Late Entry:

Bits and Pieces from the Germany Trip

I guess the cat's out of the hat: I disappeared because I went on a 2 week vacation to Germany. For me, a 2-week vacation has almost become an oxymoron, since in my program, we almost never are allowed more than 7 days off at a time. That alone was huge.

Then, as the trip was getting closer, I started having doubts in my mind, thinking that I should give all this travel money to some missionary organization, instead of me just living my comfortable, and rather spoiled, life. Until I had a revelation (I like to think of it as a Louie-style revelation, because the "Passion, purpose, and designer jeans" thoughts were still with me) that maybe it was my mission to go reach the rest of my family, and my two co-travellers for Christ. Because who in the world would think of doing a mission trip across Germany and Austria, and who would see all the people I was going to see, most of whom are not strong believers to start with. So I began to pray for this...

Even better, that I got to travel with 2 good friends (both co-workers in the lab), and that we got to see many old and new friends along the way. The reason we went was because three of our former co-workers had moved back to their homeland, and we decided to pay them a visit. For me, it was also time to go back and see my grandmother, and other family, some of whom I hadn't seen in 10 years.

Before we made it on the airplane, I lost my camera, so, to this day, I have no pictures, although over 1000 pictures were easily taken between Drew and Jean (the American and Korean tourists I travelled with). The camera never showed up again, so, one day, I'll have to purchase a new one. Amazingly, even though I looked around for it for a little while, I got over it rather quickly, and I wasn't really too upset at all (to my own surprise).

We arrived in Munich on a rather sunny day, having changed planes in Heathrow (I got to ride on a bus on the wrong side of the road:). Upon my return to America I learned that as I prayed over London, for God to be glorified there, and for Him to bless his London area children, a certain someone was busy recording an album that week. After all, it is a small world!

Our dear friend Andrea picked us up at the airport, and since it was just the afternoon there, she took us on the Autobahn (I was glad to be going fast again) to the Chiemsee. It's the biggest lake in Bavaria, just north of the Alps; in fact, you could see some of the mountains in the distance. We visited the castle that King Ludwig built there, according to the castle of Versailles in Paris. The castle never was finished because he ran out of money while building two other castles, one of which you probably all know (yet the German me has never seen it): Neuschwanstein. Not very wise, if you ask me, but it makes for good tourism and pretty pictures. The little island this Herrenchiemsee castle is on was full of a field of the prettiest buttercups I'd seen in a long, long time. There are just not nearly as many buttercups around here as there are in Germany. And I walked around (as a little princess would) with a crown of miniature daisies that I made as we walked along the path to the castle. On the way home, we stopped for dinner at a privately owned bavarian restaurant, and ate a lot of food: Schweinshaxe, Rehbraten, a sausage platter, and I had a Sauerbraten (of course, with red cabbage and bread dumplings). I think all three of us fell asleep while Andrea drove us to her place just outside of Regensburg.

We woke up the next morning with great plans to explore Regensburg, and so we did, after a wonderful homemade breakfast (and coffee). Despite intermittent rain, we saw both the biggest protestant and the biggest catholic church in town. Some of you may have heard of the Regensburger Domspatzen, a rather well-known boys choir, which up until recently was directed by the Pope's brother. We ate lunch at Dampfnudel Uli's... really well done Dampfnudeln we ate... it's kind of a hole in the wall, but if you go to Regensburg, be sure to stop there. Regensburg is a very beautiful city of about 100,000 people. It's a university town with a big pedestrian zone in the city center. My good friend Jean saw the signs lining these pedestrian zones, and re-named it the "abduction sign," because it's a picture of a mom, walking hand-in hand with her child, on one side in blue, and on the other crossed out in white, marking the entering and leaving of the pedestrian zone. I'm sure being the good Korean he is that he took at least one picture of such a sign. We also walked across the Donau river, where we learned about two architects who had a pretty interesting wager going on in the middle ages: One was building this bridge, and one was building a big church. I forgot exactly how the wager went, but it ended up being that the bridge was finished first, and the church builder lost the wager. As a payment, the devil asked for the first three souls to cross the bridge to be his, so three animals were sent... a chicken, a pig, and maybe it was a cow... (Can I just say: We have already won!)
That week, conveniently, Regensburg had their big Volksfest going on, so we went. A Volksfest is like an Octoberfest. There were two big beer tents, several rides, a ferris wheel, many stands to shoot cans, or hoops, or other things, etc. My personal favorite is "gebrannte Mandeln," which are sweet roasted almonds. These are usually only sold at big fairs, so I was entirely excited to get some! Andrea and I bought the boys two Lebkuchenherzen (some sort of soft ginger bread hearts) to wear around their necks. We bought two Brez'n with cheese and salt, found a table in one of the tents, sat down, and ordered a "Mas of Bier" each. Well, Andrea and I ordered a "Radler," light beer mixed 50-50 with a sprite-like beverage. Needless to say, after ending up drinking 3 Mas each, the boys had had enough... the music was quite entertaining to them, as it included all sorts of "oldies" from the 50s to the 2000s, most of which you all would know better than me, and 99 Luftballoons was one of them. By the end of the night, we had made friends with all the rest of our table, and we were swaying on the beer benches. The people behind us broke theirs:-) I must say, it was quite the party.

