We were in Germany from April 13-22. Our group was about 26, I’d say…something like that. About 20ish students and six adults, not including our tour guide or bus driver. Coincidentally, both of them were named Jörg…so we had Jörg Eins (tour guide) and Jörg Zwei (bus driver). We began our trip in Füssen, a small Bavarian town near the border with Austria, right in the middle of the Alps. :) After a few days, we transferred to Frankfurt, and then ended our trip in Leipzig, stopping along the way at various other towns.
Füssen is a beautiful little town in southern Germany. Highlights included the monastery (above picture was taken out of a window there), Wieskirche, Neuschwanstein Castle (Ludwig II’s favorite, and the castle upon which Walt Disney based his own), Eis Cafes every other step (Eis = German for ice cream), and a wonderful beer garden. We also took a day trip from Füssen to Linderhof, Ludwig II’s other famous castle, which is near the town of Oberammergau, where we stopped for lunch. On the way back, we stopped in Garmish, a little town near the highest mountain in Germany, for after
noon cakes (or pretzels, in my case) and dipped down into Austria for a bit. 
The Wieskirche was our first singing location. The name means “church in the meadow,” and it certainly was in a random location, yet not so random because it was planned that way. In order to get to the Wieskirche, you have to drive through the forest and partway up a mountain. According to the priest (Bavaria is a predominantly Catholic area), the Wieskirche was designed to allow as much light in as possible, so the upper rim of the church is all windows. No matter what time of day, the sun is always shining in. He also noted that without fail, whomever enters the church always looks up.
See, the Wieskirche was built in the place where a miracle happened. Local lore says that a statue of Jesus (which now stands in the church) cried real tears over the residents of the area. Those who come to the church identify with His suffering and come to bring their sorrows to Him, the one who understands. People look up because they are offering their burden to the one they know can identify with them. In doing so, they are all on an equal level, no matter if they are Catholic or Protestant or whatever. In order to come to understand the gospel, the message of Christ, we have to come to him humbled, recognizing our struggles, and knowing that He alone can bring us peace.
I thought that it was one of the best sermons I had ever heard.
See, the Wieskirche was built in the place where a miracle happened. Local lore says that a statue of Jesus (which now stands in the church) cried real tears over the residents of the area. Those who come to the church identify with His suffering and come to bring their sorrows to Him, the one who understands. People look up because they are offering their burden to the one they know can identify with them. In doing so, they are all on an equal level, no matter if they are Catholic or Protestant or whatever. In order to come to understand the gospel, the message of Christ, we have to come to him humbled, recognizing our struggles, and knowing that He alone can bring us peace.
I thought that it was one of the best sermons I had ever heard.
Following the Wieskirche, we had lunch below Neuschwanstein Castle and a little time to shop before we had to hike (yes, hike) up for our tour. Apparently Germans like to build their castles on mountains. Very up high. Neuschwanstein was built by Ludwig II to indulge a few of his simple pleasures: swans, solitude, and his fantasy world, mostly consumed with the plays of Richard Wagner. I thought Jack, one of our baritones, summed it up when he said, “If I lived here, I would forget that poor people existed, too.” Unfortunately, Bavaria holds a copyright on the castle, so we couldn’t take any pictures of the interior. Sorry, folks. However, we did go to a beer garden that night. Jörg Eins taught us some German drinking songs. And we saw a bunny hopping around. Fun times. We also got to sing at Neuschwanstein…our only a capella song, “Daniel, Daniel.” This quickly became a song that we sang. Everywhere. Frequently.
Like in Oberammergau, where the Passion play takes place every ten years. The citizens of Oberammergau were spared from annihilation in the fourteenth century when the Black Plague did not strike their city after they fervently prayed for it to be averted. As a thanks to God, they decided to put on a play about the passion of Christ every ten years. It’s a really big deal. There is a special theater for it, and scenes from the Passion are all over town…painted on walls, windows, everything. It was pretty cool. And we got to sing “Daniel, Daniel” in the Passion theater. Awesome sound!
L-R Courtney, Becca, Robin, Eka, Rachel, me, Frank
After Oberammergau, we made our way to Linderhof. Yes, another nice, long hike to one of Ludwig II’s little mountain getaways. Linderhof is cool. It’s pretty small as castles go, but when you consider that Ludwig never married or had kids (he was gay), it makes sense that he wouldn’t need a huge palace. Besides, he had Neuschwanstein. If only for a few months of his life. There are quite a few fountains at Linderhof, and a cave that Ludwig designed for himself after his favorite Wagner play. We stopped in Garmish on the way back to the hotel, and then dipped into Austria for a spell.
