deep sleep. I still haven't adjusted very well to the time zones. To make matters worse, I woke up at about 2:00 and didn't get back to sleep until around 5:00. It's a great thing that class was taught later in the day. We had our first class for Evangelical Theology. I have to say that I'm finding the class very interesting, and, if I wasn't so tired, I probably would have been more involved in the discussion process. As it was, I wasn't. The rest of our day (until now) has been spent obtaining information about our village that our group has adopted. For our project, the assignment is… well, I don't really know what the assignment is because the project is for Arts in Western Culture, and I'm not taking that class. All I know is that we're supposed to find out information about some village somewhere (which are more like suburbs of Würzburg) and make a presentation about it. Our village is Veitscöchheim. So, the three of us went over there today. Since we had all been over there before, it was easy for us to find the tourist centre. One of the ladies there spoke English and was able to help us and give us some literature about the town with some of it being in English.

After we got some flyers, we looked around for a place to eat. We found a nice restaurant that looked like it was the ground floor for a nice hotel up the stairs. While waiting for our food, we looked over the flyers that we had obtaining. I was pleased that my German had gotten better in the fact that I was able to order my food and ask for the check without any English (which our waitress happened to speak a little bit of). After we got back onto the street, we decided to try to find the synagogue in the town that was mentioned in the flyers. After some “intense looking around” (in other words, we got lost), we found the synagogue, but noticed that it wasn't open until 15:00. So, we decided to head back across the river to rest for a bit and then head back. I decided to bang out a journal entry on my laptop while I chilled out to some instrumental Phil Keaggy. I think that I'm going to head across the river to the Bücherei in Veitshöchheim where I should be able to use the Internet.

So, later yesterday (see yesterday's entry), I went around looking for an Internet connection so that I could maintain my only link with the outside world (you) and send the necessary e-mails to the necessary people. I was told that I could find public, Internet-enabled computers at the library (Bücherei) in the town across the river. The next town over (Veitshöchheim) is connected to our town (Margetshöchheim) by a pedestrian bridge across the river Main. Unfortunately, the Bücherei was closed. Judging from the sign in front of the building and my limited knowledge of German, I believe that the sign said that the library wasn't open at all on Mondays. At breakfast the next morning, the topic came up about whether I found a computer. After explaining the ordeal, an interesting detail came up about such. Apparently, places don't set their hours according to personal convenience like in the United States. Their hours of operation is set by the government who tells them when to open and when to close.

So, <sarcasm>saddened by the prospect of not having a link to you</sarcasm>, I wandered around Veitshöchheim alone trying to get lost in a foreign city. I did not succeed. I was always able to find my way back from wherever I was. So, I returned to our home in Margetshöchheim where I got to work cooking food for the rest of the team since I volunteered for the job earlier in the day. Our meal consisted of cuts of pork along with a salad with yoghurt salad dressing. It was… different.

After dinner, we were told to do whatever. So, I decided to start on my American Government homework, but I started falling asleep. So, I decided to sleep around 20:00. I was awakened by something (I don't remember what it was.) during the evening. I could have sworn that it was around 4:00 because every single person in the house was asleep, and all was quiet, but, when I looked at the clock, it was only 21:00. I guess that everyone else was as sleep deprived as me from the æroplane ride. I went back to sleep, but I was again awakened by bells at 6:00 when the bells from the church right next to us sounded. It's unusual to hear bells every fifteen minutes. The churches here will blast bells to inform people of the time. These are normally just quick and informative bells. However, at certain times of the day (6:00 being one of them), the bells will sound for about two whole minutes. I'm not sure why this is the case. I think that it's some sort of call to mass, but I could be wrong. No matter the reason, I went back to bed again until 7:30.

I woke up; got out of bed. Against the roof, I hit my head. I fell down the stairs and drank a cup. Looking up, I noticed I was early.