The next day, I took off by train to travel to Edesheim, a small village in a region called the "Pfalz." It was quite a fun ride, as I worked on Colossians 2, and read some chapters of a fun book during the ride. Notably, I travelled only about 200 miles or less, but crossed through four areas with distinct dialects: Bavarian, Fraenkisch, Schwaebisch, and Pfaelzisch. I was impressed. Remember, though, how I told you all about Ethel? Well, I took one of her bags home for her, and met her mom in Landau, which is where the train station was that Trixie picked me up from. This is getting complicated to explain. Trixie is my brother's girlfriend, who currently lives in Alabama and goes to school there, but she's as German as my family is, and she just *happened* to be visiting Germany at the same time as I was. So she insisted that I come visit the Pfalz (a white wine region), to meet her parents (her dad was out of town, though), because rumor has it that one day my little brother will get married in a little chapel on a hill there... So, Trixie picked me up in Landau, we met Ethel's mom, a complete stranger, but a sister in Christ, and then went on to Edesheim. It's a neat little village, I must say. We had dinner "in der Blume," my brother's new favorite restaurant. It only has 8 tables, I think, and all meals are cooked after they're ordered by the owner himself. Good stuff, though. That night, Trixie and I just sat around in their wintergarden, chatting about life and my brother. Who knew that there were many stories to be told I had no idea about? Turns out that even in his life, the move to Alabama was a good, good thing. Again, I'm amazed at God's timing and goodness. However, in the middle of our talk, I was stopped by an unexpected, but wonderful question: "Silke, what do you think about God? I know that you go to church and all, but is God a mean, punishing God, or is he more loving?" This came from my friend, who has not cared for the church in about 15-20 years due to some horrible experiences growing up, and whom I didn't expect to be thinking along these lines at all. And praise the LORD for the answers he just put in my mouth, and the ability to explain (in normal terms, and in German) that the God of the old testament expects us to live perfect lives (which we don't, so we need sacrifices), and that we (as sinful people) deserve nothing but the wrath and anger of God. So, indeed, he is very scary and mean. But then, I told her, Jesus came, to live a perfect life on earth, and he chose to die for us, so that when we believe in Jesus, and now God looks at us, just by our faith in Jesus, God sees nothing but Christ's perfect life lived out in us. And that, he loves, and so he loves us as much as he loves his only son. I think that kind of blew her away, in a good way! Now, both of us are just waiting for my brother to have a similar revelation, but I have a suspicion that since that night, I may have a new sister! PTL!!!

The next day, we went for a morning walk in the rain, and then I had to catch my train to Stuttgart, and connect by S-Bahn to Boeblingen, and then by taxi to my dear grandmother's place in Sindelfingen. Needless to say, she was very happy to see me after 2 years. We just sat around, home-cooked our own meals, talked, watched some soap operas together, and just had a good time. Oh, I played the Passion-EG CD for her, even though she doesn't speak English, but I translated the key parts, and here we are, me and my 83 year old grandmother, agreeing that those are beautiful songs... Can you imagine "Party!" jamming from her new Bose CD player in her little bedroom in assisted living?

The following day (this was Sunday) my brother arrived also in Germany, and both he and Trixie came to visit grandma and me. So, since now we had a car, we went out for a nice lunch (Schnitzel und Spaetzle), and then for coffee. In Germany, it's a big deal at about 4pm to have coffee (or hot tea) and cake. Yum! It was good. Monday I just spent with grandma, that night my friend Julia (I used to be her babysitter), but since last summer, we're friends... she came to visit me for 4 weeks for her high school graduation present, and we travelled together for 10 days... long enough for me to find out that she's a Christian, too, although there is a huge lack of proper mentorship for Christian students in Germany. I've actually started praying about that, and it may be that eventually I'll go back, try to work there as a surgeon, so I can spend the rest of my time leading some of these students to Christ, something that had not before crossed my mind (I would prefer to stay in America, but it's up to God to call us to do things, and sometimes, we may not like them, but we gotta go do anyway). Anyway, I gave Julia her presents... a copy of The Message, A Collision, and EG. We went to a movie together that night. Several weeks later, I got an e-mail, stating that "the music was pretty awesome, but the Bible was even better!" So much for that. She's now really digging into the book with a zeal and interest, but pray for her, that she would find mentorship and fellowship as well. I hope that I'll get her to come to one of the passion events while she's attending university over there, but the vacation schedule may or may not work out for her.