Incidentally, by that day it was April 16. There is a six hour time difference between Germany and the East Coast, and we found out about Virginia Tech that evening after we got back to the hotel for dinner. It was about noon in Virginia, so I called my mom and she told me that Jesse was okay, but we didn’t know about some of our other friends. We spent that whole night watching CNN International (the only English channel available in Füssen) and I got on the internet at a café nearby to check on everyone. I am so thankful that everyone I know was alright, at least physically. After that, I really wanted to come home and see Jesse…but I knew that he was okay, and that he was at home with Mom and Dad. It was time to pack for Frankfurt.
On the way to Frankfurt, we stopped in Rothenburg, an old German town that still has its original town walls from the Middle Ages! Very cool. We had a tour of St. Jacob’s church and then some time for lunch and shopping around the town.
Schneeballen, or snowballs, kind of like fried dough...except harder to eat
We spent one full day in Frankfurt, complete with a city tour and time to shop before we transferred to Koppern for our next official concert. The repertoire was great again, and this time we dedicated one of our songs, “In Remembrance,” to Virginia Tech. The song is absolutely beautiful and I could barely get through it before what happened, so I did a lot more mouthing the words than actual singing that night, heh. We also performed with the choir Polyhymnia that night, and they were great. Ute, their second soprano, rocked mine and Gaby’s world. Gaby and I were the second sopranos. The only second sopranos. It was good having backup. ;)
The next day, April 19, was our second big travel day on the way to Leipzig, in the former GDR (Soviet) part of Germany. On the way, we stopped in Eisenach, birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach (he spent most of his life in Leipzig, though). Eisenach is home to the Bach museum and Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther hid from the papacy after he was declared a heretic for posting his 95 Theses. He translated the New Testament into German when he was at Wartburg, which was a really big deal because at that time, no one read the Bible in their native language, also known as vernacular language. In fact, no one really read anything in their native tongue unless it was a common, everyday sort of document, like a letter or a commercial translation. Because no one read the Bible, all they really knew was the stained glass pictures in churches and what priests chose to tell them in sermons. This is why reading the Bible is so important to Protestant denominations today. It was awesome being able to stand in the room and look at the desk where Martin Luther had sat. :) We sang “Daniel, Daniel” again in the Singer’s Hall at Wartburg Castle.
While Germany is a very rich and safe country, areas in the former GDR tend to be very run-down because the Soviets did not take very good care of East Germany after WWII. They are still playing catch-up in a lot of ways, but the people there are so very warm and friendly. Especially the churches, in many cases, are falling down because religion was not encouraged under the USSR. We started out the morning on April 20 singing “Daniel, Daniel” in the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Incredible. The echo in that room seemed to never end. I’ll never forget that sound! I couldn’t believe that we had made it. After we sang, we took a city tour for the rest of the morning and then spent the rest of the day hanging out in the city. Some of us went to an orchestra concert that night, which was cool, too. Our last day was spent touring Halle (or, as we liked to say it, HOLLA!). Georg Friedrich Handel was born in Halle, though he spent most of his life in England. Again, we had a morning city tour and then spent the afternoon shopping. Rachel, Courtney, Robin, and I were tired so we sat down for a nice long lunch, shopped a little, and counted the hours until it would be appropriate to sit down for coffee and gelato. :)
Our last concert was that night in Holleben, a small German town a ways from Halle. Now, on this last day we were all a bit loopy…or, as Prof. Myers put it, we were punchy. I think we were all just kind of ready to come home, but we weren’t doing very well at the whole focusing concept. Our warm up for the concert was pretty good, and really fun as we had to try out a couple new things. By the end, the energy was being channeled into our geekier choir personalities, leading to us launching into an a capella fest and ignoring Myers trying to cut us off. :) The energy continued throughout the concert, dinner afterwards with the jazz choir “In Tune,” and on the bus where we sang a whole lot of Disney and musical songs, as well as “Shenandoah” and the W&L Hymn and Swing.
Myers proclaimed that we had entered the realm of Choir Dorkdom.
Eka noted that now he would have company.
HALLE!
1 comment:
Sooo...you know what would be really great? If you stopped posting ridiculously long blogs and started writing some reading material for me on phoenixsong. I am in India. At night, we get bored. We sit around and think about how nice American television and YouTube are.
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