Meanwhile in Germany...

Guten Nachmittag! It's been raining on and off, but mostly on, all week, so it has put a damper on my excursions. We've even seen temperatures near freezing, so Alaska isn't the only one to tease with spring.  These past 7 months have been a total adventure, and I'm not the same person who left the US over half a year ago. I see some big changes coming in my life in the near future.  I've made many new friends, and have come to love our monk priests and at our Holy Transfiguration Chapel. I expect I'll stay in touch with them. My German has improved, but I still have a long way to go to real fluency. I've navigated the train and bus system and got so confident doing it that I've even made my way to two other foreign countries. I don't feel so 'navigationally challenged' as I have in the past.  There are things I like better in Germany than in the US, but on the other hand, I've come to appreciate some things about the US that I never thou...

  Guten Tag! The summer-like weather is back and I'm taking all the advantage of it that I can, including making another all-day excursion, this time to part of Germany's wine country in the city of Würzburg. I enjoyed a glass of locally grown and vintnered Weissburgender on their old stone bridge (which is charming, but still doesn't compare to the Alte Steine Brücke in Regensburg). By the way, my title is actually a rhyme: "Wine on the Main" (pronounced "mine"). The wine was very good, at least according to my amateur and unsophisticated taste, but I expect the real wine sophisticates would like it, too.  Würzburg was a two-and-a-half hour train trip from Regensburg, north to Nürnberg and then west, but still in Bavaria. Their Altstadt was almost as beautiful as Regensburg's, but a lot of it was reconstructed after WWII, so it's not as authentic. Ninety percent of the city was destroyed in fire bombing in a British air raid.  Würzburg boasts ...

Gruß Gott! With only two weeks from today remaining in Germany, I want to get the most out of it I can. After class today I hopped a train for a 40 or so minute trip to Landshut, It's not "Land Shut", but "Lands Hut" (Hut pronounced "hoot"). Today was much cooler than the past two, when we got up into the 80's Fahrenheit. That was uncomfortable. Today was in the low 70's with a strong breeze.  The highlight of the trip was St. Martin's, built between 1389 and 1500 in the Gothic style, which I prefer over the Baroque, as it has cleaner lines and less busy ornamentation. The spire is the world's highest church spire of its kind, at 130.6 meters (428.5 feet).  As I walked about inside the church I read the posters they had along the left side (not in photo) about their restoration efforts-- auf Deutsch . My reading comprehension has really improved in the past 8 months. Wind and rain and time all take their toll on the structure, and it ta...

  Guten Tag! After waiting on weather and illness, I finally made it to Austria, this making three European countries that I have visited. Europe is a very pleasant place, especially in spring, and there's not a lot of things, such as snakes, scorpions, bears, tornadoes, earthquakes, and such that want to kill you. Europe is generally very pedestrian and cyclist friendly. I enjoyed walking along Salzach River, which originates in the Alps and eventually becomes a tributary of the Inn, which is a tributary of the Danube. The temperature was in the 70's, and the sun was shining, which made shade very desirable. I was fortunate to be able to see the Alps, which I'm told remain hidden in clouds a lot. Being glacier-carved, they resembled the mountains of Alaska.  I have concluded that Austria is to Germany what Canada is to the US. They speak the same languages as each other, but are still 'foreign', but not as foreign as a country with a different language, such as the...

  Gruß Gott von Regensburg! It's April in southern Germany, and it's a spring as spring can get. I'd forgotten just how spring unfolds in lower latitudes than Alaska. The weather is very changeable, and can literally go from sunny to rainy and back again in minutes.  So, now that I'm over the creeping crud, I'm ready for adventures again. My original plan was to go to Salzburg, Austria on Easter Monday, which is a public holiday here, but the forecast was for rain, so I'm saving Salzburg for another week, probably next week, as I have less than 3 weeks left in Germany. My Monday excursion, then, was to Bamberg, north of here on a 2 1/2 hour train ride. People say Bamberg rivals Regensburg for its picturesque Altstadt , and surroundings. It was the most beautiful place I've visited so far, but I would still say Regensburg holds an edge.  The photo at the top of the page is the old town hall, built on an island in the middle of the Regnitz River. According to ...