I had breakfast which consisted of some German cereal and took a shower. Then, I walked over to the professors' home for our first class. The class went over basic German history and how it related to the art of Germany. We then hopped into the boxes and left to go to Würzburg proper. We parked the boxes in front of the Residence. The Residence was a palace in Würzburg. We walked up to the fountain in front of the Residence where a tour guide in a black tuxedo (which some described as “pimp”) was waiting for us. His name was Peter, and he spoke very good English. We stood by the fountain while he explained to us the history of Würzburg and the significance of the sculptures on the statue. While this was going on, there was a mass protest of medical students from the university protesting about the low wages given to doctors and medical professionals. I found it highly ironic that at protest of medical professionals, one of the songs playing was “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton. After that, we proceeded to enter a chapel of the Residence while the band broke into “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Inside the chapel, we all marvelled at the amazing artistry put forth into the chapel. Then, we exited the chapel into the Residence's French garden. Apparently, there are three gardens: a French garden, an Italian garden and an English garden. The Italian garden is terraced; the French garden is completely flat, and the English garden is practically a forest. After our short tour of the Residence (we'll have a much more extensive tour of the Residence in weeks to come), we set out on the city streets where we were shown the town's university (where X rays were first discovered in 1895). We then were shown countless buildings which I can't remember the details of each. It was explained to us that all of the buildings in the town were not very old. On 1945 March 16, the RAF led a bombing raid against the city of Würzburg which practically destroyed the city. Our tour guide explained that the bombing could be considered a terrorist act. Würzburg was bombed by the British fourteen days before American tanks rolled into town. The local view was that the bombing was done in retaliation for the German bombings of Britain during the war, and that there was no military purpose for attacking the city so late in the war. However, Dr. Ostrander explained later to us that other historians have a different view: the Nazis were using the Main river as a mobilisation point and needed to fortify Würzburg in order to make an offence against the Allies. Therefore, the city was levelled to prevent its fortification. Either way things actually went down, the point is that the city was practically burnt to the walls. Most of the brick and stone façades of the buildings survived, but the interiors were charred. So, the citizens began to rebuild the city using more modern techniques along with the classical ones. This was evidenced with the cathedral. Half of the roof of the cathedral collapsed. When the citizens rebuilt it, they left the remaining portion in the baroque style and rebuilt the other half in the Romanesque style. While we were in the cathedral, our tour guide said something to us that I probably won't forget: “We have the seeds of pacifism in our hearts. Hopefully, it will keep.” I guess that two wars will do that to a people. What will it take to finally do that to us?

After our tour, the first thing that I did after eating was to find some money. I went to an ATM and withdrew fifty euros from my account. I knew that I was going to need change because it spat back a fifty-euro bill. We went to a market where Dr. Ostrander gave us each five euros to spend on lunch. I ordered some bratwurst and a Coke (not wanting to try a beer yet). It was good. Yeah. Then, I went to a bank to get some change. I inquired about the phrase that I would need to use (Kanne ich Rückgeld haben?), and went off confident that I could do it without any English. I was wrong. I got the phrase correct and was understood, but was unprepared for the event when the teller would ask me how I would like my change back. Fortunately, he spoke English. Then, we went looking for an Internet Café. We found an establishment on the second floor of a very, very tiny mall. I sat down and placed my previous journal entry that I brought on my jump drive onto my website and realised that the website wasn't working properly, so I'll have to change that the next time that I go. Other than that, I checked my e-mail, sent a few, looked up what log off meant in German and logged off. No, I didn't read any of my friends blogs, but when you're metered by the minute, you have to have your priorities straight. So, I paid my fee and left. I walked around Würzburg trying once again to get lost, but I just couldn't do it. I spent the rest of the afternoon aimlessly wondering around town.

