Hey Guys, I Think This Door Might Be Important!

Hello my dearest followers,

Two Saturdays ago, I met Melody bright and early on the train to Dresden. Actually, it was early, but hardly bright.  Chemnitz on winter mornings is a little like the North Pole - sad, cold, and penguin-less.
In Dresden, we caught up with Philip and Kitty and we (and our Saxony-Ticket) made our way to Wittenberg.

Now, every world religion has their religious sites; whether it's Jerusalem, Mecca, the Vatican, Bodh Gaya, the Golden Temple, Varanasi, or even Stonehenge (if Neo-Druidism is your thing), there's a religious site for everybody.

And for Lutherans, that site would be Wittenberg - the place where Martin Luther started it all.

Even though I'm not Lutheran, I can appreciate the fact that this city and what happened in it radically changed the Western world.  (Also, I think after about 500 years, they won't expel Papists from the city followed by mobs with torches and pitch-forks, right?)

Its importance to world history aside, I would also like to mention the fact that Wittenberg is also totally adorable and makes for a perfect day trip.

The Wittenberg crew: Phil, Melody, and Kitty

Photo Credit to Phil!

It was also a lovely, sunny day and the leaves were just beginning to change...perfect!

We strolled through the city, admiring the winding streets, the architecture, and the fall leaves.

The Hoffungskirche.
We tried to go inside, but it was closed for a 50th wedding
anniversary.

Ignore the garbage cans, I was photographing the leaves.

Wittenberg Town Square

Unsurprisingly, it's Martin.

Phil really wanted to visit the printing press that produced Luther's works, but it was closed.  And by closed, I mean, none of us were sure if the museum closed or if the museum actually existed.

The printing press was the home base of Lucas Cranach (both of them), who were/are pretty famous in their own right as painters and engravers.  You also have Cranach (the Elder) to thank for this now famous pictures of Luther. 

I mean, when you think Luther, you think of this picture.
Don't lie.
You know it's true.

So despite the museum confusion, we took photos anyway.

Phil decided to step into my photo.  Will the photobombing
ever end?

A statue dedicated to Cranach (the Elder).

The logo of the Cranach press

More fall leaves!  (Sorry I thought the colors on these were
just lovely!)

Of course, Luther makes an appearance nearly everywhere across the city.  And gift shops find many ways to attract customers from Luther wine to life-size cutouts (which aren't so life-size next to Phil, who is very tall).

As we made our way to the Schlosskirche, which is the most famous church in Wittenberg, if not Germany, we stopped at a side door to the church, where Melody was enamored by the pretty gold painting above the door frame. 

"Hey guys," said Melody, "I saw this door on some postcards! I think it might be important!" 

 They area around this side door was under construction and seemed relatively unimportant. 

And we kept strolling along, until Kitty found a post near the front entrance.  She read along until she buckled over with laughter.

In our ignorance, we had unwittingly passed the door where Luther had nailed his 95 Theses and had started the Protestant Reformation.  

Frightening some elderly tourists, we rushed back to the door, where we tried to take photos in between our laughter.

Just kind of important.

Our first attempts at selfies were a blurry mess
because we laughing so hard!

After we took some pictures (alas we couldn't get into the church), we were joined by another ETA, Chelsea!

We meant we had to take more photos, of course.
From left to right: Phil, Yours Truly, Melody, Kitty, and Chelsea!

Photo credit to Kitty!

A little bit chilled and very hungry, we wandered through the town, looking for the best place for lunch.  We stumbled onto a restaurant called the Kartoffelhaus (the Potato-House), which sounded wonderfully promising.

And it was!  

(Almost) All the items on the menu contained potatoes, including potato-schnapps!  I tried the popular Northern German dish, Kartoffelauflauf, which is as fun to say as it is to eat.  Basically, it's potatoes and meats baked over with cheese and sauce.  Yum.

I chose a Kartoffelauflauf done up with curry and exotic fruits.

Yeah, it was tasty.

After lunch, we wandered our way towards Luther's house, which is now a museum and a library that has an extensive collection of Luther's original pamphlets as well as contemporary books and pamphlets.

We also took silly pictures along the way.

Although we weren't allowed to take pictures in the museum (which was very cool, I highly recommend it), we got some good pictures of the outside of Luther's house.

In the later afternoon, we made our way back to Phil's house outside of Dresden.  

We spotted this hilarious billboard, which I suspect was intentionally torn, on the way to the train station.