On Tuesday, Mark and Trixie came once more to visit (and bring my new backpack from Alabama), and took me to the train station, so I could meet up with the boys and our old friend Anja in Leipzig. This was somewhat scary, because the boys had been alone in Berlin, and I didn't know if they'd even made it to meet Anja, not knowing how to use public phones. When I arrived, I got off the train, and saw no one I knew. So I walked along through the crowds, working my way to the main building ever so slowly. Until, in slow motion, I hear (and then see) a soft clap, clap... clap from my friend Drew. That just made my day:) Anja, her boyfriend Chris, and Jean were with him of course, and so we went to Anja's. She lives on the 5th floor of an old building from the 1800s I think, which nobody wanted to own during the DDR times. It's an apartment which she decorated very colorfully, and very modernly, but I really, really liked her place! And the cat, FUNNY... (that's his name). Oh, there is no elevator in that building, so we all carried our luggage up and down... up and down... it was exercise. Since it was already late, we all just went for dinner that night, and then sat around and played "Maexle," a German game you play with dice.

On Wednesday, Drew was sick from a Doener that he ate the day before, so he had to stay home. Anja, Chris, Jean and I re-visited the Voelkerschlachtsdenkmal, a massive stone structure that you can climb the top by doing 500 stairs, but since they had already done that, we didn't do it again. It was built in the very early 1900s as a memorial to all the people who faught in the Napoleon wars. It's massive. After that, we went to a circular indoor painting of ancient Rome, that makes it look like you're standing on the balcony of some building about 2000 years ago. It even had a picture of the prison on it; and I just had to think of when Paul was in chains, whether he'd not been there maybe. We grabbed a quick lunch on the way home, and then made Drew (who had improved after fluids and immodium) join us to visit the "Arabischen Coffeebaum," an old coffee house that Bach used to sit in when he wrote his music. It had a little museum, and also a Cafe, so we did the tour and then had coffee (and I had a Kaesesahnetorte, too). Dinner was Italian that night. Our friend Stefan, who, like me, is a surgery resident (that's not the German term, but it's about the same job), and he gave us a tour of the Leipzig hospital and the research lab there. We then went on with him to his parents' villa in Dresden. It's a villa because it's not a house, but a villa. Fence and all. Anja and I truly felt like princesses these few days, to the point where we would greet each other: "Good morning, Princess Anja, how was the night?" It was quite amazing to stay in a place where the light source in the living room is a chandelier, and where there is an original fresco on the ceiling. Something about it is just not "normal," but the whole thing got me just all the more excited about the place I'll live in One Day... Stefan's parents were super nice, and we sat around, ate very high-end chocolate, and drank some fancy, fancy wine... while learning all kinds of interesting things about Dresden and Stefan both.

We spent Thursday walking around Dresden, with Stefan being our tour guide. He really knew the history very well, so it was a rather fun day overall. Probably the most famous thing to do in Dresden is to visit the "Frauenkirche," a church which was bombed by the British after WWII had been called off. This church has just been re-built since the reunification of Germany. So, we stood in line to get into this church (no, don't be confused, if you tried to go to church on any given Sunday in Germany, there would not be a line). It was full of people, who were quite fascinated with the architecture and all the pastel paintings; yet, I felt the whole time like I was in some kind of fairy tale nightmare of pastels. It was very, very bright inside. I tried to escape the tourism by going to the basement of the church (there was a sign that this was the quiet area for devotion and prayer), but that place was also swarming with talking tourists. In all the churches I've seen (even the touristy ones), I've never sensed such an absence of God. It made me so upset, that when we walked along, my friends all asked if I was not quite feeling well, or what was wrong. So I told them, although they all thought I was overreacting. Anyway, after lunch and some coffee, I had spoken my peace, and the rest of Dresden was really fun! We saw the Zwinger, a HUGE museum that has a courtyard-like park in its center, and many fountains. We walked by the Operahouse, and then learned about the Dimitroff bridge. The architect's name was Dimitroff, but King August the Strong (so called because one day when he was upset, he left a thumb print in a railing along the Elbe river -- we saw that also), whenever he crossed the bridge in his carriage, would point at certain girls, and say, "Die mit drauff," which sounds like Dimitroff in Saechsisch, and which means "add her to my carriage." We had a wonderful homemade Goulasch dinner at Stefans (it was real Czech goulasch, not anything like American goulasch), which we ate with sliced bread dumplings. We still wanted to climb the 365 stairs in a nearby vineyard (they symbolize the years) that night, but all of us were too tired, so we stayed home.

