You see, I had been staying with a family that chooses to live alternatively. This means no internet, not television, no microwave, the mom has no cell phone and the children have no video games. This was an interesting lifestyle adjustment. I could use internet for email at a friend's place but I couldn't be there long enough to do much else. So I apologize to anyone who expected me to update this in the last month.
Due to the nature of this stay I am going to post the whole 19 days in one blog post, so deep breath, get ready.... Go!
In the moments directly following my exit of the train in Doberlug-Kirchhain I discovered that my host mom (Beate) and three siblings (Helena-11, Richard-9, and Karoline-7) spoke almost no English. And the father (Roger) was gone for a business trip. I knew at this point I was in for a crash course in learning German for the next few days. Since it was getting late we went home and ate dinner, I showered and went to sleep.
This family loves wine. Roger came home and he has taken it upon himself to teach me about wine. We dink some almost every night, sometimes a couple bottles! I'll be a qualified wine snob when I get home :).
Roger is an electrical engineer and he deals with technology all day at work which is part of why they choose to have none at home. Beate is a stay at home mom and a great cook, you must be when you have no microwave!
It is clear in families after the first week if there was a mass cleaning before I came or if it always looks as clean as it is.
*that was not meant to sound snobby -- at my home, we are the type to do a mass cleaning before guests.
This home was not cleaned especially for me, it was clear that Beate was just an extremely clean person, long story short, we cleaned a lot.
Every Monday Beate has an English class in a town about half an hour away which I got to attend with her. It was fun to talk and learn with all the people in the class, I really enjoyed it. After class, we would go grocery shopping, get lunch and do what ever we needed to in town before going back.
Since I am Lutheren, we went and visited Wittenburg where Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the church doors and began the Reformation. Sadly the church buildings were mostly under renovations for the 2017 500 year anniversary but we did get to see the doors, the Luther museum, and a really cool tree garden where Lutheren churches from all over the world could plant a tree representing their church. While in Wittenburg we had sushi for lunch, I was shocked at how much I missed it! I don't even eat it much at home.
Another town that we went to was Berlin. I LOVE BERLIN. We took a hop on hop off tour around the city stopping to see statues and monuments, the wall, a museum and so much more. I loved how the city looked and felt and how the people were. Beate was the one who went with me and she was terrified most of the time which is sad, but according to Roger it was character building.
F60 is a massive machine that was used to removing the top layers of sand and sediment from coal beds for mining. It has been retired not but it is now used for tours and is accessible to the public as the largest movable piece of equipment, in the world. The F60 machine is near the town where Beate and I go to English class. To give you an idea it is 100 meters longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall and it is around 75 meters tall at the highest point.
There is a celebration called Saint Martin's day in Germany that was participated in on November 11 and the children and towns people walk around town with paper lanterns singing songs and then go to a church service followed by a party after. The celebration symbolizes Saint Martin riding his horse through the country and finding a man that would surely freeze to death in the night without help. Saint Martin took and cut his cloak in half and saving the man from dying.
I think I covered the high points of this visit, it is hard to write when you have lost the initial excitement of the event. I may update this one but for now I think it is a good outline.
