Well yet another day of miserable travel/transportation fails. The day started out with 6 a.m. wake up calls to catch a 6:40 bus to the train station. A combination of us running 2 minutes late and the bus coming 2 minutes early was just the beginning of the miserable hours to follow…The bus came every 20(ish) minutes, so we stood around for 20 minutes and when the next bus came it was so full that only one of the professors and about 5 students managed to get on. Another 20 minutes in the freeying cold and the next bus was also so full that only 5 more students could get one. That left half the group standing outside for, you guessed it, another 20 minutes. That bus was so full that NONE of us could fit, so it left and we crossed the street which turned out to be the best idea of the morning. The next bus pulled up 10 minutes later and EVERY person on the bus got off! (by the way…the temperature yesterday morning when we stood outside for an hour and 20 minutes was -12° C (or 10° F) by the time we were on the bus, meaning it was between 5-10° F the whole time we were standing out there)We then had a 30 minute bus ride to the train station and of course had missed our reservation for the train. We finally got on a train and there were continuous delays…but we finally made it to Eisenach which was amazing! We went to Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther was in hiding after he was excommunicated from the church, and had to quite literally hike up half a mountain to get there! The bus dropped us off and we had to walk up the iciest, slipperiest road I’ve ever seen! The castle was beautiful though, and worth the dangerous walk! Then we went to Martin Luther’s house/musem which was the dumbest thing ever and very pointless (even the professors thought so) and then a short walk to Bach’s house/museum which was the coolest thing ever! The tour guide played five different instruments — 2 organs, a harpsichord and 2 others that I can’t recall the names of — and he was SO good! The museum also had alot of other cool stuff, so it was definitely worth it. After that we walked back to the train station and finally caught a train at the right time. We got to Erfurt and our hotel is literally right next to the train station! A big group of us went out for a bit after we got settled in and the town seemed soooo dead.
This morning we got to sleep in, 8 a.m. wake up call! We had breakfast, than took a 3-hour walking tour of Erfurt. The city is so beautiful and not at all what we were expecting after last night. There is so much history and SO many churches. We got to visit the monastary where Martin Luther became a monk (and eventually got excommunicated from the church) which was so cool! A group of us had lunch at a great little pub, then David, Alexa and I walked up to the top of this fort on a hill and had the best view of the city and took lots of pictures. Now we’ve got the rest of the afternoon to ourselves and most of us are planning on shopping and napping before dinner. Tomorrow is traveling all day again, so I probably won’t get a chance to fill you in tomorrow. But I’ll have lots to tell about Nuremberg and Munich in a couple of days!
LIFE, LATELY 