I left for Nuernberg the next morning, to visit my godparents and my 2nd cousins there. It was good to see them again, and I"m glad that we have stayed in pretty good touch despite the distance. Andreas, my one cousin, has travelled to Shanghai a lot lately, so I got to see some cool pictures of China. My other cousin, Carolin, works as a nurse, and so we always get to exchange all kinds of medical tales... My godparents were both doing well, and spoiled me for dinner with delicious white asparagus, Schnitzel, and potato salad.

On Saturday, I had a nice breakfast and lunch with my god-family before the cousins took me back to Nuernberg to meet Jean and Drew at the train station. We all headed for Salzburg that night, to visit my other set of 2nd cousins (and a whole bunch of family there). I had not seen these people in 10 years, so we really didn't know how we would find them at the train station at all, but we did! After another Schnitzel dinner (I have never in all my life eaten so much Schnitzel as I did in those two weeks), during which about 20 relatives came to say hello, the younger ones of us took a cab to town and went out, because that's what my cousins like to do. I felt rather sorry for Drew and Jean, because the dinner conversation was mostly done in Austrian. So we got to experience the Salzburg night life. Interestingly, the favorite music was well known to all of us. We made it back home around 1am, and Kerstin (one of the cousins) and I got up early so I could see all my relatives there. We literally walked down one road and stopped in about every house on that road... I've always liked how all my relatives on that side live their lives so closely together, both physically and emotionally, and sometimes I wish that life could just be that way all the time. Even my cousins moved to the same neighborhood, now that they have their own places... After a fabulous Sauerbraten lunch (home-cooked by Aunt Grete), we then set out (in the rain) to walk around Salzburg. We toured the Mozarthaus (a museum), and almost went to the castle, but decided it was too expensive. So, we went up a different hill, by the monastery, and got a rather nice view of the city there. We also visited the Charlottengarten before we caught our train to Muenchen. It was a rather short visit, but I was invited to come back anytime, and maybe I'll have some visitors from Austria next summer:)

In Muenchen, the three of us found a youth hostel to stay in. We met one of Jean's old friends (another surgery resident who had done some research here in Wisconsin) for dinner that night. The next day, we walked around Muenchen, ate some Weisswursts, and did a lot of sightseeing. That meant that we went from church... to church... to church... some of which I liked more than others. One had a big wooden cross hanging right in the middle; I sat in front of it for a rather long time and just prayed for all the visitors... and another had a tile in the entrance that had a footprint of (supposedly) the devil, which he stomped into it when he got mad because he found out that the church had windows, after all (if you stand in one place it looks like it has no windows, and like it's all dark inside). We took many pictures in which Jean pretended to be taller than Drew... that also amused me quite a bit. We saw the toy museum, the Marienplatz, the market, and several other things. Interestingly, very few people in Munich speak German on the road, but there was English, French, Russian, Italian... For dinner, we again met with Joachim, and we went to the Hofbrauhaus (even though it's known to be a tourist trap, rather than a German place). More "Mas Bier" were had by all, and we made friends with all the Americans who sat at our table... and had some rather deep conversations among friends.

Our last full day was spent separate: Jean preferred to stay in the city, while Drew and I took off on a day-trip to Dachau, one of the largest concentration camps. It's now a museum which takes a full day to see. For me it was interesting to come back and look at the whole experience from an American perspective. See, having grown up as a German in Germany, we were always made to feel rather badly about being German, because of the history associated with WWII (although really, none of us had done any of these things ourselves). Now, I've been so Americanized (and I truly feel more American than anything), that I could look at it from an outside perspective. Granted, much, much wrong was done, but even in bad times, there were stories of heroes, and examples of how God was there, in the midst of it all. On the way home from Dachau, we stopped at a grocery store to buy lots of chocolate (Drew thought I was quite insane for using a shopping cart, because I bought so much of it). We met up with Jean for dinner at the Augustinerkeller, a much more German atmosphere than the Hofbrauhaus. We went to bed rather early that night, because we left the hostel at about 4am to catch our early flight back. We had a long, long layover in Heathrow, but finally made it back to Chicago, and then to Madison. I still can't believe all of us showed up to work on time the next day...

I hope you enjoyed this very long read; I guess it'll serve as my journal for this trip. I still have to tell you all about Louisville...