We eventually loaded into the boxes and headed back to Margetshöchheim. I took a short nap while other people made dinner. We had some spaghetti and salad. After dinner, I took a walk up the Main over in Veitshöchheim which was pretty uneventful and boring. Apparently, all the cool stuff in down the river. Anyway, I got back to the house and joined all of the other students in the parlour. They were all studying away for their first test tomorrow in Arts and Western Culture. However, I lucked out because I didn't have to take it, but I got my laptop and started to finish the American Government assignment that I started but didn't finish. Fate manifested itself again, and I put the laptop away to play a game of hearts with some others. I won. Then, I pulled the laptop back out to finish what I had started. Doing homework in the parlour was actually quite enjoyable. I was nice to work along to some music provided by an iPod while drinking a Coke. There was also the occasional interruption when we talked about musical tastes and theology concerning spiritual gifts and charismatic sects. With everyone else going off to bed, I left the group to go write in my journal. That's where I am now.

I realised the secret to my taste in people: if your last name is Jones, I will like you: Scott Jones, Preston Jones, Norah Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones and, of course, Indiana Jones. Last night (or maybe the night before because crossing seven timezones will confuse your sense of time), two of my travelling companions and I had the opportunity to stay at the Castleman estate. Doctor and Reverend Castleman put us up in their home for the evening and fed us delicious lasagne. For the entertainment that evening, we managed to watch two of the Indiana Jones films. In the morning, Dr. Castleman took the three of us to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport which we all colloquially call XNA. The ride turned interesting when a local Gentry police officer witnessed Dr. Castleman's vehicle run through a red light while turning right. The good professor threatened us with bad grades if we let news out of the incident to anyone else. (Obviously, if you're reading this, you should know that I didn't follow through on that.)

Anyway, our first leg of the trip was a short jump on an æroplane from XNA to Dallas/Fort Worth where we waited for a few hours for our flight (American Airlines flight 70) which ended up being delayed considerably. Eventually, we made it in the air. Nine and a half hours, two CSI episodes, a book entitled Night by Elie Wiesel and seven countries later, we arrived in Frankfurt, Germany. We got off of the æroplane and headed through customs. Passport control was our first stop. It was there that I got my first stamp in my passport and had my first conversation in German (consisting of a simple “Danke.” and “Bitte.” with the control officer after he stamped my passport). You would think that customs would be the dreaded ordeal where your luggage is rummaged through and your cavities are searched. No. Such was not the case. We simply got our bags and walked through a door indicating that we had nothing to declare. After that, we went through the ordeal of trying to get the proper vans for transportation here in Germany. I say vans, but I don't think that van is the proper term. They were more like boxes with wheels. Anyway, they got the job done… when they finally arrived. We loaded into the boxes and proceeded to head towards the city of Würzburg in the great region of Bavaria in the great country of Germany. I was expecting Germany (and Europe in general) to be some completely different contrast to the United States, but I couldn't help noticing that the landscape looked remarkably similar to the state of Mississippi when I had been through there a few months earlier on my way to New Orleans. Then, I fell asleep in the box.

We arrived in the town of Margetshöchheim which is slightly north of Würzburg. We came to the home that the university rented. It's a skinny, three-storey building with a loft above the top floor. I ended up being placed up in the loft with two other companions. The disadvantage to living in the loft is the fact that there are three flights of stairs to ascend and descend. In one instance, I fell down the stairs and bruised by elbow. (I'm still internally bleeding.) Despite the nasty fall down the stairs, I stood up and went on with life. Despite the fact that we had all arrived in a foreign country in what was described by the previous group to be the best four weeks of their lives, we were all… unamused. After the flight, the wait, the next flight, the wait and the ride into Würzburg, we were all pretty tired. However, we all gathered into the parlour for a game of B.S. while Mrs. Ostrander found us some food and prepared it. Although I had had bratwurst for practically all of my life in America, nothing came close to the great taste of the bratwurst here in Bavaria. In addition, the jam that we spread on our kaiser rolls was amazing. I didn't know whether the food itself tasted better or if there was something magical about Europe that made the food taste better. Dr. Ostrander proposed the fact that we hadn't had a meal in ten hours.

