May 30

This morning I went to church at the Burgkirche, an Evangelical church that was built Catholic. It is beautiful, and the acoustics for the choir were fantastic. It was pretty full this morning because there was a special dedication ceremony, kind of like a mass profession of faith. I was able to sing along of course and understand most of it. When it came to the Vaterunser I was certainly happy that we learned it from Prof. Pruim. I should probably learn the Apostle’s Creed too. It’s used pretty often, like it is at Immanuel. This afternoon, after I was sure the rain had stopped, I headed up to the Bismarckturm (Bismarck tower) for some pictures. There are many paths, and this time I actually took the one meant for walking up. Just as I was nearing the top it began to rain. Of course I did not think that it was going to rain, so I left my Schirm at home. At first it was light, so I could take some pictures and not really worry about it, but then on the horizon you could see it getting worse. Needless to say, I hung out there for a while. Question: What should old towers on the tops of hills always have? Answer: Tigers in cages of course, just like in the States and around the world. Apparently the guy who runs the restaurant up there thought, “Hey, let’s get some tigers up here for no good reason.” So he did, and so they are. Anyway, I spent some time waiting out the rain and staring down some tigers. Eventually it did stop enough for me to head down dry, very thankfully. Since I got back it’s been threatening, so I’ll probably stay in my room, watch handball and hear every so often about how Lena won the Eurovision Song contest. Actually, that was pretty cool. It’s a very big deal around here because no German has won it before, and she really dominated. Her song “Satellite” has been playing over here nonstop for days now and probably longer. It’s catchy to be sure. This was a good weekend for Germany, with Lena winning, as well as the national soccer team beating Hungary. I got to watch them both, so I’m sure to be up on current events. As far as Germans are concerned those are probably the only things that happened this weekend.