The top of the billboard: Germany's new campaign to promote condom use
The bottom of the billboard: Election poster with Angela Merkel

Translation: I want it wild.  For Germany.

Kitty, Melody, and I crashed at Phil's house who was gracious enough to three girls upturn his basement apartment.  He also let us watch Love, Actually without complaining, so bonus points!

Needless to say, we were a giggly group.

The next morning, Phil's landlord (who has previously expressed concern about Phil's not having anyone over) was pleasantly surprised to see not one, not two, but three girls emerge from his apartment.  The landlord made a comment along the lines of: "Three girls! Well, they all look happy."  

Somehow, unintentionally, we raised Phil's street cred with his landlord.

We headed off to Dresden, where the weather cooperated for a little bit, before raining.  We also met a new friend, Sofia, who is a Russian ETA in the same town as Melody!

Kitty got this great picture of us!

From left to right: Sofia, Melody, Yours Truly, and Phil

Returning the favor for Kitty - got this action
shot of her as she scampered back up the stairs
to meet us!

To escape the rain, we ducked into the Dresden Kuntsthalle, which is inside the Zwinger palace.  

If you love art and you're in Dresden, this gallery is a must-see.  Even if you don't love art (how can't you though - are you a soulless monster?!), you should see this gallery.  It has a solid collection of Old Masters and Dutch Masters and is beautifully laid out inside the palace.

Two works of note are Rafael's Sistine Madonna and Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, but the gallery has lots of other gorgeous paintings as well.

Unlike the Mona Lisa, which is the most
overrated and underwhelming piece of art
in person, Rafael's art in person is breath-taking.

The weekend trip, which had been spontaneous, turned out to be a great success with great new friends!

The next morning, your Humble Blogger and Melody set out to meet another group of ETAs in the heart of old Europe: Prague! 

But that's for another blog post.  (Which will hopefully be coming soon!)

For right now though, I'll leave you with a pop song called "Applaus Applaus" by Sportfreunde Stiller, that was really popular this summer in Germany and became our unofficial anthem of the Fall Break trip, thanks to Kitty and Sofia, who sang it waaay too much and it got stuck in everybody's head.

But in all seriousness, it's a cute little love song, but because Blogger hates me, I can't figure out how to put a non-YouTube video onto the Blog, so just click the link.

Lots of Love,

Your Humble Blogger

Fall Break Preview

I wrapped up this week by going to the Children's Film Festival with my students!

So basically I got to spend the day at the movie theater, seeing international movies and getting to chat with my students and fellow teachers about them.  It was a fun day!  (And the not-teaching may have factored into that too...)

I got to see the indie film Molly Maxwell, which was made in Canada and so hipster it hurt my soul a bit for not having an oversized flannel shirt and pegged jeans in closet. After the movie, some of the students I talked to told me they had trouble understanding the slang and Canadian accent in the film. I don't blame them, they mumbled a lot and the witty one-liners were hard to catch.  Sometimes, I felt like I was the only one in theater who understood the jokes.

 I also watched the Dutch film 20 Lüge, 4 Eltern, und Ein Ei (aka 20 Lies, 4 Parents, and A Little Egg). The movie was in Dutch with English subtitles, but the movie theater also brought in a German translator.  The 3 languages at times was overwhelming for me, especially when the English and German translations didn't match each other.  The students struggled with it too - the 8th grade girl sitting next to me got very indignant, saying: "We can read English, we're not idiots. Why didn't they leave those subtitles?"

Although I enjoyed the movies and thought they were excellent, I hardly would have classified either as children's/young adult films. Both dealt with complex and mature issues with were also ambiguously resolved (or in the case of the Dutch film, not at all, really).

In keeping with the cinematic theme, I was just updating to say that now that I'm on my two week fall break (woohoo!), I'll be traveling all over Germany and also border hopping a bit and I just wanted to give you, dear readers, a sneak preview, a trailer of sorts to all my adventures.

This weekend, I'm heading up to see Wittenberg.  Yes, Lutherstadt Wittenberg.  Hopefully, after nearly 500 years, they won't throw me out for being a Papist.

I'm also taking a trip with other Fulbrighters to Prague for 4 days. I've never been there and I've heard wonderful things from everyone who's been there.

After a short break, then I'm exploring the north of Germany in Bremen, Hamburg, Schwerin, and Lübeck.

So this is just to say, expect a lot of updates (and photos) in the future!

Lots of Love,
Your Humble Blogger