After dinner, some of us jumped into the boxes to head to a grocery store around the bend. I didn't need to buy anything, but I went along anyway just for fun. I took my German dictionary along and started looking up words that I found on labels of certain products. To my amazement, almost a third of the store was devoted to the sale of alcoholic beverages. There was all kinds of different wines in the store. On one aisle in the alcohol section alone, I managed to find labels in eight different languages: German, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Spanish, Greek and Russian. After certain provisions were purchased, a few of us headed over to the bank to obtain some Euros for ourselves. Technical problems prevented most of us from obtaining the money that we'll need. When I got back to the house, I managed to pull out my laptop and type away about what had happened so far (with a short break so that I could go out and find out how to spell Margetshöchheim). Hopefully, I'll find some Internet café where I can post this online.

So, it is el cinco de mayo — the fifth of May, and in my family, that's celebrated with greater enthuiasm than the forth of July. However, not being in Denver, it's kind of pointless to celebrate it here where there's not a local cultural celebration. However, we all went to Fayetteville to celebrate a friend's birthday. It was also convienent to all be in the same place together one last time before we all went our separate ways for the summer. Unlike last year, I'm actually not really looking forward to leaving JBU. I would blame that on the fact that I actually have more than two friends down here to hang out with. If my Colorado crew is reading this, don't get me wrong: I still love you. Anyway, I'll have to fight boredom tomorrow as they are kicking us out of our dorms tomorrow at noon, and I really have no place to go until the evening. I have to ask myself what I could possibly do in the afternoon to kill time in a small town like Siloam Springs, Arkansas where Jesus is Lord!

So, I am done with class and done with work. Until I go to Europe, I have no responsibilities. I can do whatever I want.

I'm bored.

I would end this post on that note because just a plain, thought provoking sentence would say a lot, but it wouldn't tell you that tonight at work, I listened to an album that I haven't listened to in a while. Lesson: listen to music that you haven't listened to in a while.

I should be studying for my last final. It's 3:00 AM, and I kind of am, but I'm taking some time out to write something here. Life is nice. One of my professors decided to cancel his final and take us to lunch instead. That's awfully nice of him. It has restored my faith in computer science… well… maybe. Actually, when my programs actually work, I love computer science.

Right now, it's raining. It has rained for the past week now. I'm not complaining. I love the rain. I used to like the rain because we never got much of it in Colorado. We would always get snow. I hated the snow. Now, we never get snow. When we do, it's 30°C the next day, so the snow melts. For once, I'd like to have a real Christmas with snow, a fire in the fireplace, stockings on the mantle, a Christmas tree, lights on the house, egg nog and incessant Christmas music on the stereo. Ever since we moved to our new house, Christmas hasn't been the same. Then again, we did get older, and Christmas became less and less of a special event. For me, Christmas changed from a simple, fun time of year to a hassle that became less significant. Plus, the snow stopped coming. (I blame El Niño.) I can't wait until I have my own children that I can indoctrinate them with Christmas spirit. Hopefully, they'll learn to appreciate the winter months like I do. Off the topic of Christmas but on the topic of winter, winter is the most romantic time of year. In the summer, it's just a time for slutty partying on the beach in meagre clothes. In the winter, it's a time to bundle up by the fire with a loved one and snuggle and read a book.

Winter is seven months away. Summer is… tomorrow. Tomorrow is my last day of college for this semester.

I woke up with the theme from Sesame Street stuck in my head.

So, today, I had wonderfulness. I got to bed around 5:30 AM and slept until my first final which I had been up until 5:30 AM preparing for. It wasn't actually a final but a project that I had to present. My project was a syndication aggregator that reads syndication feeds off of the Internet and brings them to you. Maybe later when I work a few bugs out of it, I'll post it here so that you can utilise it. However, I might not. Compared to other tools out on the Internet, my program is a piece of crap; most computer science projects are. That's why they invented Thunderbird.

Something else happened today that was very wonderful, and it also concerns syndication. I found out how to read people's Xanga accounts through RSS. So, I don't have to worry about going to Xanga everytime that I want to get subscriptions. Yea!